Les saveurs du Palais

Les Saveurs du Palais is for those who like their dramas without the drama - it offers some insight to French internal politics, but much more, it is simply a charming way to celebrate la cuisine francaise.

A gentle, well-made drama-comedy based on the real-life experiences of Danièle Delpeuch who really was Mitterand's cook - this fictional account places heavy emphasis on the food and takes us on a journey to the heart of the French cuisine - perfection and simplicity. The film starts on Antartica's Crozen Island and through flashbacks we see how the president's personal cook, fictinally named, Hortense Laborie, ended up there.

Catherine Frot has become one of France's best actresses for dramas that require a still, calm, composed center, with the hint that passion is simmering under the surface - her slightly bemused but determined trademark style makes this film work - it is a wonderful solo performance - and she is in every scene - and she brings a delicacy to the role that makes the film a delight to watch.

Not surprisingly perhaps the film lacks a little when it comes to conflict and drama - there is good drama - but, it is rather a look into the Champs Elysée and its internal workings. A strong supporting cast, particularly her young sous-chef (Arthur Dupont), who is rapidly becoming a name in French cinema, and the President (Novelist Jean D'Ormesson - who is a superb and prolific biographer but is not a professional career actor). Director Christian Vincent makes great use of permission to film in and around the president's palace and like the food the two settings, the Champs Elysée and in Antartica's Crozen Island lift the film.

Overall, this is a charming, and interesting take on food and it's place throughout French society - it is well worth your time.

Have you ever caught yourself planning where to have dinner… even while you're eating lunch? Singapore, as all who live here know very well, is a nation obsessed with good food. As far as humanly possible, many of us live to eat, rather than eat to live. So it's easy to see how a treat like Haute Cuisine – a thoroughly French film that greatly reveres the art and mastery of cooking – might hit the spot with local audiences.

No-nonsense, straight-talking Hortense Laborie (Catherine Frot) – inspired by the real-life Danièle Mazet-Delpeuch – runs her own truffle farm in the French countryside. One day, she's rushed down to Paris to meet a potential employer: the President of France (Jean d'Ormesson), who's modelled after François Mitterrand. With the help of her sous-chef Nicolas (Arthur Dupont), Hortense prepares culinary feasts for a man who hankers after the down-to-earth home cooking of his childhood, even as she's forced to deal with politics and jealousy in the kitchens and corridors of the Élysée Palace.

As a main course, Haute Cuisine serves up much for discerning movie- goers to savour. Hortense emerges as a formidable presence, her strength of character shining through her battles with the unwelcoming men in charge of the Palace's main kitchen. (Mazet-Delpeuch was the first female chef to serve in the Palace.) Her conspiratorial friendships with Nicolas and Jean-Marc Luchet (Jean-Marc Roulot), the President's maître d, are charmingly developed and effectively juxtaposed with her year-long sojourn in Antarctica spent cooking for a very different set of consumers. The film is beautifully shot, making good use of its access to the Palace grounds and lingering lovingly over Hortense's culinary masterpieces.

Just don't expect to have your mind blown or your tastebuds completely tantalised. This is a competent, solidly-made film, but it trades a sense of dramatic urgency for its more gastronomic delights. Hortense's creations will have you salivating in your seat, rich and clearly delicious. Her few face-to-face meetings with the President, however, are sweet and understated rather than the stuff of history. Ultimately, Haute Cuisine is the cinematic equivalent of a good, solid meal – satisfying but not necessarily something to shout from the roof-tops about.

Part of the appeal that drew me into beginning to watch this movie was the thought that it may have a bit of a show detailing some of the more eclectic french cuisine. While there was a bit of that, the food was definitely not as big of a character in the picture as I had assumed.

We get to see the side of the main character, Hortense, that is a dedicated chef and detail oriented person. And the real treat of the movie is watching that personality deal with the challenge of being the executive private chef.

Overall, the characters in this movie really make it special. And while the pace of the movie is very even, and almost predictable, it is still a special slice of life type movie that I walked away from uplifted.

The subject is OK and unfamiliar and 'Scope Eastmancolor production values are handsome - the close-ups of food are near obscenely gorgeous.

Catharine Frot and the cast (largely unfamiliar abroad, even with Hipolyte Gyradot in there) impress though the eighty five year old TV personality fronting as President of the French Republic does seem a bit too fragile and we have to wonder about the accent of the Australian TV reporter pursuing Catharine. The Elysses Palace and the remote Iceland expedition are intriguingly shown.

However we are left wanting the revelation, which they build up cross cutting the two situations, and it never arrives, stopping this from being more than a pleasant enough offering for the LADIES IN LAVENDER audience.

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.