A CHEF IN LOVE

Set in the Soviet Republic of Georgia in the early 1920’s, this tale of food, love and Communism takes place when a young artist Anton (Jean-Yves Gautier) is asked to translate manuscripts written by his chef uncle Pascal Ichak (Pierre Richard) in his last wretched days under Communist rule. Through flashbacks, Anton relives his mother’s friendship with Pascal and her death at the hands of her husband. In the manuscripts, we learn of the start of the relationship between Anton’s mother, Cecilia, and Pascal.

They met on a train, sharing the same car. She was a beautiful and spirited Georgian princess. The young Cecilia (Nino Kirtadze) was 20 years younger than Pascal, but they forged a bond immediately. Lovers ever after, they headed towards the capital city of Tbilisi in Georgia where Pascal wants to open a new restaurant. Along the way, they stop for food at a village inn and run into trouble with the innkeeper’s son, Zigmund (Teimour Kahmhadze), whom Pascal will later encounter, yielding disastrous results.

Pascal’s sense of smell is so acute that when he goes to a ballet performance with Cecilia, he sniffs out gunpowder and uncovers a bomb placed under the President’s seat. At the performance, he meets up with Zigmund, the bomb planter. The President is so grateful to Pascal for saving his life that when Pascal finally opens his restaurant, the New Eldorado, the President inaugurates it.

Pascal and his restaurant gain fame, with Pascal surpassing himself with his cooking, but the good times come to an end when Communists take over Tbilisi and the New Eldorado. Pascal is treated shabbily and is reduced to living in the attic, eating food brought to him by Cecilia, who has been forced to marry Zigmund. Things for Pascal gets worse, and he decides to take matters into his own hands. Anton discovers more than he had wanted as he goes through the conclusions of the manuscripts.

It is simply amazing that this film has earned an innocent PG-13 rating. There are themes of promiscuous sex, fornication, adultery, implied rape, and sexual activities, not to mention intended murder and actual murder, suicide and animal violence. Many of the scenes are vulgar and threats of brutish communism are vagrantly displayed. It is not a film intended for children of any age.

The film demonstrates Pascal’s intricate skills with gourmet cooking, and indeed there are extended scenes showing his abilities as he merrily cooks for one and all. Everywhere, there are long glimpses of harvest-fruits toppling over one another in luscious heaps on tabletops and grapes hanging from the vines, but this is the deceptive surface of the film. Scratch the delicious surface, and all the wonders of harvest and gourmet cooking cover over aspects of lifestyle that bear no reflection of moral values.

This is an entertaining film only from the aspect of an amusing storyline, but the immorality of the characters throws a much dimmer light on the film.