A Matter of Taste

Review By: Peter Nastasi
PeterNastasi@TheCinemaSource.com

To describe A Matter of Taste as a psychological thriller is misleading. Within the first five minutes of the film we know who will be killed, and we know who will kill him. Here is a psychological portrait of a relationship that does not follow the template of the thriller. There are no sudden plot twists in the final reel. At no point is loud music cued to make us jump from our seats. Bernard Rapp follows in the tradition of great directors such as Alfred Hitchcock, creating tension where there should be none, making us squirm with subtlety rather than in-your-face tactics.

As the opening credits roll, we are reintroduced to food as something more than just fuel for life. We watch a kitchen full of student chefs hard at work, preparing various dishes. The camera cuts from one close-up to another as we watch the students: plucking a bird violently, slicing a cucumber with clinical skill, stirring madly at a simmering pot, cracking bone away from raw meat, chopping herbs with fierce back and forth motion. One of the last images we are left with is a pig’s head, apple jammed in its mouth. Food is power struggle, sexual posturing, and everything in between.

Bernard Giraudeau stars as the neurotic millionaire Frederic Delamont. He wants to hire a food taster to shield him from fish and cheese, two foods he has an almost preternatural aversion to. The taster would accompany him on business meals, which seems normal enough, but Delamont also wants a personal taster so he can prevent himself from being poisoned. He fears with every meal that he may be poisoned, not necessarily maliciously, but by chance, accidentally, or so he says.

Jean-Pierre Lorit costars as Nicolas Riviere, a working class man who waits tables. He lives with his newsvendor girlfriend Beatrice (Florence Thomassin) and another couple—a somewhat bohemian existence to serve as foil to Delamont’s capitalistic lifestyle. After Nicolas brings a complementary appetizer to Delamont’s table one day, Delamont asks that he taste it and tell him the ingredients. Nicolas impresses Delamont so much that Delamont decides Nicolas will be his food taster. While Frederic is definitely impressed with Nicolas’s refined palette, he actually spends more time discussing his physical appearance. Despite some mystery surrounding the position, Nicolas eventually accepts it, unable to pass up the enormous salary. And one of the queerest relationships in recent cinema is born.

Nicolas undergoes a rigorous initiation/training, cut off from all human contact except for Frederic, and is starved to the point of exhaustion, allowed only morsels at a time. The objective is to hone Nicolas’s tastes so they resemble Delamont’s even more. After being completely cut off from all fish and cheese through the entire training session, Nicolas is rewarded with a gluttonous feast of the forbidden foods. When ...