Throughout Trần Anh Hùng’s delectable film The Taste of Things (The Pot-au-Feu), Eugénie Chatagne pours her soul into the meals she prepares for Dodin Bouffant, a renowned chef and restaurant owner. She is his personal cook. Eugénie is meticulous yet playful, passionate yet serene. We immediately understand why Dodin wants to marry her. Of course, it helps tremendously that she is embodied by the luminous Juliette Binoche.
The Taste of Things is France’s entry into the 2024 International Feature Oscar race. Set in France in 1889 and based on Marcel Rouff’s The Life and Passion of Dodin-Bouffant, the plot is quite simple, revolving around the relationship between these two characters and their gastronomical and romantic interactions. Dodin is played by Benoît Magimel who last appeared opposite Binoche in 1999 in Diane Kurys’ Children of the Century where he played poet Alfred du Musset and Binoche portrayed novelist George Sand. They were together a few years and had a daughter, Hana.
The reunion proves chemistry never dies as it is the shared love that Eugénie and Dodin have for food (and for each other) that take the film to the level of the sublime and transcendent.
Alas, Binoche has been bringing passion, grace, and gravitas to her work since the very start of her career–from the heartbreaking Julie in Krzysztof Kieślowski’s masterpiece Three Colors: Blue to the innocent Tereza opposite Daniel Day-Lewis in Philip Kaufman’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being to her Oscar-winning triumph in Anthony Minghella’s sweeping epic The English Patient to lovely Vianne in Lasse Hallström’s delicious Chocolat (her 2nd Oscar nomination), citing four career-defining performances.
Her first starring role was in Jean-Luc Godard’s controversial retelling of the virgin birth Hail Mary in 1985. That same year she was the lead in André Téchiné’s provocative Rendez-vous (co-written by Olivier Assayas who she would go on to make three more films with) in a performance that garnered her great acclaim.
Binoche’s impressive list of film credits also include, Louis Malle’s Damage (1991), Téchiné’s Alice and Martin (1998), Michael Haneke’s Code Unknown (2000) and Caché (2005), Minghella’s Breaking and Entering (2005), Peter Hedges’ Dan in Real Life, Assayas’s Summer Hours (2008), Clouds of Sils Maria (2014) and Non-Fiction (2018), Abbas Kiarostami’s Certified Copy (2010), David Cronenberg’s Cosmopolis (2011), Claire Denis’ Let the Sunshine In (2017), High Life (2018), Both Sides of the Blade (2022), and Christoph Honoré’s Winter Boy (2022).
The thesp has appeared on stage in London in a revival of Luigi Pirandello’s Naked in 1998 and on Broadway in Harold Pinter’s Betrayal in 2000, garnering a Tony nomination. Next up onscreen will be the post-Trojan War film The Return opposite Ralph Fiennes and directed by Uberto Pasolini.
Besides being Oscared, Binoche has been nominated for 11 Cesar Awards, winning one for Three Colors: Blue and has received four European Film Awards. She also won the BAFTA for Best Supporting Actress for The English Patient. Her role in The Taste of Things is deservedly receiving awards buzz.
IFC will release The Taste of Things in theaters in NY on December 13, 2023 and wide on Feb 14, 2024.
Awards Daily had the privilege of Zoom chatting with Juliette about the film and her career.
