This Is the Best Directing of the Year

A video essay about “The Taste of Things, directed by Tran Anh Hung (“The Scent of Green Papaya”, also sublime). This is a marvelously composed, blocked and shot masterpiece. Beauty put on screen.

Here we’ll go through the movie’s sublime visual style, how Hung’s camera glides through the sets, always capturing actors and their actions with precision and elegance. We’ll examine the tightly choreographed dance that makes up the cooking set pieces, how actors, props and the camera are always in the perfect spot. We’ll also see how non-cooking scenes are given equal care, also boasting magnificent blocking. This film is a delicious lesson in staging and camerawork.

The story? Dodin Bouffant (Benoît Magimel) is a gourmant who’s had a 20-year relationship with his extraordinary cook Eugénie (Juliette Binoche). He frequently entertains his fellow gourmet friends and tries to move his unusual romantic arrangement further. It’s a cozy little jewel of a film, with some of the most delightful scenes and moments of the year.

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If you’d like to appreciate a truly great achievement in directing among the films of 2023 it’ll be hard to find a more delicious dish than the work of Tran Anh Hung in “The Taste of Things”.

This is film directing that’s rigorous, organized and with the clear goal of achieving that infamous dirty word… Beauty. A bit of the story. “The Taste of Things” is about a French lover of fine dining with the irresistibly Frenchy name of Dodin Bouffant.

Dodin’s cook, Eugénie has worked for him for 20 years and she builds an artwork out of every meal. She’s assisted by Violette and the precocious Pauline, who could work for CSI Sauces. Well, forgive the eleven-year-old for not knowing the taste of cognac! Ah, the French!

Dodin’s friends take pleasure in Eugénie’s food and in talking about food. Dodin and Eugénie are lovers, though she doesn’t wish to tie the knot just yet. It’s a cozy little jewel of a film. Intelligent idle people appreciating food, wine and each other’s company. Pas mal, non? C’est français.

But the sweetest taste is in Hung’s direction. This direction is sumptuous, sensuous and vibrant. It’s the work of an artist who is deeply fascinated by his characters and their actions who places each prop and player in the proper spot and who uses long takes to highlight harmony and synchronicity.

Shout out to cinematographer Jonathan Ricquebourg. Now let’s go through what makes the direction so wonderful! The movie’s camera floats as it finds or follows the actors in their tightly choreographed dance. A favorite movement of the camera is tilting, up and down, to see the actor and the action.

The cook and the cooking, the cooking and the cook. The plate and the gourmet, the gourmet and the plate. There’s repeated use of triangulation, with the camera wandering from character to action to character. Here we follow Dodin as he brings a plate.

We find the plate on the table… look up at Eugénie on the left, further up at Dodin on the right… down as he picks up sauce, leftward to the plate as he pours it, up back at him. As he leaves, we pan past Violette and back to Eugénie.

And conveniently enough there’s a table in the background for Violette to place the tray while Eugénie eats. An unassumingly elegant shot. When characters cook, the camera is always in the correct spot.

Though it moves a lot, it never needs to move more than the necessary minimum, because it’s helped by immaculate staging actors and objects are always conveniently located. Visual convenience being a criterion of great invisible directing. By following a character we are always naturally brought to another character.

Eugénie uses the oven, with Pauline in the middle ground. We follow Binoche to the right, revealing Dodin in the middle ground. We follow her to the left. Dodin arrives from the right and we now follow him further to the left.

He and Eugénie work separately while Violette arrives to pick up a pan. We follow her to the left and close in on her funnel. That’s how it goes. Never-ending movement. Of course the set-piece-like cooking scenes get all the love

But other moments are also worth examining for their spotless staging and camerawork. In this scene, Eugénie meets Dodin’s friends outside. We pan right to find them. She joins the group while a previously offscreen character crosses over from right to left.

They talk as the camera arcs to the left. Then the camera decides to arc to the right and this very solicitous friend in brown crosses to the left for a reason that can only be aesthetic. Two crossings from right to left.

Totally unnecessary if you think about it; these guys don’t even talk, but they tie the composition together. Such wide shots are ideal for the audience to notice characters’ body language. Here Eugénie is clearly at ease.

But in an earlier scene when the same men compliment her for her cooking, she’s visibly nervous. Notice Juliette Binoche’s hands. They tell a whole story, desperately searching for something to do. Further back you can also see that Dodin is also fidgeting.

That’s an extra level of performance that wider angles can get you. Tighter shots have their advantage as well. Dodin cooks oysters for Eugénie and since these are the smallest ingredients in the film we get our closest shots in the film to see how minute is each action.

Most conversations are shot in breezy flights of the long take, like this delightful scene of the lead couple discussing their unusual relationship as the camera swings back from side to side. But in a later scene when Dodin reveals how he is worried about Eugénie’s poor health

We get a brief exchange of medium closeups. And because of their subject, they do make an impact. There’s a time for wides and a time for tights. Oh, and in case you’re learning something make sure to like and subscribe. It’ll help you get more videos like this one.

Also consider joining my Patreon. Moving on! Watch this beautiful dance around Dodin’s dining table. We have an ever-present care for composition and we always have a character in motion for our eyes to follow.

We first follow Dodin. He pours some wine and we start following this guest to the right. This one on the left stands up and stretches himself towards the left foreground The other one approaches and speaks just as he’s most clearly seen.

We follow him to the right and we reach the door just as Violette enters. We follow her to this point of the frame. But Dodin soon blocks her and steals our attention. Aaaah, blocking.

Here’s another case of an actor covering another one to become our center of attention, COAT for short. In the background, Dodin scolds two doctors for not knowing what’s Eugénie’s sickness. We seem to approach them, but we pan left to find Eugénie listening.

She stands up to take a peak right next to the camera. She decides to join the conversation and we follow with x-ray vision. While she asserts that she’s feeling fine we pan between this two-shot and the trio. Frustrated, Dodin, who’s in the center, leaves to the background.

Eugénie doesn’t go back through the same way she came. Instead she blocks Dodin in the center, stealing the COAT. Since nobody’s looking at her now, we can see in her face that she’s not really feeling fine at all. Yet another perfect shot.

Like its characters’ obsession with perfectly executing the perfect recipe to create the perfect taste “The Taste of Things” is obsessed with perfectly blocking its actors for the perfect angle to get the perfect frame.

Through careful positioning and movement of the camera and the characters, Tran Anh Hung creates something sublime. Even more static moments end up looking like realist paintings. This is a film that unapologetically strives to be beautiful. Happiness is watching a film directed like this.