The Taste of Others

Starring:Anne Alvaro, CÃ©line Arnaud, Jean-Pierre Bacri, Robert Bacri, Marie AgnÃ¨s Brigot, DÃ©sir CarrÃ©, Brigitte Catillon, Alain Chabat, Xavier De Guillebon, RaphaÃ«l Dufour, RÃ©ginald Huguenin, Sam Karmann, GÃ©rard Lanvin, Anne Le Ny, Jean-FranÃ§ois Levistre, Christiane Millet, Jean-Marc Talbot, Wladimir Yordanoff, Bob Zaremba
Studio: Miramax
Product Type: DVD

Amazon.com

"Funny, I never thought it would work. He's so different from me." Agnès Jaoui, scripting with her longtime writing and performing partner, Jean-Pierre Bacri, makes a deft directorial debut with this delightful romantic journey of missed opportunities and second chances. Bacri is poignant and piercing as a gauche petit-bourgeois businessman who discovers a world of art and magic missing from his empty, self-contained existence after he watches an emotionally devastating theater performance. Equal parts buffoon and born-again romantic, he fumbles through a new world and emerges as the soul of this story. Jaoui brings a light touch and a fresh perspective to familiar situations. Behind the comic characters and wry wit is a sympathy for her lonely souls and a celebration of the painful joy of their rediscovery of the possibilities of life. --Sean Axmaker

Description

Fun, sexy, and richly rewarding, THE TASTE OF OTHERS earned an Academy Award(R) nomination as Best Foreign Language Film (2000). The lives and loves of several completely opposite men and women artfully intersect in what becomes a delightfully funny web of romantic entanglements! While negotiating differences in wealth and status, style and taste, this vivid collection of characters mix and match in outrageously volatile combinations! Internationally acclaimed for its sexy comic sophistication -- expect the unexpected from this uncommonly entertaining motion picture!

Customer Reviews:

Conceptions and preconceptions, and the role they play in everyday life..........2005-12-12

"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 the concepts discussed throughout the movie a little better. All the same, I highly recommend it, and would see it again without hesitation :)

Belen Alcat

"You should live in Disneyland.".......2005-09-23

Is it advisable--or even possible to form a relationship with someone who does not share the same tastes or interests? This question is at the heart of the subtle French comedy from director Agnes Jaoui. In "The Taste of Others" affluent French businessman Castella (Jean-Pierre Bacri--the film's co-writer and Jaoui's real-life husband) decides to take English lessons, and so teacher Clara (Anne Alvaro) turns up at his office. Castella and Clara don't exactly hit it off, and it's clear that he expects some sort of express way of learning English. Castella abruptly tells Clara he'll get back to her about the language lessons, and that, apparently, is the end of their relationship.

Castella's wife, Angelique (Christiane Millet) drags him off to the theatre. This is a place Castella obviously doesn't want to be. He sits glumly in his seat, rolls his eyes, and looks utterly fed-up, but then he notices Clara playing the lead role. Castella is captivated by Clara's performance, and this visit to the theatre becomes a transforming event in Castella's life. He begins attending the theatre, hanging out at gallery openings, and joining the theatre crowd after performances.

Castella is the ultimate philistine industrialist who doesn't know the first thing about theatre. He lives in a huge mansion furnished by his 'decorator' wife, and his life is geared towards making money--not enriching his mind. Apart from possessing appalling taste (which includes surrounding herself with endless floral patterns, frills and flounces), Angelique is an inoffensive woman--a little out of touch with reality, but devoted to her dog. Castella compares living in his frill-dominated house to living in a "candy dish", and when he buys a painting at an art gallery, Angelique objects because it "doesn't go." Is Castella's pursuit of culture really just a pursuit of Clara, or have art and culture given new meaning to his life?

