HÀ NỘI — The film La Passion de Dodin Bouffant (The Taste of Things), directed by Vietnamese-born French film director Trần Anh Hùng, will be screened in Việt Nam on March 22.  

A scene in La Passion de Dodin Bouffant (The Taste of Things). Photo courtesy of Curiosa Films, Gaumont and France 2 Cinéma Umedia

Hùng won the Prix de la Mise en Scène (Award for Best Director) at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2023. 

The film is adapted from the 1924 novel The Life and Passion of Dodin-Bouffant, Gourmet by the author Marcel Rouff.

Set in 1885 France, the film tells the love story between Eugénie (played by Juliette Binoche), an exceptional cook and the famous gastronome Dodin (played by Benoit Magimel). 

Eugénie has worked for 20 years alongside Dodin. Over time, a love affair develops between them, closely linked to their shared love of gastronomy. They create delicious, flavourful dishes that amaze the world's greatest gourmets. However, Eugénie, eager for freedom, never wanted to marry Dodin. Dodin decided to cook for her for the first time. 

The New Yorker regards the latest film of Hùng as "a philosophy of pleasure."

Peter Bradshaw wrote in the Guardian: "There are many static shots of these dishes being prepared and of Binoche and Magimel duly appreciating them, inviting our drooling at all this refined sensory luxury."

In an interview with Variery, Hùng discussed the filmmaking challenges of shooting elaborate cooking scenes, the joy of seeing Binoche and Magimel reunited,and the role of gastronomy in 18th-century France.

Hùng said: “It was more about the filmmaking challenge that gastronomy presented. My first challenge was to make a film that didn’t look like any others.

"The idea was to weave gastronomy into a love story and see how a man and a woman who share the same passion for the culinary art and have lived together for over 25 years form this spiritual bond.”

Hùng is best known for his Cannes’ Golden Camera-winning The Scent of Green Papaya in 1993 and Venice Golden Lion-winning Cyclo in 1995 – both are about and were set in Việt Nam. — VNS