In nineteenth-century France, gourmet Dodin (Benoît Magimel) and cook Eugénie (Juliette Binoche) have nurtured trust and love over twenty years. The film opens with an over thirty-minute-long meticulous depiction of the kitchen, as a feast is prepared for Dodin’s gourmet club. While this initial long sequence artistically portrays cooking through food preparation, tasting, and evaluation, a later scene where Dodin cooks solely for Eugénie shows how cooking for a beloved can express love in a language more potent than words. In essence, The Pot-au-Feu isn’t about the eccentric preferences of gourmands, the challenges faced by cooks, or behind-the-scenes story about the battlefields that are kitchens, but rather, a poetic romance brimming with love. The character of Dodin was inspired by Marcel Rouff’s novel The Passionate Epicure. Directed by Tran Anh Hung, known for The Scent of Green Papaya (1993) and Cyclo (1995), it won Best Director at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival. (LEE Juhyun)