Trân Anh Hùng’s “The Taste of Things” is no popcorn movie.
Concession stands are downright vulgar compared to the farmhouse kitchen at the center of Hùng’s tranquil story about food, art and passion. Set in fin-de-siècle rural France, the movie opens with a nearly wordless sequence in which the camera spends half an hour delicately dancing around Dodin, a prominent gourmet chef, and Eugénie, his celebrated cook, as they prepare an exquisite meal that will be received by an appreciative company of epicureans.
“The Taste of Things,” which screens Friday for a third and final time at the Milwaukee Film Festival (4:30 p.m., Downer Theatre), spurns the whip pans of, say, Hulu’s “The Bear,” choosing to instead extract its ingredients from slow, enchanting gastro-classics like “Babette’s Feast” and “Big Night.” Marked by sensuous colors, natural lighting and rigorous period costumes, the movie’s autumnal production design reflects the way Dodin and Eugénie are meticulous about their process of making elaborate dishes; for them, cooking is an art form, but it’s also their main language. When words fail, they speak through food.
There’s something deeply endearing about the way Dodin and Eugénie simultaneously treat recipes, and each other, with reverence. In one vulnerable scene, Dodin scrupulously tailors a table to Eugénie’s palette. The meal is his love letter, of course, which is why he nervously waits for her response. But “The Taste of Things” is more about the constitutional connection—the mind meld—between people than simple romance. It knows that relationships can be an art form, too.
Eventually the movie transforms its menu, throwing salt at the viewer in ways that ought not be spoiled. That these turns feel entirely earned owes a great deal to the leads, Benoît Magimel and Juliette Binoche. Formerly a real-life power couple, the middle-aged French legends deliver mature, sophisticated performances that seem at ease with the complicated contours of life.
The final passage of “The Taste of Things” presents not one but two perfect closing shots, including a doubled 360-degree pan that breathtakingly coalesces Hùng’s ideas about what it means to be in harmony, to give and grieve, and to find renewal. Like the gorgeous Vietnamese summer opening to Hùng’s “The Vertical Ray of the Sun”—one of my favorite moments in all of cinema—it achieves a rare ambrosial effect.
Baked into the Milwaukee Film Festival is FOMO—for example, foodies who missed the sole screening of “Menus-Plaisirs Les Troisgros,” Frederick Wiseman’s four-hour documentary about a lauded French restaurant, will have to settle for streaming it via PBS—but fortunately the fest’s final week offers extra helpings of many key attractions.
Below are suggestions for each remaining day of the Milwaukee Film Festival, which closes April 25.
Thursday, April 18
“We’re famous!,” crow two senior citizens after learning they are the subject of a Silver Alert. Geezer jokes are pumped intravenously into “Thelma” (7 p.m., Oriental Theatre), an agreeable comedy starring June Squibb as a grandma determined to recover $10,000 from a phone scammer. While bluntly making its point about retaining agency in late life, “Thelma” cleverly spoofs action spy capers—one priceless gag involves closing a pop-up ad as if defusing a bomb—and warmly embraces its characters, including those played by Richard Roundtree, Parker Posey, Clark Gregg and Fred Hechinger, one of our most exciting young actors.
Friday, April 19
If you can’t make it to “The Taste of Things” formal dinner, “Late Night with the Devil” (9 p.m., Avalon Theater) offers a spicy midnight snack. Presented as the long-lost recording of a Seventies TV talk show that was buried after a live Halloween broadcast turned unholy, this twist on the “found footage” genre sends up the late-night format with considerable period accuracy and gleeful practical effects. It’s flawed, but there’s dark art in how it equates supernatural evil with the ratings-seeking malevolence behind every TV’s glow.
Saturday, April 20
After co-directing “The Little Mermaid,” “Aladdin” and “Moana,” John Musker retired from Disney in 2018 and decided to make “I’m Hip,” his own hand-drawn cartoon. The four-minute result, which was shortlisted for an Oscar, is included in MFF’s “Shorts: Let’s Get Animated” program (9 p.m., Avalon Theater). Featuring an insufferable cat declaring his “hipness” through song and dance, the movie possesses a jazzy, throwback spirit that, for me, made it the clear standout in a collection with no duds.
Sunday, April 21
Twenty years ago I saw “Dig!,” Ondi Timoner’s revealing music documentary about a seven-year span in the lives of Anton Newcombe and Courtney Taylor-Taylor, the respective frontmen for the Brian Jamestown Massacre and the Dandy Warhols. They were neighbors, friends, admirers and bitter rivals. For “Dig! XX” (7:45 p.m., Downer Theatre), a digitally-enhanced anniversary edition, Timoner has added 35 minutes of previously unseen footage.
Monday, April 22
With back-to-back screenings at the Oriental Theatre, enterprising filmgoers can fashion a “compatriots” double feature of new works made by contemporary Japanese masters. Come for Hirokazu Kore-eda’s “Monster” (2 p.m.) and stay for “Evil Does Not Exist” (5 p.m.), Ryûsuke Hamaguchi’s follow-up to his Oscar-nominated “Drive My Car.”
Tuesday, April 23
Set in 1992, Minhal Baig’s “We Grown Now” (7 p.m., Oriental Theatre) sensitively traces the adventures of Malik and Eric, a pair of young best friends living in Chicago’s Cabrini-Green public housing complex. Some of the dramatic moments falter, but this family affair, screening ahead of its nationwide release on May 10, finds its rhythm when striving for poetry rather than realism.
Wednesday, April 24
“Gasoline Rainbow” (9 p.m., Times Cinema), which opens later in May, follows a group of teenagers who drive off to see the Pacific. By hiring non-actors and encouraging improvised scenes, directors Turner Ross and Bill Ross IV have once again blended fiction and nonfiction. Their impressionistic “Tchoupitoulas” was one of my highlights of the 2012 Milwaukee Film Festival, so I’m eager to see this new film, especially since it’s been compared favorably to “Easy Rider” and “On the Road.”
Thursday, April 25
More straightforward storytelling propels “Io Capitano” (4:30 p.m., Oriental Theatre), an Oscar-nominated Italian film about two naïve Senegalese boys making a perilous Mediterranean voyage to Europe. This unsparing migrant saga sometimes treads water—you’ve seen these horrors before—but director Matteo Garrone injects surprisingly fantastical touches and wisely lets Seydou and Moussa be fully realized people, dreamers and maybe even heroes, rather than object lessons.
The Milwaukee Film Festival started April 11 and runs through April 25. The full lineup plus ticket and venue information are online at mkefilm.org/mff.