Weeking Cooking: The Tasting (Le Degustation)

With each international film festival that is on here in Melbourne I am making an effort to see at least one movie. It will be no surprise to you that my favourite festival is the French Film Festival and It has been running for the last month or so. There were a number of films that I had earmarked to see. I had already seen two, but there were two foodie films that I still wanted to see but I was running out of time. Luckily, the festival was extended by a few days and I convinced my somewhat reluctant husband to come and see this movie with me.

I first watched French actress Isabelle Carré in Romantics Anonymous which is still one of my favourite French movies to watch and which I posted about here. I have since watched her in the movie Delicious (review here) and now in this movie. In a way, this movie has some similarites with Romantics Anonymous, particularly in the first half where we meet two characters who have difficulties in establishing and maintaining romantic relationships.

Hortense is a single woman with a big heart. She is a midwife, she volunteers with a group of homeless men, and she looks after her cantankerous mother. She has one great desire, to have a child, but she has been unlucky in love and so it has never happened for her. Her mother constantly reminds her of her failings.

Jacques is a wine merchant who has been told by his doctor that he needs to stop drinking as he has a heart condition. Jacques is in denial about his drinking. His wine business seems to be struggling but he really seems to be emotionally disconnected from his life. His only real friend is Guillerme, the local bookseller.

Jacques is convinced to give an internship to a young man called Steve who lives in a homeless shelter. In return for giving Steve some work he will receive some badly needed funding. At first, he asked Steve to help clean up the basement, but Steve wants to be doing more glamourous customer work

Hortense meets Jacques when she comes to the wine store to buy a bottle of wine. Soon she is returning more often, even buying quite pricey wines to take to serve to the homeless men she cooks meals for. She notices a poster saying that there are wine tasting classes available and so Jacques agrees to run a lesson, even though it will be quite difficult for him given that he can't actually drink the wine. Now, he just needs to find some other people to come to the classes. And so it is that Hortense, Guillerme and Steve attend the tasting class.

The first half of the movie is very much a comedy, but as Jacques and Hortense get to know each other we learn their secrets, and the movie takes a more serious turn. There are reasons why Jacques has closed himself off from the world. And Hortense has her own plans for the future that very much will influence their relationship before it even gets started.

I really enjoyed this movie. It was a lovely way to spend a couple of hours on a rainy Saturday afternoon, and Robert also laughed out loud and enjoyed the movie. And now I am thinking about watching Romantics Anonymous again.

Here is the trailer for The Tasting.

The two movies that I did see where The Innocent and Two Tickets to Greece. The other movie I wanted to see what Sugar and Stars (French title À LA BELLE ÉTOILE) so I will be trying to find that so that I can watch it. We also saw the trailer for a Gerard Depardieu movie called Umami. Now, I have studied the festival program at length and yet I never noticed this film. Now I need to find this movie to watch too.

The next festival is the German Film Festival, and I am sure I will find something to watch, although I haven't decided on which one yet. Unfortunately it doesn't look like there are any foodie films on this list this year. Maybe there will be some in the Spanish film festival which is the one after.

Weekly meals

Saturday - Steamed fish, veggies and rice

Sunday -  Chicken Cacciatore

Monday - Easter Celebration Cake

Tuesday - Nasi Goreng

Wednesday - Tuscan Chicken Pasta Bake

Thursday - Takeaway

Friday -BBQ

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