Rating summary

Movie		4.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.5
Overall		4.5

The Taste of Things Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Stephen Larson May 2, 2024

Winner of the Best Director Prize at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival, Trần Anh Hùng's THE TASTE OF THINGS has arrived courtesy of UK label Picture House Entertainment. The lone extra on this BD-50 is a trailer. In French, with two optional English subtitle tracks. Region "B" locked.

Every meal in The Pot-au-Feu (The Taste of Things) is prepared with such care and meticulousness that it's as if each dining occasion is always treated as a major feast. That's how gastronome/master chef Dodin Bouffant (Benoît Magimel) and epicure Eugénie (Juliette Binoche), Dodin's culinary partner for twenty years, view their work. It's 1885 in an Anjou château estate in France’s Loire Valley where Dodin and Eugénie have lived for two decades. They're assisted in the kitchen by housekeeper and server Violette (Galatéa Bellugi) and her 13-year-old niece, Pauline (Bonnie Chagneau-Ravoire). Steadicam operator Florian Berthellot follows most of the meal preparations during an elaborate 38-minute sequence. These early scenes and subsequent ones show a loin of veal, crayfish, turbot drowning in white wine, vol-au-vent with egg wash, consommé, a dish of boiled meat and vegetables, and Baked Alaska (or “Norwegian omelet,” as the characters call it in the film) being prepared and served. Trần Anh Hùng uses the moving camera to show Eugénie holding and bringing a copper bowl to the table, for instance, in much the same way that Robert Bresson would use the camera to "track" the hands of his characters and their movements.

Enjoying a meal together.

In addition to being a cinematic cuisine, The Taste of Things is also a personal story between Eugénie and Dodin that supplements their professional partnership. The two seem to love each other and Dodin has popped the question to his muse several times over the years. Eugénie prefers to hold off on Dodin's marriage proposals. She has her own bedroom in the château. On some nights, she keeps the door locked but on other nights, it's open for Bouffant.

The film introduces the first real source of tension when Eugénie experiences fatigue and fainting spells after preparing a meal for the Crown Prince of Estonia (Mhamed Arezki). (The viewer sympathizes with Eugénie's tiredness after all the hard work in meal prep she has exerted to please the Prince and Dodin's gentlemen friends.) There's wonderful reciprocity between Eugénie and Dodin. In the first half, she makes meals for Dodin and his male guests. Later in the film, Dodin not only cares and tends to Eugenie, but also prepares her a scrumptious gourmet meal. The Taste of Things celebrates fine cuisine and demonstrates the love of sharing a delectable with one another.

The Taste of Things Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Taste of Things appears in its original theatrical aspect ratio of 1.85:1 on this MPEG-4 AVC-encoded BD-50 (disc size: 44.58 GB). Picture House Entertainment has given the transfer a healthy encode. (Please note that Picture House has overwritten the original French title card with the English translation title.) Visuals look sumptuous with no noise or compression-related artifacts. Clarity is excellent even in long shots. (For example, you can see Pauline pretty well in a long shot of her sitting at a table that's shown in frame grab #26.) Detail is generally outstanding. For example, see the ring held up in Screenshot #30 and the compositions of food in #s 31-34.

I read a lot about the cinematographic process and lighting conditions in a feature article about The Taste of Things that Max Weinstein wrote in a February 2024 issue in American Cinematographer. Director of photography Jonathan Ricquebourg shot the picture on the Sony CineAlta VENICE camera. According to Weinstein, filming was done at the historic Château de Raguin, which resides in the department of Maine-et-Loire in western France. Ricquebourg used a 35 mm Leitz Summilux-C lens for all of the shots that capture cooking moments. Trần wanted the camera crew to take advantage of as much natural sunlight as possible that shines through the Château's windows and open doors. For kitchen interiors, Ricquebourg and gaffer Georges Harnack utilized four 16K Dino lights, four 9K Maxi Brutes, and multiple Arri SkyPanel S360s. There were mainly rigged on cherry pickers outside the windows and door of the kitchen set. Ricquebourg told Weinstein that his crew added four shallow light boxes on the ceiling. Interestingly, the crew hid Astera Titan Tubes behind furniture. Gaffer Georges Harnack revealed to AC that the tubes helped "reproduce the bouncing of sunlight" around the room.

Some of the gamma levels on the Blu-ray transfer differ somewhat from the final color grade. In an AC online supplement to Weinstein's print/digital article on The Taste of Things, Ricquebourg says he employed a combination of Tobacco 1 and 2 and Coral 1 and 2 filters to "force the camera to go really red-ish, yellow-ish or orange." For a scene in which Eugénie listens to her friends recollect a meal they shared with the Prince of Eurasia, Ricquebourg made heavy use of Tobacco filtration so the image shows a lot of orange. When the film went into post-production, colorist Yov Moor removed a substantial portion of the filter's effect so the final digital grade displays a purple-and-orange palette. (The online piece shows a before-and-after comparison.) On the Blu-ray, this scene displays a middle ground between the abundant Tobacco filtration (with the accented orange) and the image that has a mixture of purple and orange (see screen capture #s 10-11). The BD transfer sports more of a golden hue that contrasts with the lighter sunlight coming through the window that Ricquebourg and Moor approved the grade of in post.

Picture House has encoded the feature at an average video bitrate of 35987 kbps.

Only eight chapter stops accompany the 135-minute film.

The Taste of Things Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Picture House has supplied a French DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 Surround track (2876 kbps, 24-bit) and a French LPCM 2.0 Stereo mix (2304 kbps, 24-bit). The 5.1 mix was the primary focus for my review. Spoke words are clear and intelligible. The track picks up a lot of ambient noises in the kitchen. For example, the boiling of water, pouring of creams, and sizzling of sautéed foods. This is a front-heavy track for a majority of the presentation. I could hear some crickets on the surrounds during nighttime scenes between there are few discrete effects. There's no music during the film. The classical piece that plays over the end credits is "Méditation" from the opera Thaïs, which was written by French composer Jules Massenet.

Picture House uses a relatively large sans-serif font for its subtitles (see Screenshot #35). I only played the film with the regular English subtitles active. (There's also an option for English SDH.)

The Taste of Things Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Outside of a trailer, Picture House doesn't have any bonus materials. RLJ Entertainment's forthcoming R1 DVD will offer interviews with Juliette Binoche, Benoît Magimel, and Trần Anh Hùng.

• Theatrical Trailer (1:41, 1080p) - Picture House's post-festival trailer for The Taste of Things with critics' quotations. The trailer is presented in 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen and, unusual for a trailer, two audio options: a DTS-HD MA 5.1 and a LPCM 2.0 Stereo downmix. Both audio tracks are in French with English subtitles.

The Taste of Things Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The Taste of Things is a stylistic return to Trần Anh Hùng's tactile and sensuous debut, The Scent of Green Papaya (1993). This latest feature demonstrates how much Trần is a master of color and light. I've seen all of Trần's features and each is at least good. His masterpiece Cyclo (1995) remains unavailable on Blu-ray. I hope a label restores it soon. It would be tempting to compare The Taste of Things to other food films like Babette's Feast (1987) and Eat Drink Man Woman (1994), but it's more of a close cousin to My Father's Glory and My Mother's Castle (both from 1990). Picture House Entertainment has served up an outstanding transfer and a fine audio presentation. While the disc doesn't have any extras, the movie comes VERY HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.