In the center of the festival conversation stands The Passion of Dodin Bouffant, the latest work by Vietnamese director Tran Anh Hung. The film tracks a moving bond between a celebrated gourmand, played by Benoit Magimel, and the extraordinary chef who has been at his side for two decades, portrayed by Juliette Binoche. Beyond its intimate love story, the movie emerges as a heartfelt homage to France’s culinary and wine traditions, a nod to a life immersed in kitchen craft and the refined pleasures of good food. The director has long lived in this world, and the film becomes a tribute to the rituals, the patience, and the artistry that go into cooking well.
From the opening minutes, the film unfolds in a dazzling stage of preparation. A feast unfolds in meticulous detail with courses that speak of consommé, vol-au-vent seafood, custard turbot, lamb with Brussels sprouts, and the celebrated Norwegian omelette dessert. The sequence captures more than technique; it reveals the devotion behind crafting the perfect meal and the joy the act of sharing it inspires. It examines the rules and rituals that govern a professional kitchen, and it justifies a life devoted to dining as a form of hedonism and celebration for the palate and the soul. The film invites viewers to linger on the textures, aromas, and rhythms that define culinary performance and the lasting memories created around the table.
Tran Anh Hung’s gift for translating sensuality into image and sound is on full display. The director has previously shown this talent in films such as The Scent of Green Papaya and Midsummer, where sensory perception becomes a narrative language. Dodin Bouffant does more than whet the appetite; it presents a portrait of love born from shared devotion to the stove. The movie speaks with a generous eloquence about how the right menu can light up even the heaviest sorrows and offer solace in difficult times.
Moretti and the belly button
Italian filmmaker Nanni Moretti is a Palme d’Or veteran thanks to The Son’s Room, and his body of work also includes the comic energy of Caro Diario, a film that blends autobiography with playful, neurotic humor. Since then, Moretti has revisited that blend of self and art in ways that reveal both a political sensibility and a deep interest in family life. The latest title presented in the same competitive frame as Dodin Bouffant signals a continued quest to measure his life, work, and beliefs from a perspective that leans toward introspection rather than outward self-critique.
The protagonist of the movie, named Giovanni, mirrors Moretti’s public and private persona. He wrestles with a depressive mood while directing a movie about communism in 1950s Italy. His wife has grown weary of the constant drive of his art, and the project’s pressure becomes a metaphor for cinema itself, with Netflix and the public appetite for gratuitous violence acting as external pressures. The film becomes, in many ways, a walk through a personal retrospective that nods to Moretti’s own career, a self-constructed meditation that blends autofiction, sentimentality, and a touch of surrealism. Through this lens, the narrative method reveals how the passage of time reshapes storytelling and the way a filmmaker’s voice evolves when faced with changing themes and audiences.