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Streaming: The Taste of Things and the best films about food
Tran Anh Hung’s simmering gastro-romance is the latest dish in a cinematic feast ranging from The Godfather to The LunchboxThe term “gastroporn” got thrown around a lot when The Taste of Things was in cinemas recently, but I’m not sure it’s quite right for Tran Anh Hung’s sumptuous culinary romance, seductive as all the cookery on display is. Though it has many a languid, exquisitely lit pan over the finished dishes created by Benoît Magimel’s 19th-century gourmet – including a giant, glistening vol-au-vent that I’ve been thinking about for months – it’s less about money shots than it is about foodie foreplay. The film’s greatest pleasures are in its extended sequences of preparation and process; the silently, adoringly intuitive collaboration between Magimel and Juliette Binoche’s fellow cook; the thrill of watching experts at work. OK, and there’s a near-seamless match-cut from a perfectly poached pear to Binoche reclining in the nude: not so much gastroporn as gastroerotica.Either way, Tran’s film joins the pantheon of cinema’s great films about food, its craft and consumption, and the human relationships it helps along. The club includes Babette’s Feast, Gabriel Axel’s lovely, 1987 Oscar-winning Isak Dinesen adaptation about a French cook bringing, after years of bland compliance with the local diet, her most sensuous culinary skills to the austere-living 19th-century Protestant residents of a remote Danish island. And Like Water for Chocolate (Apple TV+), the Mexican magical-realist 90s favourite that makes most literal connections between its lovelorn protagonist’s emotions and the meals she prepares. The film seems a touch twee these days, but the food still hits. Ang Lee’s Eat Drink Man Woman (currently hard to stream, but available for those with access to Kanopy) stands as one of the great portrayals of mealtimes as a family-binding force – it’s moving and funny, but its Sunday banquets are pure sensory spectacle. Continue reading...
Tran Anh Hung’s simmering gastro-romance is the latest dish in a cinematic feast ranging from The Godfather to The Lunchbox
The term “gastroporn” got thrown around a lot when The Taste of Things was in cinemas recently, but I’m not sure it’s quite right for Tran Anh Hung’s sumptuous culinary romance, seductive as all the cookery on display is. Though it has many a languid, exquisitely lit pan over the finished dishes created by Benoît Magimel’s 19th-century gourmet – including a giant, glistening vol-au-vent that I’ve been thinking about for months – it’s less about money shots than it is about foodie foreplay. The film’s greatest pleasures are in its extended sequences of preparation and process; the silently, adoringly intuitive collaboration between Magimel and Juliette Binoche’s fellow cook; the thrill of watching experts at work. OK, and there’s a near-seamless match-cut from a perfectly poached pear to Binoche reclining in the nude: not so much gastroporn as gastroerotica.
Either way, Tran’s film joins the pantheon of cinema’s great films about food, its craft and consumption, and the human relationships it helps along. The club includes Babette’s Feast, Gabriel Axel’s lovely, 1987 Oscar-winning Isak Dinesen adaptation about a French cook bringing, after years of bland compliance with the local diet, her most sensuous culinary skills to the austere-living 19th-century Protestant residents of a remote Danish island. And Like Water for Chocolate (Apple TV+), the Mexican magical-realist 90s favourite that makes most literal connections between its lovelorn protagonist’s emotions and the meals she prepares. The film seems a touch twee these days, but the food still hits. Ang Lee’s Eat Drink Man Woman (currently hard to stream, but available for those with access to Kanopy) stands as one of the great portrayals of mealtimes as a family-binding force – it’s moving and funny, but its Sunday banquets are pure sensory spectacle. Continue reading...
