La Passion de Dodin Bouffant

Tran Anh Hùng (THE SCENT OF GREEN PAPAYA, 1993) creates the platonic ideal of the French heritage film: a lusciously produced celebration of Gallic cuisine intertwined with a refined romance set in the 19th-century Loire Valley. Devoted gourmet Dodin (Benoît Magimel) has lived and worked alongside his poised cook Eugenie (Juliette Binoche) on a peaceful estate for years, concocting meal after delicious meal. In Tran’s exquisite adaptation of gourmet Marcel Rouf’s classic book, the food is the story’s raison d’être and thus comprises much of the storytelling: the many glorious stages of preparing beef, fish and crackling-fresh vegetables, arranging caviar on an oyster, painstakingly wrapping pastry and so on. The film is a sumptuous education in both the preparation and appreciation of food and wine, thanks to Dodin and Eugenie’s detailed commentary and critiques. Their shared love of food slow-cooks into an autumnal romance as each learns to bring the same devotion to each other as to their culinary obsession. Bringing a dynamic camera to his bustling protagonists, Tran fills out the fin de siècle canvas with Dodin’s friends and a child protégé, all of whom are helplessly enamored with the pleasures of the palate. (Nicolas Rapold)

Tran Anh Hùng: THE SCENT OF GREEN PAPAYA (1993), CYCLO (1995), THE VERTICAL RAY OF THE SUN (2000), COME WITH THE RAIN (2009), NORWEGIAN WOOD (2010), ETERNITY (2016)