Film Review: Haute Cuisine (2012)

The English title is Haute Cuisine.

Hortense Laborie runs an acclaimed cookery school in the south of France until one day, much to her surprise, she's whisked off to Paris and the Elysee Palace to be the personal chef to the President of the France. The personal chef's function is to cater the President's lunches as well as any small dinners for close family and friends. The much larger main kitchen handles bigger and more formal events. Hortense is told that what the President wants is traditional, classic French cuisine, the kind of food his grandmother made. Hortense follows these instructions to the letter, but after two years the bureaucracy and the in-fighting with the main kitchen wear her down and she resigns. She then takes a one year job as the cook at a French research station in the Antarctic.

If that plot description sounds bare bones, so is the execution of the film, which, as it turns out, is what makes it so good. The story is based (loosely) on the career of an actual chef who did the cooking for Francois Mitterand. Christian Vincent, the director and writer of Haute Cuisine, concentrates his story exclusively on the craft and logistics of cooking in the Elysee Palace. It would have been terribly easy, and tempting, to add in a romantic sub-plot or a comic/dramatic blowup with the main kitchen, but none of these things happen.Vincent has an interesting story and character to work with and he lets those elements pull the audience along. The style and purpose of the film is neatly described in a scene with the President, who complains that his former personal chef was always decorating desserts with sugar roses, which were beautiful but unnecessary. There are no sugar roses on this film.

If the story is unadorned, the look of the film certainly isn't. There's a fair amount of gastroporn on view here, and the interior of the Elysee Palace is one giant sugar rose. Glamour shots of food and furnishings aside, this is a beautifully crafted film with pitch perfect casting, dialogue, and understated yet elegant cinematography; in sum, it's as carefully and lovingly made as some of the food on display. Special mention to Catherine Frot who takes the lead role and creates an interesting character out of not much raw material.

Book Review: Parisians: An Adventure History of Paris (2010) by Graham Robb

There's no shortage of books about Paris. From tourist guidebooks to histories to memoirs about living in the City of Light there's a book for tout le monde. This also means there isn't a lot to say about Paris that hasn't been said many times before. Graham Robb gives it a good try, but he's not entirely successful. Parisians is basically an anecdotal history of Paris that touches on some of the least known and most mysterious aspects of Paris's history. Robb attempted something similar with The Discovery of France, the story of the country's incredible range of landscapes, and how for much of French history this rich variety was unknown to most of its citizens. It's a brilliant book that's witty, illuminating and constantly surprising.

Robb tells his pocket histories in story form rather than as straight historical essays. I can't say that that choice adds anything to the book except added length, which may have been Robb's intention. Some of the stories offer some remarkable information, such as the assassination attempt made on Francois Mitterand that was, in all probability, a fake organized by Mitterand to give himself a higher political profile. That's a good story. On the other hand, do we need a story about Napoleon's first trip to Paris? There is absolutely nothing new to be told about the man. About half the Paris "stories" are compelling, but the rest just add minor details to some very familiar historical figures and incidents.

Speaking as a francophile, I have a high tolerance for just about anything written about France and the French. I watch the Tour de France just for the scenery and (fingers crossed) the epic crashes. I draw the line at Johnny Hallyday, but beyond that I'm game for anything from Asterix to Zola. That said, Parisians had a hard time holding my attention.