Gastronomy for the Soul: Trần Anh Hùng Discusses ‘The Taste of Things’
Trần Anh Hùng speaks with Script about his adaptation process, the beauty of a French meal and how it’s evoked on screen, the use of lighting, filming on limited locations, and more.
In French-Vietnamese filmmaker Trần Anh Hùng’s award-winning 1993 film The Scent of Green Papaya, our guide through the story is servant girl Mui. She is our voyeur. Though we get to observe her life as well as the subjects she’s viewing, there is a distance in our relationship to some of the characters because she is our lens of perspective. Even though the people she’s viewing have mercurial lives, it’s her journey that’s at the center. Food is also a focal point of the movie. One of Hùng’s favorite dishes is rice with fish sauce and boiled vegetables. It evokes “powerful childhood memories” for him and he considers these three foods together “something special.” The use of food in his current film The Taste of Things is definitely something special. It evokes the sensuality of love, the seasons of life, and the precision necessary for true artistry.
In Hùng’s latest film The Taste of Things, we as viewers are fully immersed in chef Eugénie and gourmand Dodin’s experience because of the style of storytelling. The Palm d’Or winner (for Best Director) is a sumptuous feast for the eyes and spirit. The book that the movie is based on, Marcel Rouff’s The Passionate Epicure, is more focused on the art of cooking. Hùng decided to give his story a bit more substance.
“What I liked in the book was what was said about gastronomy. But I didn't like the story so I made up the one for the movie. I felt that at my age, it was time to make a movie about marital love and also harmony because this is quite rare in film. We're told that in movies we need conflict and fights. I saw this movie as a challenge to express harmony in a genuine way and in a way where people wouldn't be bored by it.” And boring it’s not. In the vein of films like Chocolat, Eat Drink Man Woman, Soul Food, Babette’s Feast, and Like Water for Chocolate, The Taste of Things equates the chemistry of food with the delicate balance of life. The film is set in 1885 and Hùng utilizes the natural elements of that time to reflect his main character Eugénie, played by the ageless Juliette Binoche. If this was set in the current day, it would have a completely different aura.
“It would be very different because of the light. I wouldn't be able to use the light that you see in the movie. What I like about this light is that it expresses the feelings of Eugénie. She said that she likes summer. That she likes the heat inside of her. For the whole movie, the light looks like her state of mind.”
That burning fire of summer is also expressed in her quiet, confident love for Dodin (Benoît Magimel). Binoche and Magimel in real life had a child but never married and have been apart for many years. Their on-screen chemistry is palpable, radiating the embers of their former passionate tryst in the real world. The way a couple who knows each other well doesn’t have to speak, they can communicate with a glance, is the way Eugénie and Dodin communicate with food. It’s a conversation for them and something Hùng believes is inherent in the French meal.
“The beauty of the French meal is that people talk around the table. As a Vietnamese, when I had dinner around this kind of table, it was scary and beautiful. People talked about culture, literature, music, and cinema. The children were questioned about what they'd read that was interesting and they had to introduce the book for everyone. You need to know how to express yourself around the table. I was always scared when my turn came, because I knew I'd have to express what I liked. It was a way to cultivate culture around the table. People would give their opinions without fighting. The art of conversation around the table is quite beautiful.”
That beauty is translated in this film not only through sensual meals and scenes that evoke the images of painter Émile Friant, but also through a masterful use of silence. There’s no soundtrack to accentuate each scene. Silence is the language that boosts many of the interactions, which is one of the qualities that engages us with this visual dialogue. Silence is an important tool for Hùng. “During the scriptwriting, the dialogue is something I crafted to make the silence interesting. All the sounds in the movie are related to silence because I needed to create contrasts. To create beautiful silence, you need to create a lot of sound before that. In the movie, sometimes it's very noisy because of the sounds coming from the kitchen and nature. Birds and things we hear outside of the castle. So, when everything stops, we have the quality of silence. After the editing of sound for the movie, I realized that I didn't need music. I've always enjoyed making movies that work like a piece of music. They inherently create their own music.”
Hùng worked with historian Patrick Rambourg and Chef Pierre Gagnaire to make sure the meals were accurate. He had to sample every meal that Pierre created, which made for delectable days on the set. His favorite dish was the fish with the Hollandaise sauce because “it was the most sensual.”
“When I was in Pierre Gagnaire’s kitchen, there was a baker who showed me how in the old days they estimated the heat to melt sugar. The temperatures needed to be different to make different types of cream. They'd have the sugar boiling then put their hands quickly in the ice. Then they'd pick a piece of this boiling sugar and estimate the texture.” This is like being in love, where different variations of heat in a relationship can have various results.
This wasn’t Hùng’s first adaptation, but his third. He’s previously adapted Haruki Murakami’s novel Norwegian Wood and Alice Ferney’s novel The Elegance of Widows (L’élégance des veuves). For him, there are two types of books. “One type of book is about experience. Meaning you have a good story, good characters, and a lot of plots you can select to keep in the script. The other kind of book is what I call books of expression. They’re associated with literature. The beauty, the meaning, comes from the lines. How everything is said. Usually, that kind of book doesn't have good characters or good stories. They are vague. Adapting that kind of book is very difficult. My older French movie Eternity was based on a book of expression.”
We have limited locations we visit in The Taste of Things. That helps accentuate Dodin and Eugénie’s tryst even more. Filming in one location is a challenge that Hùng relishes. He embraces the natural rhythm of being quiet in one place. “I always want the audience to receive something that is cinematic. For instance, when you see Dodin looking for Hùng, I can have a piece of cinema there that is sophisticated. I'm not afraid of shooting in a limited location because it makes me find different ways to show things.”
The film not only titillates one’s epicurean curiosity but warms the heart like the best summer day. This IFC Film will have a limited release on February 9 and will open nationwide on February 14, Valentine’s Day.
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Sonya Alexander started off her career training to be a talent agent. She eventually realized she was meant to be on the creative end and has been writing ever since. As a freelance writer she’s written screenplays, covered film, television, music and video games and done academic writing. She’s also been a script reader for over twenty years. She's a member of the African American Film Critics Association and currently resides in Los Angeles.
