There’s something to be mentioned for a easy dish made with the perfect substances by a trusted hand. Simply as an ideal omelet made by a lover is extra satisfying than an eight-hour feast laid on by a Prince, so it follows {that a} film like “The Pot-au-Feu” works, not regardless of, however as a result of it focuses on executing its primary premise with enrapturing consideration to element. It is a story about love and meals, which it presents as the identical factor.
Sight unseen, it was at all times a mouth-watering prospect: two scrumptious French actors – Juliette Binoche and Benoît Magimel – feeding one another in Tran Anh Hung’s adaptation of a 2014 graphic novel reputed to be meals porn. The promise of this set-up is delivered with gusto because the kitchen of a nineteenth century French manor home turns into the stage for essentially the most elaborate foreplay you’ve ever seen. What “Name Me By Your Title” did for peaches “The Pot-au-Feu” does for syrup pears.
The Prince of Eurasia, who courts his style buds, refers to Dodin Bouffant (Benoît Magimel) as “the Napoleon of culinary arts.” Though he has a collection of loyal gourmets who love to collect at his desk to ponder the consommé, the particular person with whom Dodin is most comfy is Eugénie (Juliette Binoche), his prepare dinner of 20 years. Their strategies of cooking are complementary: she is fluid and delicate, he’s frank and passionate and, sure, you guessed it, these modes lengthen to the way in which they method l’amour. It’s implied that Dodin has been proposing to her for the higher a part of 20 years and though Eugénie generally leaves her door unlocked for him at evening, she just isn’t as open in the case of marriage. “We’re already glad,” is her logic and it’s true that Binoche has by no means been extra beatific, delivering her total efficiency from someplace near cloud 9.
The movie opens in the one place that issues, the kitchen, as Eugénie takes an opulent period of time to arrange a four-course meal for Dodin and his disciples. She is assisted by maid/sous chef Violette and Violette’s younger niece, Pauline — the proprietor of a precocious palette. DP Jonathan Ricquebourg’s roving digicam is fascinated by the abundance of substances and cooking procedures, ducking and diving and zooming in on Eugénie sieving, flaming, braising, decanting, roasting, whisking, plating, drizzling, clarifying, and rather more.
Dodin can not stay away from this locus of sensual creativity. As he is aware of higher than to meddle with Eugénie throughout her artistry, he focuses on younger Pauline, spooning a mouthful of sauce into her mouth and asking her what substances she detects. He has all of the obsessive focus of dressmaker Reynolds Woodcock from “Phantom Thread” but the character of his vocation has made him beneficiant. It’s exhausting to be an asshole whenever you eat in addition to he does.
It’s one thing of a gag that the 2023 Cannes Competitors line-up additionally comprises Jessica Hausner’s “Membership Zero” during which characters transfer towards an excellent of consuming nothing in any respect. Whereas that movie explored the religious worth that grifters challenge onto denying the physique its appetites, this one spins a imaginative and prescient of happiness that’s predicated on the deep nurturing energy of meals. Not simply any meals. That is additionally about private style and the way if somebody is aware of your abdomen, they know your coronary heart. The romanticism of meals right here just isn’t even symbolic, for Eugénie and Dodin’s synchronicity on the matter of constructing lovely and exact dishes signifies that they’re soulmates. Essential declarations, once they come, are served with garnish on beautiful crockery.
Tran Anh Hung’s core talent is that of a high saucier, he is aware of the best way to add a glut of substances and scale back them to a wealthy taste that strikes the palate in ways in which defy what looks like a easy dish. Essentially the most hypnotic sequences are nearly dialogue-free and work like ASMR as spoons tinkle, brass pots steam, wine glugs, crockery clanks and all of the whereas Magimel and Binoche exude a meditative dedication to the sensible duties that they’re performing.
Though a few of their shared contentment stems from wealth — a part of the surprise of being on this world is in admiring the top-of-the-range-for-1885 kitchenware and substances — that is additionally a movie that vaunts the physique with out disgrace. Anh Hung establishes a humorous rhythm in order that lengthy sequences of intense meals preparation are punctuated with express sexual conduct. Eugénie is topic to fainting spells, so Dodin decides it’s time for him to prepare dinner for her. After getting ready a considerate sequence of lavish but delicate programs, respiration closely as he pushes sliced truffles inside a rooster, we minimize to a shot of Eugénie later, her bare again and butt going through him. It is a world during which discovering somebody who loves you is indistinguishable from discovering somebody who loves the identical issues as you. This state of affairs is introduced as Nirvana, and the few scenes to happen outdoors of the kitchen contain golden mild on wealthy inexperienced fields.
There may be humor, additionally, in Magimel making an attempt to remain calm when he’s served dishes that don’t meet his requirements. Dodin just isn’t a personality who needs to throw his weight round, Gordon Ramsay-style, however his quiet horror is palpable when the turbot doesn’t style proper, or a prepare dinner can not rise to the problem of following a soup recipe that covers two sides of A4. Pauline turns into his protege and they’re charming collectively, all of the whereas Eugénie solely grows in stature as nobody else can appear to do what comes so naturally to her — as naturally as respiration.
Belonging to a tremendous custom of intoxicating meals movies — “Babette’s Feast”, “Julie & Julia”, “Like Water For Chocolate” amongst others — “Le Ardour de Dodin Bouffant” pushes the notion of bonding via vittles a step additional. Sure dishes are so inscribed by their creators that they act as reminiscence itself, says the movie, a sentiment that leaves a gorgeous after-taste.
Grade: B+
“The Pot-au-Feu” premiered In Competitors on the 2023 Cannes Movie Pageant. It’s presently looking for U.S. distribution.
