You possibly can love French films all you need, however to get pleasure from “The Style of Issues,” you actually have to like French meals at its most fatty and gross.
The film begins with a 15-minute scene of individuals cooking. Benoît Magimel performs a well-known chef, and Juliette Binoche is his prepare dinner, and they’re making ready a lavish meal. To some extent it’s fascinating to look at Binoche, whose kitchen demeanor is pacific and unflappable, however the primary attraction is meant to be the succession of dishes that she is making ready.
To many, these dishes — largely meat and fish extravaganzas — will look succulent, however I’m not a fan of French delicacies, and to me most of it regarded like carnage, like components of useless animals smothered in sauce. Bone marrow soup? Mmm, yummy.
The meals appears unhealthy within the excessive, a sequence of coronary heart assaults on a plate, and this impression is under no circumstances lessened by the looks of Magimel, whose complexion appears ruddy and mottled and who huffs and puffs simply to get throughout the room. And Binoche performs a girl who retains fainting. By probability, would possibly her troubles in sustaining consciousness have one thing to do with the fat-larded meals that she is consuming? Is it potential that six meat programs per day is one too many — or 5 – 6 too many?
So “The Style of Issues” is sort of a dance film with dangerous dance numbers, or a musical with awful songs, as a result of the entire level is so that you can revel within the cooking, and the cooking appears mildly revolting. Every thing else in regards to the film is ok, and a few of it’s pretty and heartfelt, however eventually, each highway results in the kitchen.
Primarily based on the 1924 novel by Marcel Rouff, “The Life and Ardour of Dodin-Bouffant, Connoisseur,” “The Style of Issues” is the story of two individuals, Dodin (Magimel) and Eugenie (Binoche), who’ve been making ready meals collectively for over 20 years. Their relationship is romantic, as effectively, however constrained. He desires to get married, however she is pleased with the present association. They reside beneath the identical roof however sleep individually. When he feels amorous, he has permission to slide into her room, until her door is locked. If it’s locked, he should return to his personal room and hope for higher luck subsequent time.
The film takes place within the late nineteenth century and finds the characters at a stage in life at which they’re realizing that they’re greater than midway by. There’s a way of poignancy in regards to the preciousness of time and the passing of the seasons, all someway made extra intense by the sheer fantastic thing about the French countryside. Meals are non permanent, and so are seasons and relationships and lives. By some means director Tran Anh Hung faucets into the sweetness and disappointment of that.
“The Style of Issues”: Drama. Starring Juliette Binoche and Benoit Magimel. Directed by Tran Anh Hung. In French with English subtitles. (PG-13. 136 minutes.) In theaters.
Nonetheless there’s no getting round that it is a 135-minute film with numerous scenes of individuals both cooking or consuming. If it’s a must to watch somebody cooking or consuming, Juliette Binoche is nearly as good a alternative as any, however even she will’t make scintillating leisure out of chewing, stirring a pot and placing on oven mitts.
The film additionally seems like an previous concept, a product of the late twentieth century foodgasm film fad that produced these classics, “Babette’s Feast” (1987) and “Like Water for Chocolate” (1992). However at the very least when you see this film, you’ll discover out that the dessert we name “Baked Alaska” is called a “Norwegian omelet” in France.
Attain Mick LaSalle: mlasalle@sfchronicle.com
