The term “gastroporn” got thrown around a lot when The Taste of Things was in cinemas recently, but I’m not sure it’s quite right for Tran Anh Hung’s sumptuous culinary romance, seductive as all the cookery on display is. Though it has many a languid, exquisitely lit pan over the finished dishes created by Benoît Magimel’s 19th-century gourmet – including a giant, glistening vol-au-vent that I’ve been thinking about for months – it’s less about money shots than it is about foodie foreplay. The film’s greatest pleasures are in its extended sequences of preparation and process; the silently, adoringly intuitive collaboration between Magimel and Juliette Binoche’s fellow cook; the thrill of watching experts at work. OK, and there’s a near-seamless match-cut from a perfectly poached pear to Binoche reclining in the nude: not so much gastroporn as gastroerotica.
