If there’s two things the French love, it’s food and romance (general strikes being a close third), and this latest offering from Vietnamese-born French filmmaker Trần Anh Hùng (The Scent of Green Papaya) has plenty of both.
How to watch The Taste of Things in New Zealand
The Taste of Things is in New Zealand cinemas from June 27.
What is The Taste of Things about?
Titled La Passion de Dodin Bouffant in its home country, literally “The Passion of Dodin Bouffant” in English, and inspired by a fairly obscure literary character created by Swiss author Marcel Rouff in 1924, The Taste of Things sets its scene in the picturesque French countryside, circa 1889, where cook Eugénie works for gourmand Dodin Bouffant, happily preparing incredible banquets for his close circle of fellow foodies. The pair have a long-standing arrangement; they have been lovers for years, but Eugénie has turned down her employer’s numerous proposals of marriage, preferring to remain merely his cook. What unfolds is a kind of romance of the senses; seemingly endless sequences of food and cooking, interspersed with and representative of the romantic drama playing out between the characters.
The cast of The Taste of Things
French screen legend Juliette Binoche is Eugénie; Benoît Magimel (The Piano Teacher) is Dodin Bouffant; Galatea Bellugi is Violette, Eugénie’s assistant; Bonnie Chagneau-Ravoire is her niece, Pauline; and Emmanuel Salinger, Patrick d’Assumçao, Jan Hammenecker, Frédéric Fisbach, Jean-Marc Roulot, Yannik Landrein, and Sarah Adler round out the ensemble.
The Taste of Things trailer
Why we’re excited about The Taste of Things
Critics have been eating this one up with a spoon, praising The Taste of Things as a veritable feast for the senses (although perhaps the superlatives come easy when there are so many food puns ripe for the picking). Director Trần Anh Hùng won Best Director at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival, and the film itself was nominated for the Palme d’Or. It was also France’s submission for Best International Feature Film at the 96th Academy Awards, so it must be worth a look, yeah?
