Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2439 in DVD
• Released on: 2001-11-19
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
• Formats: Anamorphic, PAL, Widescreen
• Original language: French
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 108 minutes

Special Features
2.35 Wide Screen
16:9 Anamorphic Wide Screen
DVD 9
French
Region 2
Dolby Digital 5.1 French
Dolby Digital 5.1
Original Theatrical Trailer
English

Synopsis
French screenwriter and actress Agnes Jaoui's assured directorial debut is a funny, clever, and moving examination of the intertwining love lives and differing cultural standpoints of an unlikely group of men and women. When Castella (Jean-Pierre Bacri), a successful factory owner bored with his workaday life, unwillingly accompanies his shrill, high-strung wife, Angelique (Christiane Millet) to a performance of Racine's BERENICE, he falls hard for the lead actress, Clara (Anne Alvaro). Meanwhile, during the performance, Castella's chauffeur, Deschamps (Alain Chabat) has a surprise run-in with Manie, (Agnes Jaoui) a bartender with whom he once had a one-night stand. This touches off a discussion about women and sex with Castella's hard-edged bodyguard, Moreno (Gerard Lanvin), who warns Deschamps about his romantic naivete. Castella's new goal to pursue the intelligent, sophisticated Clara is aided by fate when she becomes his English instructor. Clara, along with her artistic friends, however, is less than enthralled by Castella's tactlessness and lack of culture. At the same time, the soulful Deschamps, cynical Moreno, and cool, carefree Manie enter into an unexpected relationship. Jaoui's accomplished, funny tale features excellent performances, and is a wise look at the complexities of love and the errors people make in falsely judging each other.

DVD Description
Castella is a rich and lonely man who has built up a successful business but who has lost sight of himself and his family. Clara is a middle aged actress who lives for the theatre yet craves for a family and security. She teaches English in her spare time - which is how she meets Castella. It is only when he sees her performing in the theatre that something is sparked inside him.

Customer Reviews

Conceptions and preconceptions, and the role they play in everyday life...
"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

A wonderful gem of french cinema
This is one of the best and finest films which I have recently watched. A touching story of several ordinary people, whose lives twisted by chance on some point. They strive for love and understanding, for escaping a senseless routine, for bringing new meaning in their lives. Trying to do their best, they make awkward mistakes, misunderstand each other... It is beautifully filmed and directed, with attentive, loving and forgiving look into human nature. I watched it twice, laughing and crying at the same time, and highly recommend it to everybody. It is a gem.

Witty, sharp, sophisticated comedy of manners -- excellent
Beautifully drawn characters, play out little episodes in their lives. The story is bitter-sweet, full of funny little turns and sharp dialogue (which, it has to be said, grates sometimes in translation into an over-Americanised slang).
The inter-play between the main characters is superb throughout both in spoken and unspoken ways. Many of the non-dialogue moments are absolutely crystalline in the way that they capture the empathy between the principals. No great dramatic moments or hair-raising car chases; no declaiming of stirring speeches or histrionic grand-standing. But you finish watching the film with a feeling of genuine satisfaction in having seen a finely-crafted piece of work written, directed and acted by people who knew exactly how to tell an excellent little story