A CHEF IN LOVE
(LES MILLE ET UNE RECETTES DU CUISINIER AMOUREUX)
A film review by Steve Rhodes
Copyright 1997 Steve Rhodes
RATING (0 TO ****): **
50ish Frenchman Pascal Ichac (Pierre Richard) meets a beguiling Georgian Princess named Cecilia Abachidze (Micheline Presle) in director Nana Dzhordzadze's A CHEF IN LOVE, the Georgian nominee for best foreign language film in last year Academy Awards. With her toothy smile and red curly hair, she looks more like a seductress from a D. H. Lawrence novel than a princess. With his salt 'n pepper hair and beard and his bewitching smile, he charms her into staying with him as his lover even though he is thirty years older.
(Although I liked KOLYA, the Academy Award winner for best foreign language film last year, my favorite of the nominees remains Berit Nesheim's THE OTHER SIDE OF SUNDAY. Sadly, it is the only one that still does not have a U. S. distributor. Is anyone listening out there?)
A CHEF IN LOVE opens in the present day in Paris where their grown son Anton (Jean-Yves Gautier) has been given his father's memoirs. The story quickly skips to the 1920s to tell of Anton's parents' love affair. Although we come back periodically to see Anton reading his father's papers, almost all of the action happens during a brief period in the past.
The word action is probably a misnomer since little "action" transpires in A CHEF IN LOVE. The script by Andre Graill and Irakli Kvirikadze meanders from one small event to the other with no narrative drive joining them, which is not necessarily bad. With strong acting, characters can imbue any scene with power and relevance. The two leads, Richard and Presle, in A CHEF IN LOVE, are quite good looking, but their acting in this film is rarely compelling.
Pascal is both an opera singer and a chef. After falling in love with his princess, he fulfills his dream of opening a restaurant, New Eldorado, in the capital city of Tbilisi. He runs it until the revolutionary troops come.
With a title of A CHEF IN LOVE, I expected many sumptuous scenes of food with lots of close-ups, but the scenes rarely occur, and the cinematography by Georgi Beridze is pleasing but nothing special.
The movie becomes little more than a series of disconnected incidents. Typical is an early scene where the two lovers go to a restaurant and become angry because they are served inferior food. When they see rich people about to get some prime pork, they steal the restaurant's only pig. Another scene has Pascal throwing flour on Cecilia in the kitchen. She then runs out into another room looking like a ghost.
None of the film's episodes are involving, and the whole movie left me feeling cold and detached. A handsome film certainly, but I've seen much prettier. Even if I credit the film with more beauty than it possesses, the movie is like a meringue -- briefly tasty, but with no substance.
A CHEF IN LOVE runs 1:35. It is in French with some Georgian, and both are subtitled in English. The film is rated PG-13 for brief nudity and a little profanity. It would be fine for kids say 9 and up. I am not able to recommend the film, but do give it ** for its nice images.
**** = A must see film. *** = Excellent show. Look for it. ** = Average movie. Kind of enjoyable. * = Poor show. Don't waste your money. 0 = Totally and painfully unbearable picture.
REVIEW WRITTEN ON: May 1, 1997
Opinions expressed are mine and not meant to reflect my employer's.
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