POT AU FEU - THE TASTE OF THINGS
Juliet Binoche and Benoît Magimel
This is a most unusual movie. It hardly has a narrative. There are no heart-stopping moments, the set hardly strays from the beautiful country home of gifted and renowned gastronome Dodin Bouffant’ the Napoleon of Food’ (Benoit Magimel) and Eugenie( Juliet Binoche) his chef, partner and occasional lover. ‘Eugenie really is a most beautiful woman’ remarks one blokey friend . Initially the only excitement is when another dish appears and the tremulous cooks fear it might not – well -cut the mustard. Yet this lovely film has managed to win the hearts of the hard to please judges of the Cannes Film Festival - they awarded Vietnamese Tran Ahnh Hung ,the accolade of Winner for Best Director . Pot Au Feu is a simple evocation of carefully crafted gastronomy. But it is far more than that.
The kitchen is at its centre. Doudin and Eugenie work with swift deft strokes of culinary skill. We watch a huge turbot manoevred into a massive fish-shaped dish, a dozen small fowl are poached , their juices heaved from the large copper saucepans to create a velouté for a giant vol au vent. And the action returns to the heart of the culinary matter, the pot au feu, a traditional French dish, conceived back in the mists of time and refined down the generations to represent everything wholesome good and unshowy about traditional cuisine. In attendance in the busy kitchen is the delightful 11 year old protegé Pauline – her still, calm appreciation of the art of cooking is a performance of muted delight.
I bristled when I read a critic’s comment on this subtle piece as ‘ a watchable Aga Saga’ No! Here’s a film with performances and direction of genius with its layers of meaningful observation, humour and profound sensuous intensity. It is far gentler and happier than the 70s Babette’s Feast where a fretful French emigré in puritanical Denmark, wins the Lottery and imports the best of her country’s poshest nosh to amaze the grim cynics of the village and wows them with her skill. In Pot- au -Feu we are firmly on French country idyll territory. It is funny at times, as when a visiting Princeling overdoes the gastronomic challenge until Doudin and his ‘suite’ of men friends groan with disbelief at a meal that lasts over eight hours. That is not the Master of Cooking’s way at all. Pot- au- feu is the essence of traditional simplicity.
The highlights are subtle. A scene where Dodin and Eugenie host a splendid midsummer meal in their wild flowered garden is just about heaven. The way the director weaves a delight in eating with the care- and love - of the chef is magical. Doudin’s natural good manners amplify the attention to flavours in food to create a perfect reflection of love; the sequence where he prepares a meal for Eugenie and watches her eat it alone, is sensuality and delight embued. Two and half hours of gentle meditation on the pleasures of life and how to live it well, are at the heart of this lovely film. There is a profound sadness at times but essentially a glorious triumph of the joy of life. ‘Saint Augustine said that to be happy is to love what you already have’’quotes Doudin, and he clearly has it all.
Film is all about magic – but this evocation of the elegance and beauty of a life lived around food manages the impossible, gourmet meals served up with lashings of love..