While Clara becomes annoyed with Castella's attentions, the film's subplot also follows the relationship between Castella's bodyguard, Moreno (Gerard Lanvin) and barmaid, Manie (director/writer Agnes Jaoui). Moreno must accept Manie's unconventional lifestyle if he wants their relationship to last. Castella's pursuit of Clara becomes a voyage of self-discovery, but there is a great deal about Manie that Moreno finds irksome. Any new relationship can potentially push the participants into unchartered territory, but at what point do "The Taste of Others" stop being different and become unacceptable? This delightful French film is a gentle social comedy--light on the romance--and pleasantly introspective--displacedhuman

for ADULTS only!.......2005-02-04

No, this film isn't remotely pornographic, not even a single delectable bare breast the whole two hours...can you believe that it's really a FRENCH relationship drama???

Well, aside from the lack of pleasantly gratuitous nudity that normally adorns most French films...YES. Here's why:

1. It's about 90% character-driven. There is something of a plot, but it exists mainly to give the characters something to do while unfolding to us who they really are...and refreshingly, there is zero judgement on the part of the film of any of the main characters. They simply are what they are.

2. There are no simplistic "good" vs. "bad" guys. Instead this film is populated with (gasp!) very believable and human characters who are just familiar enough to elicit the smiling "aha, they remind me of so-and-so!" mental balloon from the viewer, yet free of glib stereotyping so as not to bore us or insult our intelligence. (Read: the French film industry doesn't rely on focus groups to dumb down its movies for the lowest common denominator like Hollywood does.)

3. Sex is treated just as...well, sex. No stupid puritannical or moralistic hangups, no hypocritical voyeurism, no infantile romantic fairy tales. It's just something men and women do, whether for love or simple random pleasure, and whether it's two men or a men and a woman is completely irrelevant. OH MY GOD...this film is just sooooooooooo RADICAL!!!

Aside from those three simply earth-shakingly audacious qualities, this film just has a wonderfully mature, elegantly restrained manner which is almost unheard of these days. Yes the pacing is leisurely (like most French movies) are but never drags (unlike many), because the characters prove to be so deeply human and real not formulaic, so we can't help caring about what happens to them next.

I was especially stunned to find out that the actress who plays Manie, a sexy but subtlely (and irresistibly) spunky, solidly independent young woman who tends bar and deals hashish, is also the film's (first-time) DIRECTOR. Holy Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed and Elvis, I wanna move to Paris!

Life Imitates Art Imitates Life.......2004-05-15

THE TASTE OF OTHERS may not be for the taste of everyone, but for those who delight in the oh-so-French form of character examination, then this is a film for you. From the very beginning of the movie we feel as if we just dropped in on some French people who are having varying discussions that seem extemporaneous, loose and unrelated: nouveau riche businessman Castella (Jean-Pierre Bacri) discusses mundane notions with his clueless 'decorator' wife Beatrice (Brigitte Catillon); Castella's worldly bodyguard Bruno (Alain Chabat) passes the time with his rather boring buddy Franck (Gerard Lanvin); middle aged actress and English teacher Clara (Anne Alvaro) pines away at how her life in the arts is aimless; bartender Manie (director Agnes Jaoui) ponders why men are so fickle as lovers...you get the picture. But the beauty of this film is how the story interweaves these various isolated 21st Century people's lives and in doing so makes many valid comments on the importance of the arts in our lives, the power of 'opposites attract', the need for meaningful relationships to keep us on course, and the varied ways we all view our surroundings, our lives, depending on our individual vantages. Here is a film with wonderful acting, smart ideas well played out, and a musical score that is so varied and good that it is well worth a CD! But again, The Taste of Others will find its own audience depending on others tastes. In French with English subtitles.

Good Taste.......2003-04-13

This is one of my favorite 2002 movies (that's when it arrived in my town). Here is a movie that will surprise you, slowly subvert your expectations and (is it possible?) make you feel good. Ostensibly a movie about relationships, billed as a romantic comedy, it's really a meditation on a collision between the world of art and the world of the bourgeois. Can a businessman be moved to his soul by a moment of art? Can an artist who is sensitive and open to the world also be blind? Lot's of good acting, interesting characters, and a nice slice of contemporary French life. In French with subtitles but the DVD would have an English track.

