Le Goût Des Autres [DVD]

This is an excellent film but the English subtitles are a disgrace. they have translated perhaps one third of the text, but even that is not enough to grasp the meaning of the film, particularly in a film so dependent upon dialogue. In many instances only the first part of a sentence is translated 'Do you believe...?' or 'I spoke to him about it....' - while the content is entirely omitted. It ought to be an offence to sell a DVD in this condition.

"The taste of others" is basically a story about conceptions and preconceptions, and the role they play in everyday life. The taste of the characters, when confronted with the taste of others, sometimes seems merely a pretext to judge and exclude them...

The plot is relatively simple: a prosperous industrialist, Castella (Jean-Pierre Bacri), needs to learn English, something that he really doesn't want to do. A subordinate arranges him a meeting with Clara (Anne Alvaro), an English professor that doesn't strike Castella as overly good due to the fact that she doesn't have a specific method to teach English. However, things change when he is dragged to the theatre by his wife and witnesses Clara playing the main role in "Berenice", a drama by Racine. By a strange twist of fate, Castella falls in love with Clara, and decide to take up English classes as a way to be near her. But will that be enough, when Castella is married, and Clara is so different from him?

Besides Castella, his eccentric wife Angelique (Christiane Millet) and Clara, this film includes other stories that relate to the main one but have their own dynamic. Castella's chauffeur, Bruno Deschamps (Alain Chabat), has a girlfriend that is living in another country, and about whom he talks a lot with Franck Moreno (Gerard Lanvin), Castella's bodyguard. The two men are vastly different, but both end up having an affair of sorts with Manie, (played by Agnes Jaoui, who is also the director), a bartender that happens to sell hashish.

All these characters relate to each other, and share their ideas and problems with the spectator, that cannot help but reflect on the same issues discussed in the film, even without noticing he is doing exactly that. I don't know for sure, but I think that might have been the purpose of the director, and that the stories are only the tapestry on which Jaoui weaves the ideas she wants to express.

All in all, I think that this movie is many things, but never boring. In my opinion, "The taste of others" is a very good French film that could have been excellent, if only the ending had managed to wrap up a little better the concepts discussed throughout the movie. All the same, I highly recommend it, and would see it again without hesitation :)

Belen Alcat

"It Takes All Sorts", was added to my Amazon shopping basket on a whim, without any prior knowledge of the cast or crew, on my part. I really didn't expect much from it, as it hadn't been widely reviewed and didn't have any of the 'usual faces' in it. The first time that I watched it (about two years ago), it knocked me for six and I swore that I'd come back and watch it again, before committing to an Amazon review.

Well, tonight was the night when I went back to it, to see if it could have the same impact the second time around ... it actually went from 4 stars to 5 in my estimation, this time around!

So, why the (somewhat over-stated) adulation for this film? Simple - it makes me feel both 'human' and 'normal', in one go! OK, these are very personal criteria and you're not here to read about me, but rather to learn something about the film. My point is simply that the characters are both so astonishinlgy vividly realised and at the same time, so astonishingly 'recognizable' (in terms of human nature), that it strikes chords and nullifies the need for an especially busy plot, in one go.

Put crudely; your average 'Hollywood action film' has a ratio of 80% plot to 10% character depiction to 10% sublime marketing ploys. THIS kind of cinema focuses on presenting characters, whom a discerning (as some people found this boring, apparently) viewer can relate to and see almost every facet of human nature reflected amongst the cast. That's not to say that there's NO plot here - it's more a case of the plot being a very down to Earth and plausible one, I believe.

The film deals, primarily, with the need (which we all have) for acceptance and explores how different people go about realizing that need. The core character undergoes a very profound and superbly realized transition form 'the outside to the inside' (or so we are lead to assume) and in the process, calls into question just who (amongst the characters) is being true to their instinctive feelings and who is simply 'making the right noises'. It explores the ways in which we all choose to live our daily lives and does a fantastic job, in my opinion, of pointing out that NOBODY holds all of the aces and that each of us is right (and wrong) to some degree.

As some others have said, this film is not really a comedy. It's more of a light-hearted 'look in the mirror' and will surley have many viewers nodding their heads and thinking, "Yep, been there, had that thought before"!

French cinema has a wide fan-base, outside of France and there's a reason for that - the makers of these films are more in touch with and willing to explore 'The Human Condition', than the majority of film-makers from other regions. As such, fans of this genre should have a serious look at this particular title, as it really does press a lot of the right buttons, without seeming stereotypical or formulaic.

The film seems to have a slightly unusual "rhythm" to it, but despite that, the final two scenes have certainly put a lump in my throat on both occasions that I've viewed them. I love this film - both for it's originality and it's sincerity!

At the time of writing, this DVD only costs £3.98 here on Amazon. If cinematic and artistic merit were the criteria for setting prices, you'd have to add a "0" to the end of that price tag (and move the decimal point ;-), to do this gem justice.

Please buy it and judge for yourself.