by James Mottram
Tran Anh Hung launched his career three decades ago in Cannes with The Scent of Green Papaya. This exquisite film won the Camera d’Or, the prize given for best first feature, and was later nominated for an Academy Award. He followed it with 1995’s Cyclo, which scaled even greater heights, winning Venice’s top prize, the Golden Lion. Now, he’s back among the awards with his new film The Taste of Things, which claimed Best Director in Cannes last year.
Based on Marcel Rouff’s 1924 novel La Vie et la passion de Dodin-Bouffant, gourmet, Tran’s delicate film tells of cook Eugénie (Juliette Binoche) and her gastronomic mentor Dodin (Benoît Magimel), who holds feelings for her despite her resistance to his overtures.
The sort of film that you need to watch on a full stomach – the sumptuous cookery scenes are to die for – The Taste of Things is arguably Hung’s most commercial work to date.
Below, he tells FilmInk about the fine art of creating a culinary cinematic masterpiece.
What is your relationship to food? Are you a gourmet yourself?
“I was questioning how come that I wanted to be a filmmaker, to work on art etc. Because my family, they are just workers. My parents, they make clothes, but not like Dior. They make clothes for workers, for the army, things like that. So, then I have to go back to my childhood. And I remember what moved me the most when I was young was the kitchen of my mother. It’s a place that is a little bit dirty and wet. So, when you have the light coming in, you see the reflection, things like that. I’d always wait for my mother to come back from the market, to see what she bought. And then guessing, what we will have for lunch or for dinner. So, it’s a place where I spent a lot of time. Because, also, there are little girls admitted in this place. As a young boy, you’d say ‘Go away, this is not the place for you!’ But it’s nice to see girls there. So, it’s a place that attracted me a lot. And my mother is a very good cook. When I see her throwing some green herbs on the soup, it’s beautiful. I have the feeling that my preference for art comes from her cuisine.”
How did you decide upon the choice of food and wine that we see in The Taste of Things?
“I worked with Pierre Gagnaire, and he’s an advisor for the whole movie, and we did the menu together. And I also worked with an historian of gastronomy. And we talked a lot about wine. I asked them about what kind of wine has a nice story, etc. I cannot put all this in the movie. But step by step, I had to find, by reading critiques about wine, the right words to qualify, to know wine, and then making it related to Eugénie.”
Did you use a food stylist?
“No… because a food stylist is for a TV commercial, because they are more focused on the beauty of the product, etc. And in this movie, it was not my concern. I would like to show food not with the beauty shots. I wanted to have food in action somehow. We see them touching the real meat and vegetables. We have fire, we have water, all this. So, that was my idea to shoot this movie, the cooking scenes. Because what was important for me is to show men and women at work. And in fact, here they are, they are creating somehow and it’s the same thing as making a movie.”
How would you describe the relationship between Dodin and Eugénie?
“I think that we have a very beautiful female character, because she’s in love, but at the same time, she knows how to keep this love. And I think she’s the one who keeps the beauty of this love, because she has this resistance. She says, ‘No, I don’t want to marry’. And this was something that is interesting. And this, ‘I don’t want to marry you’… it means that Dodin, during twenty years, he uses every word he can to convince her. Then the only thing that is left is the cooking. Maybe the cooking would help him to get her. And that’s why we have this moment where he cooks for her.”
Who came first in the cast?
“Juliette, because we wanted to make a movie together.”
So, was it her suggestion for Benoît, her former partner and father of her child?
“Oh, at first she thought that Benoît will never accept because of their [history].”
So, it was your idea?
“Yes. I didn’t tell her before that I went to him… but there were several actors before that. And then they quit because of COVID and everything, and then at the end, I go to see him, and he said ‘Okay, I’m in’. And he was so happy. So, I thought that it will go well with her – it will be not a problem. And then I told her, and she said, ‘Oh really? I’m surprised!’ And the first day on the set I was like, ‘OK, I have my movie!’”
The first scene in the film, which is this long cooking scene, is choreographed like a beautiful dance in a way. Is that the way you approached it?
“Yes, yes. In the movies that deal with food, cuisine, etc. most of the time, you start with something very nice, cooking everything, but quickly, we are more focused on the story. And here, what was difficult for me is to find the balance between the love story and the cuisine, and showing a lot more than people expected. But how to make it interesting for people to watch it… The people who don’t care about cuisine or food, when they watch it, I hope they can be interested. They suddenly would say ‘Oh, it’s like this!’ So, it was a big challenge for me shooting this beginning of the movie, because it’s a lot of long shots, without cutting. When you cook in real life, everything is quite normal. But for the movie, I wanted people to move a lot in this kitchen. And at the same time, the camera needs to move in a very interesting way to make it very lively, to make a lot of noise with all these instruments because it would be the music of the movie. So, it’s very precise. And it’s very complex, because the actors have a numbers of gestures. And they touch a lot of things, they use a lot of things. So, all these need to be in the right place.”
Is cooking or cinema a greater art?
“The answer is very clear. Cooking is the art of smell, taste, and touch. It doesn’t have anything to do with cinema. Each art takes care of different senses that we have. So, we need all this together.”
Do you feel part of French culture? You’ve been in France since you were 12…
“Yes, of course, it’s important… I made a movie in Japan [2010’s Norwegian Wood] and it’s important to know the culture. And when you don’t know the culture, then you have to deal with your emotions. Meaning that [you find out] what in this culture moves you, then stick to it, and make a movie. I think it’s a good way, because art is a matter of emotion, sensibility. It’s important as an artist, to be moved by something, to be moved by the culture of the country.”
You worked with Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood on Norwegian Wood. Any more plans to collaborate?
“I wanted him to do this movie. But he was not available [because of his work] with Smile. He’s on tour. But when I finished editing, [I realised] I did not want the music anymore. Because all the sound that was made in the kitchen, it was so lively, and I didn’t want to add [to it]. The nature of the progression of the love story was so subtle, I didn’t want the music to come and change the nature of this love. The filmmaking also was so musical, because this is the quality that I really like – a movie that doesn’t have a musical quality is not enough for me. It could be great, everything, but if it lacked this musical quality then it’s not like a leopard in the jungle. This is what I like when I make a movie: it’s like a piece of music.”
The Taste of Things opens in cinemas on 2 May
