Mubi Monday: The Taste Of Things (2023)

While internally debating my next viewing choice, I was drawn to this, a drama starring the fine Juliette Binoche that would also apparently make me very hungry while watching it. I love films that can strongly affect more than just your sight and hearing, and I hoped to be salivating as I watched this recipe being cooked into filmic perfection.

Binoche plays Eugénie, a cook who seems to be one of the very best. She has certainly impressed her fellow chef, Dodin (Benoît Magimel), who loves Eugénie and her cooking in almost equal measure. Eventually proposing to become more than just two people sharing cooking knowledge and kitchen space, Dodin has to be patient while Eugénie gently rebuffs him, wanting to maintain all of her focus on the cooking that she treats as an almost religious experience. The one main addition to the kitchen is Pauline (Bonnie Chagneau-Ravoire), a young girl who has some natural talent and a real willingness to learn. Dodin continues to hold a candle for Eugénie, but will she ever want to view him as anything other than a cooking colleague?

Based on a novel by Marcel Rouff, this is written and directed by Trần Anh Hùng, a film-maker who has already built up a small filmography of some acclaim. I have only seen one other film from them so far, Norwegian Wood (2010), but I see a lot that I like in their delicate and unrushed handling of material that explores human nature in the mix of some enjoyable onscreen characters.

As expected, Binoche is as wonderful here as ever. She always seems convincingly enthralled by the skill and care required to get the best out of every ingredient going into the dishes she is preparing, and her character manages to convey that sensation to others while managing to avoid seeming egotistical. Her meals are the best because everything she does is in service of the meal. Magimel is also very good, and it's easy for viewers to believe that he could fall so much in love with Binoche after spending so much time in close proximity to her work and her aura. Others appear onscreen, many discussing culinary highs and lows that they've experienced over the years, but Chagneau-Ravoire is the perfect complementary ingredient to the main course, allowing viewers to see the kind of innocence and real interest that Eugénie sees as possibly leading to a life-long vocation/passion.

I wish there had been a few more grand meals shown (sadly, I did not salivate), and the whole thing is actually a fairly slim premise to be dragged out to 135 minutes, but this was a sweet and effective melodrama. The leads are wonderful, the cinematography is lush, and it's another fine example of how careful and tender Hùng is when it comes to allowing us a peek into the lives of some fictional characters.

7/10

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Mubi Monday: Incredible But True (2022)

There are certain words you could use to describe writer-director Quentin Dupieux. Unoriginal isn't one of them. Nor is mundane. This is a man who has given us a movie about a sentient rubber tyre (the quite superb Rubber), a coveted deerskin jacket (Deerskin), a giant fly that others want to exploit (Mandibles), and other very odd central ideas. I still have so many of his movies to watch, and each one I finally get to just reminds me that I should prioritise his entire filmography.

Incredible But True is all about a married couple, Alain (Alain Chabat) and Marie (Léa Drucker), who are looking to buy a new home. Although unsure about the latest place they are viewing, their opinions change when they are shown an unbelievable Unique Selling Point. The house has what looks to be a ladder-accessed basement that actually takes people 12 hours into the future while reversing the ageing process by a few days. That might be enough weirdness for one movie, but there's more. It turns out that Alain's boss, Gérard (Benoît Magimel), has had his manhood replaced with a piece of impressive technology that can do everything you'd expect it to do, plus a bit more. Gérard's partner, Jeanne (Anaïs Demoustier), is very happy, but Gérard starts to fret when he feels that neither Alain nor Marie were as impressed by his revelation as he expected them to be.

Like every other film from Dupieux, the emphasis here is on the ideas beating at the heart of the movie, ideas that have much more intelligence and depth than any plot summary might signify. The writing and direction are good enough to convey the bizarre plotting, but Dupieux also knows exactly where he is taking viewers. Viewers may not necessarily realise that there's a point to it all, and they may wonder where it will all end, but Dupieux is an assured helmer, and he uses the film to explore themes of vanity, mortality, and, well, the pros and cons of having a robo-penis fitted (okay, that's the vanity again, but I wanted to write the term "robo-penis").

Chabat and Drucker do very good work in their lead roles, playing everything as straight as they have to while things start to get stranger and stranger. Magimel and Demoustier, on the other hand, get to overact slightly and lean more into the comedy of their strange predicament. One or two others move in and out of the frame, just enough to remind us that this is an unreal tale taking place in a reality akin to our own, and everyone is well-served by Dupieux's direction.

I suspect that I say this every time I review a Quentin Dupieux movie, but those who are familiar with his work will already know whether or not they want to explore more of his filmography. For those who do, like myself, then it's full of constant surprises and delight. For those who don't, well, I doubt there's any one feature that could change your mind. Incredible But True is perfectly in line with everything else he's done. I loved it.

8/10

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