Film review: 'A Chef in Love'
Following the example set by the likes of "Babette's Feast" and "Big Night", Nana Djordjadze's "A Chef in Love" deftly mixes food and storytelling with tasty results.
While not as entirely effective as its models, this Oscar-nominated, France-Georgia co-production is nevertheless an interesting and intricate hybrid -- part history lesson, part culinary showcase, part love story, part mystery, part satire.
The art house set should find it pleasing to the appetite, although not particularly filling.
Jean-Yves Gautier stars as Anton Gogoladze, a Republic of Georgia-born, Paris art curator who meets up with a cigar-smoking, older woman (Micheline Presle) who happens to hold the key, in the form of a yellowed manuscript, that unlocks his family's colorful past.
It turns out the woman is the niece of the late globe-trotting chef and bon vivant Pascal Ichac, a former gigolo and tenor whose life and book, "1001 Recipes of a Chef in Love", were highly regarded by Anton's mother.
As he begins to translate his way through the brittle pages, the setting pingpongs between modern-day Paris and 1920s Georgia, where his young mother, Princess Cecilia Abachidze (Nino Kirtadze) meets up with the gregarious Ichac (Pierre Richard) and discovers his passion for extravagance extends beyond the kitchen and into the boudoir.
But their idyllic existence is soon trampled upon by the advancing Red Army, and in particular a young, headstrong officer (Teimour Kahmhadze) who has had his eyes on the princess for a while.
Djordjadze's lively cast delivers, especially a full-of-verve Richard and the intriguing Kirtadze, a Georgian journalist with minimal screen experience. But the film's constant "two-timing" ultimately serves to distance the viewer from the rich, almost surreal back story.
On the plus side, the filmmaker, along with director of photography Guiorgui Beridze, certainly get the most out of the exotic Georgian backdrop, not to mention the culinary aspect. They present a world where even an innocent bunch of grapes can be transformed into a portrait of lusty abandon.
A CHEF IN LOVE
Sony Pictures Classics
Director Nana Djordjadze
Screenwriter Irakli Kvirikadze
Adaptation Andre Grall
Producer Marc Ruscart
Director of photography Guiorgui Beridze
Production designers
Vakhtang Rouroua, Teimour Chmaladze
Editors Vessela Martschewski,
Guili Grigoriani
Music Goran Bregovic
Color
Cast:
Pascal Ichac Pierre Richard
Marcelle Ichach Micheline Presle
Cecilia Abachidze Nino Kirtadze
Zigmund Gogoladze Teimour Kahmhadze
Anton Gogoladze Jean-Yves Gautier
Running time -- 95 minutes
MPAA rating: PG-13...
While not as entirely effective as its models, this Oscar-nominated, France-Georgia co-production is nevertheless an interesting and intricate hybrid -- part history lesson, part culinary showcase, part love story, part mystery, part satire.
The art house set should find it pleasing to the appetite, although not particularly filling.
Jean-Yves Gautier stars as Anton Gogoladze, a Republic of Georgia-born, Paris art curator who meets up with a cigar-smoking, older woman (Micheline Presle) who happens to hold the key, in the form of a yellowed manuscript, that unlocks his family's colorful past.
It turns out the woman is the niece of the late globe-trotting chef and bon vivant Pascal Ichac, a former gigolo and tenor whose life and book, "1001 Recipes of a Chef in Love", were highly regarded by Anton's mother.
As he begins to translate his way through the brittle pages, the setting pingpongs between modern-day Paris and 1920s Georgia, where his young mother, Princess Cecilia Abachidze (Nino Kirtadze) meets up with the gregarious Ichac (Pierre Richard) and discovers his passion for extravagance extends beyond the kitchen and into the boudoir.
But their idyllic existence is soon trampled upon by the advancing Red Army, and in particular a young, headstrong officer (Teimour Kahmhadze) who has had his eyes on the princess for a while.
Djordjadze's lively cast delivers, especially a full-of-verve Richard and the intriguing Kirtadze, a Georgian journalist with minimal screen experience. But the film's constant "two-timing" ultimately serves to distance the viewer from the rich, almost surreal back story.
On the plus side, the filmmaker, along with director of photography Guiorgui Beridze, certainly get the most out of the exotic Georgian backdrop, not to mention the culinary aspect. They present a world where even an innocent bunch of grapes can be transformed into a portrait of lusty abandon.
A CHEF IN LOVE
Sony Pictures Classics
Director Nana Djordjadze
Screenwriter Irakli Kvirikadze
Adaptation Andre Grall
Producer Marc Ruscart
Director of photography Guiorgui Beridze
Production designers
Vakhtang Rouroua, Teimour Chmaladze
Editors Vessela Martschewski,
Guili Grigoriani
Music Goran Bregovic
Color
Cast:
Pascal Ichac Pierre Richard
Marcelle Ichach Micheline Presle
Cecilia Abachidze Nino Kirtadze
Zigmund Gogoladze Teimour Kahmhadze
Anton Gogoladze Jean-Yves Gautier
Running time -- 95 minutes
MPAA rating: PG-13...
- 4/23/1997
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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