| THE TASTE OF OTHERS Director: Agnes Jaoui "I knew that I had no techinical know-how, or very little, so I wanted to keep it as simple as possible. I wanted to do my best for the script and for the actors who I trusted. That's why there are a lot of one-shot sequences." Agnes Jaoui The Taste of Others, directed by Agnes Jaoui isn’t, as the title may suggest, about cannibalism, nor does it deal with a kinky subject matter. Instead it is a romantic comedy about how opposites attract and specifically how people from different social circles intersect with one another in amusing and ironic ways. The setting is a French suburb where, over the course of a few weeks, various interesting characters become involved with one another as friends, lovers and acquaintances. The main character is a successful businessman named Castella (Jean-Pierre Bacri) who has hit a midlife crisis and become bored with both the daily routines of his job and his marriage to a neurotic woman. As chance would have it, one night she drags him to a play their daughter is in and by the end he has become so captivated with the lead actress that he feels he has fallen in love with her. The actress, whose name is Clara (Anne Alvaro), also just happens to be his newly hired private English teacher. Castella returns to the play over the next couple of nights and then begins to romantically pursue Clara. He imposes himself on her and her set of friends - who take him for such a hopeless fool that they quietly mock him behind his back. But there is something touching about the guy (plus he’s rich) and over the course of a few weeks Clara slowly warms to him. Two of the more interesting characters are Castella’s bodyguard (Gerard Lanvin), who tags along with him everywhere he goes, and his chauffeur (Alain Chabat) who drives them around to various clubs, shops and galleries in the suburb. The bodyguard and the chauffeur - who sort of become the droll centerpiece of the film - begin to hang out with a drug dealing barmaid named Moreno (played by the director Ms. Jaoui) and in a short time after each man has slept with her the bodyguard considers proposing marriage. Like most romantic comedies there is a good amount of humor about the woes of relationships, the silly misunderstandings that accompany them and the usual struggle to find their meaning but nothing ever gets too serious. Yet, because this is a French comedy, not all the plot threads get tied up in the end. The only questionable aspect to the film is that none of the characters is really that different from one another. They basically are all white middle to upper middle class people. Other than the fact that this is a message movie, about finding love where you least expect it, it is also an exceptionally well acted one with well-developed characters and a strong script. It’s worth seeing if you like the kind of subtle comedy/drama the French seem to do so well, plus it’s nominated for an Academy Award for best foreign language film. - Matt Langdon |
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