Die Köchin und der Präsident

I've only seen Catherine Frot in one other movie--Coline Serreau's stunningly complicated CHAOS and she was marvelous. So when HAUTE CUISINE showed up on Netflix, I jumped at it. I love movies about food--WHO IS KILLING THE GREAT CHEFS OF EUROPE?, BIG NIGHT, MOSTLY MARTHA, EAT DRINK MAN WOMAN, BABETTE'S FEAST. They almost always manage to find humanity, absurdity and gently funny moments associated with food. Based on the real story of the first female chef who comes to cook for President Mitterand at the Elysee Palace, HAUTE CUSINE is a sweetly earnest story of Hortense Laborie, a fine French cook who is pulled away from her truffle farm in France to become the personal chef of the French president. Along the way she will encounter the petty and mean-spirited competition from the all-male kitchen that serves the palace, as she works tirelessly to provide the President with the foods he remembers from his childhood. The story is told in flashbacks as Hortense s finishing up a year-long stint as a cook for a research group in Anartica.

What makes the film work is the casting of Catherine Frot as Hortense. This superb actress gives Hortense a tense, focused and convincing believability. Horrtense arouses total loyalty from her sous chef and maitre'd as the palace personalities around her make life often rather difficult. Losing her calm only once, Frot has a confrontation in the movie that is a very satisfying answer to the pettiness she is surrounded by at the Palace. It is in stark contrast to the grateful affection she is shown by the men she cooks for every day in coldly forbidding Anartica.

HAUTE CUISINE is a quiet film of disarming charm. It doesn't break new ground, but it is a very satisfying movie which Catherine Frot at its center. Some have complained here that is a trifle and I'm not entirely disagreeing, but it is a movie worth seeing. I know I'll be seeing it again.

Being the president's chef at the Elysée Palace is of course an honour which compares to nothing else. No woman has been worthy of the title before. Not until now.

No surprise she gets difficulties from male colleagues. No matter she retaliates by the most complicated receipts, although the president says he longs for simple food from his childhood. It's almost parodic and makes you long for something from the fridge.

A rather common against-all-odds flick. You know what will happen and it happens. And you will think twice before you enter a good French restaurant again. You're not worthy

It is a strange thing that food and the movies go so well together. Strange because the show on a screen of food being prepared or being consumed should be anything but palatable insofar as it can be seen but not tasted or even smelled. And yet, the eating process, whether it is the main subject of a movie ('Babette's Feast', 'Eat Drink Man Woman', 'A Chef in Love', among others) or only an incidental feature (most strikingly so in nearly all of Hitchcock or Chabrol's thrillers), is not far from being a guarantee of quality. The reason may lie in the fact that directors who choose as their heroes characters cooking or eating refined food also vote for what is associated with it: the art of living ; as a matter of fact hedonism is a notion that passes directly from authors to viewers without the disadvantage of frustration. Whatever the explanation, the rule is verified once again with "Les Saveurs du Palais", eclectic French filmmaker Christian Vincent's last opus. The main theme is of course haute cuisine, which would have been enough to make a good film, but the good news is that there is even more to "Les saveurs du Palais" than that. Not only will this fine movie make your mouth water but it will also give you food... for thought!

The story, somewhat loosely adapted from Danièle Delpeuch's memoirs, concerns Hortense Laborie (as Delpeuch is renamed in the film), French President François Mitterand's personal chef from 1988 to 1990. The chronicle of the two and a half years she spent in the kitchens of the Elysée Palace allow Christian Vincent to tell a multi-layered tale : "Les Saveurs du Palais" does not simply bear witness to the mastery of its hero's art of cooking it also makes the viewer discover little- tread territory (the presidential cooks' machismo, the rivalry between the Elysée Palace's two restaurant services, the new supremacy of technocrats who favor budget cuts over creativity, the tastes changing with the passing of time, the rather pathetic portrait of a President at the end of his rope). Continued interest is therefore ensured. The construction in flashback form is interesting and the direction good without being ostentatious. But what really determines the success of the film is the choice of its star, Catherine Frot. The actress is indeed just perfect in her role: she is every inch Hortense Laborie and arouses immediate identification. Another added value is Arthur Dupont in the role of her assistant. The young performer displays a very likable charm, made of bashfulness mixed with irony. The "couple" he forms with Catherine Frot is simply irresistible. To make a long story short, "Les saveurs du palais" is both a sensual and intelligent movie that will delight wide audiences. And I presume that you will be in that number. And that is not all, you can even double your pleasure by... having your meal AFTER seeing Christian Vincent's little treat, instead of BEFORE. Such a move will doubtless give an Elysian taste to what otherwise would have been mere food!

No one is going to nominate this as one of the 10 greatest movies of x. There is nothing cutting edge here, etc.

It is, however, an interesting story well told and very well acted, especially by Catherine Frot, who seems to do everything well. I've seen it twice now, and never once looked at my watch. It really holds you.

In part, of course, it is because it presents what is now, at least in part, a dying part of traditional French culture: a respect for food in all its potential richness, and a willingness to spend the time necessary to make and appreciate it. The meals that Hortense prepares aren't frou-frou. They don't, as the president says at one point, have little sugar roses on them. It's not how clever it looks.

It's how interesting the mixture of tastes are, an attention to taste and the freshness of ingredients that is necessary for those tastes, that French tradition holds to have been the gift of every good grandmother - NOT of expensive Parisian restaurants.

This could be compared to the wonderful but very American movie *Ratatouille*. Near the end of that, the evil food critic Anton Ego goes into ecstasy over a portion of ratatouille because it evokes the ratatouille that his mother used to make. A pretty simple dish. Not, granted, mac and cheese, but still, not complicated.

The dishes Hortense makes for le président, which repeatedly evoke memories of childhood, are NOT simple. They require both a lot of time and a lot of technique/knowledge regarding their preparation. That French grandmother did not make them in 15 minutes, but rather several hours, or even days for the preparation. It is, in short, a different vision of how grandmother spent her time, one that in each case is, I suspect, filtered through the values of the respective cultures. (TIME and KNOWLEDGE make for good food, vs. love makes for good food.)

I don't know if this all comes through in English subtitles. My copy of the film has no subtitles. But it's definitely worth a viewing. It didn't make me hungry - I can't imagine having access to such meals here in the U.S. - but it did emphasize that, even for a bunch of young Frenchmen such as those at the French base in Antarctica, there is still a respect for time and skill in food preparation that is one of the distinguishing hallmarks of French culture.

In this movie, we follow the steps of a woman chef that is proposed to be the personal cook of the French president. Of course, the main theme is cooking and the movie is an ode to a certain cooking, taking time, carefully selecting ingredients, that denotes personality.

A second interpretative framework is added to that - and makes seeing the film worthwile. We are indeed put in the wings of power. Of course, not the one of the politic advisers,, of the lobbyists, ... But from the kitchen, we can still smell the battles of influence (symbolized by the one with the central kitchen), the reluctance of change (a woman chef?), standardization and optimization against quality and taste (choice of ingredient, nutritionist against the chef cooking, ...), and finally the wear and tear power implies.

Catherine Frot and Arthur Dupont are displaying their talents in this movie (I'm more reserved about Jean d'Ormesson's performance but what else could be expect from him?).

In conclusion, a nice movie, it will not go down in history, but you will spend a nice moment. (A final note: do not watch it hoping to learn about Mitterrand, that is not what you'll get)