Interview: Tran Anh Hung savors 'The Taste of Things'
“Art is transforming something into something else.”
(Photo courtesy of Gaumont)
French-Vietnamese director Tran Anh Hung likes to refer to his movies as “gifts” that he gives to the audience. Those sensual gifts have ranged from his debut, the 1993 arthouse hit “The Scent of Green Papaya,” to his romantic 2010 adaptation of Haruki Murakami’s “Norwegian Wood.”
His latest gift was created in the kitchen. “The Taste of Things,” which opened wide in theaters on Valentine’s Day, is a sumptuous feast of the film, both meditative and carnal. Tran’s camera lingers on scenes of delicious and elaborate food being prepared in a sunlit-bathed kitchen.
Eventually we learn more about the preparer, Eugenie (Juliette Binoche), a talented cook in late-19th century France, and the recipient of her meals, the gourmand Dodin Bouffant (Benoit Magimel). As the two prepare magnificent dishes together, their tender relationship with food becomes an extension of the feelings they have for each other. But love, like food, is not meant to last forever.
Soft-spoken and thoughtful, Tran spoke with me via Zoom earlier this week about the sensual pleasures of food and cinema: “Art is transforming something into something else.”
(Photo courtesy of IFC Films)
There’s a moment in the film where Baked Alaska is being served, and it’s set aflame. And one of the guests says, “Oh, it’s a miracle.” And Dodin says, “No, it’s a scientific reaction.” What is filmmaking to you? Is it a miracle, or is it a scientific reaction made from combining elements together?
I think it’s both. You need some time to be as accurate as possible and to have your own instincts about a scene and how to get it. But at the same time, you need a miracle. You cannot anticipate it. It came because everything was set correctly, and then it appears. It’s like a gift. It’s like a cherry on the cake. I believe in that.
There’s another moment when the young girl is eating, and you can tell that it’s not just good food, but the experience is sort of transforming the way she perceives food. And I wonder if you remember a meal you had when you were young that had a similar reaction for you. And also a movie you might have seen that changed the way you thought about filmmaking?
I think that if you go back to my childhood, of course there was some dishes made by my mother that was very good. But I think that for me, it’s all about fruit. Mangos, guava. These are things for me that are just marvelous. They are in the nature, and you can see them in the rain, under the sun, hanging on the trees. All this has a feeling of good promises, and I really enjoy everything that is related to fruit.
Is there a movie that had a similar effect?
No, when I watch a movie I try to get most of the pleasure from the movie. I never watch a movie to take ideas for my own movies. It’s quite complex to focus on what you are doing. It’s difficult enough. I won’t let something from outside come in.
One thing about the way you present food in the film is that it’s not just about the finished product. It’s the whole process. The first shot is of root vegetables, and picking off the dirt, and you see the raw fish. What was important to you about showing the whole process of these people making this food and transforming it into this gift?
You said the right word. Transforming. Art is transforming something into something else. It was interesting to me to show everything. The sources of the food, where it comes from. The vegetables from the earth. All this was quite essential and has a profound meaning for me to show the whole process.
I think it’s quite a great pleasure when you wake up very early in the morning with the first light of the day. And you go into the garden and choose the right vegetables and cook it later. You have the smells of the morning and everything is fresh and new. It’s quite beautiful.
I’m in the Midwest of the United States, Wisconsin, where people are known for sometimes being verbally terse, and expressing their emotions through cooking and the sharing of food. What is it about food that it can be used to express something that these people can’t or won’t through words?
Food is all about sharing and caring. It’s something that is very generous, when you cook for someone it has this quality. If you love someone, it has also the expression of your love for someone. It’s important. Food is a form of sensuality. It’s something very intimate. You put it in your mouth and you have to trust it somehow. It goes in your body. It’s not easy to accept that kind of a feeling, if we think about it profoundly. I think it’s very powerful.
(Photo courtesy of IFC Films)
How did you work with the actor so that their dialogue was in harmony with the rest of the film with its silences, and the sounds of the cooking?
It’s something that I really pay a lot of attention to. I have this very simple idea that to appreciate dialogue, you have to put a lot of silence before it, or at least a short silence between lines. So I will always ask the actors to take their time and not to reply immediately to their partner. But take the time so that we can have the silence, and the audience will wait for the line to come out.
All this is very precious. When I have a long shot with actors and they have dialogue, I cannot control the rhythm of it, so I have to discuss it with them beforehand, so that they fully understand what I mean. Some scenes have a lot of dialogue. So I’ve managed to have the scene before that full of silence, and the scene after that also very silent. So that we can appreciate the sound made by the actors. We have a silence that has a beautiful quality.
Can you tell me about the camera work, especially in the cooking scenes? I felt like I was peering into the pot and seeing how it's going and following the different steps. It's very active and very present.
I like complex camera movements mixed with how the actors move in the room, to create a sort of ballet. I like it because it somehow puts the audience inside of an action. Somehow they are committed. The audience can have a better feeling of the body of the actors.
This is something I really like in cinema. You need to have the feeling of something physical coming with the actors. They are not only a body that speaks, giving dialogue and expressing emotions on the face. I would like the body to be part of all of it.
I assume you got to eat everything that was made in the course of the film. Did you have a favorite?
We had to eat everything that was cooked for the scene. My favorite dish was the fish. It was the most sensual dish of the milieu. It was so soft in the mouth.