By means of this scene, the place no person says something past “Put the veal within the oven”, we piece collectively the relationships. It is so gratifying to get to know characters by watching what they do (versus hearken to them discuss themselves). An incredible quantity of data is conveyed with out dialogue. There’s Dodin Bouffant (Benoît Magimel), overseeing the meal, and in addition cooking himself, splitting time by visiting together with his visitors. His accomplice within the kitchen is Eugénie (Juliette Binoche), who tends to her work with apparent pleasure, her face lit up, happy on the success of an extended day’s toil. She’s not only a good prepare dinner. She’s an artist. The 2 assistants are teenage ladies, Violette (Galatéa Bellugi) and Pauline (Bonnie Chagneau-Ravoire), who work silently and obediently. Pauline is new to the kitchen, and nonetheless a toddler, however she is a gastronomic prodigy, in a position to identify all of a broth’s substances merely from the style. Dodin and Eugénie acknowledge and domesticate her reward.
Based mostly on the favored French novel The Passionate Epicure (1920), written by Marcel Rouff, “The Style of Issues” options many such scenes, prolonged delectable cooking scenes, however it’s the first which establishes the movie’s rhythm. One does not even discover the size of the scene, as a result of what is going on is so soothing and pleasurable. The historical past of “meals motion pictures” is an extended one, however there’s by no means been meals as scrumptious trying because the meals created by Dodin and Eugénie. You possibly can nearly scent the aroma of these broths, pastries, chickens.
However “The Style of Issues” has deeper layers linked to all this meals preparation. Dodin and Eugénie have been working aspect by aspect for twenty years. How Eugénie got here to dwell with him isn’t actually expressed, though he’s such a well-known epicure that maybe she traveled there to supply herself as an apprentice. The gentle encouraging method during which she treats Pauline suggests a private identification with the kid. Dodin and Eugénie share occasional nights collectively, the place he walks by the darkish halls of the manor home and knocks on her door. This, too, has most likely been happening for 20 years. Dodin has proposed to Eugénie quite a few occasions. She at all times turns him down. Their relationship is one among mutual respect, not simply as folks, however as fellow obsessives. Cooking collectively, for them, is an act of creation.