5 Totally Delicious Films

Review of 5 Films about Food

Why do many directors make films about people who cook, eat, and serve food? This is maybe because a cook book is one of the best guides inside a human soul. Below are the five films about the most sincere and powerful human experiences: love of a mother, of a brother, love between a man and a woman, courage, strong will, passion and faithfulness. All these feelings reveal themselves through meat rolls, jellied minced meat, risotto, soups and chocolates. Talented and world-known actresses like Meryl Strip, Penelope Cruz, Tilda Swinton, Juliette Binoche cook in these cinematic kitchens.

To experience the whole range of pleasures (aesthetical delight combined with olfactory pleasure and joy of taste) you may watch these films and cook.

Julie and Julia: Cooking Prescription for Happiness, 2009

If your husband is a diplomat you can play poker all the time, go to secular parties or sew hats. After trying all of these occupations vivacious American Julia Child realized that her true passion is French cuisine. So she decided that cooking would be her vocation for life. As she graduated from Cook Academy "Le Cordon Bleu", she wrote a book about French cuisine that she dedicated to the "servantless American cooks." Years later, another American Julie Palmer set a goal to cook all the dishes from the cook book and wrote about her experience in her blog. 524 recipes in 365 days: raspberry jelly with skimmed milk, stuffed boneless duck, lobster, beef in wine and many other French delights. As an aside, Meryl Strip who plays the leading role is a bad cook, according to her own words, and she cannot do without a cook's help.

Home-made mayonnaise is an inevitable part of a happy family life, according to Julia Child.

Julie and Julia

Return, 2006

What did Raimunda, the main movie character, start her restaurant business career with? Raimunda's husband tried to seduce her daughter, his daughter-in-law, and the wife killed him. The corpse had to be hidden in a fridge inside a restaurant, that the woman surveyed by the request of her neighbor. At the same time Raimunda's beloved aunt from a near-by village passed away very mysteriously. Raimunda's sister then began communicating with the ghost of her mother. This plot could become a scenario for a horror film, but in fact turned out to be just a touching movie about beautiful women, motherly love and tasty food.

Penelope's character cooks in a restaurant that she had to survey and she cooks home-made Spanish dishes.

By the way, Return is not the only film in which Penelope cooks. She also played the role of a TV show animator where she spoke about recipes and conquered half of the USA by her beauty and cooking skills.

Return (Volver), 2006

I am Love, 2009

Is there any way to show the beginning of a big love affair? Yes. The director of the film "I am Love" showed this through food: several silent shots where the character tries food that was cooked specially for her by a man. How can a married and respected woman declare love to this man in the presence of his mother? Tilda Swinton's character shows her gratitude for the dish of risotto and shrimps in such an emotional way that the further development of their love-story becomes evident.

The authors of the film showed their good taste: the cast is great, the scene is one of the most beautiful Italian cities, costumes of a famous designer and the high quality cuisine including eggplants with elder-berry, pickled yellow, and pea soup with zucchini.

The film is beautiful, subtle, colorful as well as the author's cuisine - delicate, complicated - a jewel of a work and only for the gourmets!

I am Love

Soul Kitchen, 2009

The restaurant theme is to be continued by the film of a German director of an Arabic origin Fatih Akin. The main motif of all the films by this director is the mixture of different cultures, the interlacing of the East and the West. In "Soul Kitchen" the topic is extended by the cuisine in the Fusion style by the chief cook Michel.

The film begins with cooking of convenience foods: French fries, packaged soup, frozen meat balls. All in all there are more than forty dishes like that in the restaurant's menu. And the gloomy customers from the outskirts of Hamburg are quite satisfied with this kind of menu. Things change when the owner of the restaurant hires a super chief cook. Michel is an ambitious cook, who was fired from his previous job because he refused to heat a gazpacho in a microwave. The chief cook creates a menu that makes the restaurant one of the most popular places in the town. Good music and Aphrodisiacs make the place good for night parties.

It's like a good mixture of yin and yang, two dishes in one.

Soul Kitchen

Chocolat, 2000

Chocolat is for the dessert. It's a beautiful story about a shop-owner in a quiet French town. Every visitor who tastes sweet delights cooked by Vianne, comes back inevitably. The secret of her chocolate is not only about the ingredients, but also about her ability to guess the tastes of the customers. Vanilla, cinnamon, bitter and milk chocolate, truffles and sugared fruit cater to everybody's tastes.

Famous Jonny Depp played together with Binoche. He performed his usual role of a sea traveler, a gipsy and a pirate. The couple managed to role-play a magical love-story.

To feel the taste and the aroma of this film, cook chocolate delights before watching it.

Chocolat, 2000