Save this article to read it later.
Find this story in your accountsSaved for Latersection.
The Taste of Thingsbegins with a nearly 40-minute sequence of one elaborate meal being prepared and consumed.
Its not a climactic scene or a narrative-advancing plot point.
It is, quite simply, an exquisite meal with which to kick off this exquisite picture.
The French Vietnamese director, Tran Anh Hung, is contemporary cinemas great poet of languor.
Perhaps most importantly,The Taste of Thingsoffers a perfect match between Hungs artistic impulses and his subject matter.
(The film takes place around 1889.)
But Dodin, we learn, would like nothing more than for Eugenie to join them at the table.
She, however, prefers to stay in the kitchen and taste everything.
We eat everything you eat, she tells the men when they ask her to join them.
She knows every layer of flavor, every bite.
For Dodin and Eugenie, food isnt just art but emotional currency.
Through it they express their longing, their love, even their sorrow.
It becomes quite clear eventually that Eugenie is the true master of this house.
Without her, Dodin is lost.
The film does make feints toward a more typical narrative progression.
People come from continents away to partake of these meals and even invite Dodin and his household to cook-offs.
But even here, Hung toys with our expectations.
He sets up climaxes that dont quite arrive.
But he never losesus, because hes already established the unique language and rhythms of the picture.
This allows him to eschew narrative satisfactions for sensual ones without sacrificing any emotion.