Charlie Rose with Ephraim Sneh; Agnes Jaoui; Edward Albee (March 20, 2001)

Average customer rating:

Charlie Rose with Ephraim Sneh; Agnes Jaoui; Edward Albee (March 20, 2001)

Manufacturer: Charlie Rose, Inc.
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

( C ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video

General | Educational | Genres | DVD | Video

Description

Ephraim Sneh, Israeli minister of transportation, discusses Ariel Sharon's landslide victory in February and looks ahead to the next stage of negotiations with the Palestinian leadership. Then, French filmmaker and actress Agnes Jaoui talks about her directorial debut in The Taste of Others. Finally, an interview with the playwright Edward Albee on the Broadway production of his latest work, The Play About the Baby.

Average customer rating:

Conceptions and preconceptions, and the role they play in everyday life...
"You should live in Disneyland."
for ADULTS only!
Life Imitates Art Imitates Life
Good Taste

The Taste of Others [Region 2]

ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Comedy | Genres | DVD | Video

( T ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video

Un Air de Famille
La Buche
Look at Me
The Closet
The Dinner Game

ASIN: B00005MGJ6

Amazon.com

Customer Reviews:

Conceptions and preconceptions, and the role they play in everyday life..........2005-12-12

"You should live in Disneyland.".......2005-09-23

for ADULTS only!.......2005-02-04

Life Imitates Art Imitates Life.......2004-05-15

Good Taste.......2003-04-13

The Taste of Others (Le Goût des autres) [ NON-USA FORMAT, PAL, Reg.2&4 Import - Australia ]

Average customer rating:

The Taste of Others (Le Goût des autres) [ NON-USA FORMAT, PAL, Reg.2&4 Import - Australia ]
Director: Agnès Jaoui
Manufacturer: Fox
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

Product Description

Australia released, PAL/Region 2&4 DVD: it WILL NOT play on standard US DVD player. You need multi-region PAL/NTSC DVD player to view it in USA/Canada. LANGUAGES: French (Dolby Digital 5.1), English (Subtitles), ANAMORPHIC WIDESCREEN (2.35:1), SYNOPSIS: Agnes Jaoui co-writes and directs this romantic comedy of manners set in France's rustic Provence. Unpolished and ultra-pragmatic industrialist Jean-Jacques Castella (co-scripter Jean-Pierre Bacri) reluctantly attends Racine's tragedy "Berenice" in order to see his niece play a bit part. He is taken with the play's strangely familiar-looking leading lady Clara Devaux (Anne Alvaro). During the course of the show, Castella soon remembers that he once hired and then promptly fired the actress as an English language tutor. He immediately goes out and signs up for language lessons. Thinking that he is nothing but an ill-tempered philistine with bad taste, Clara rejects him until Castella charms her off her feet. SPECIAL FEATURES: Trailer(s), Scene Access, Photo Gallery, Interactive Menu, Biographies,

Average customer rating:

Le Gout des Autres
Director: Agnès Jaoui
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

Average customer rating:

Conceptions and preconceptions, and the role they play in everyday life...
"You should live in Disneyland."
for ADULTS only!
Life Imitates Art Imitates Life
Good Taste

The Taste of Others [Region 2]

ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Comedy | Genres | DVD | Video

( T ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video

Un Air de Famille
La Buche
Look at Me
The Closet
The Dinner Game

ASIN: B000059SJ0

Amazon.com

Customer Reviews:

Conceptions and preconceptions, and the role they play in everyday life..........2005-12-12

"You should live in Disneyland.".......2005-09-23

for ADULTS only!.......2005-02-04

Life Imitates Art Imitates Life.......2004-05-15

Good Taste.......2003-04-13

Average customer rating:

Conceptions and preconceptions, and the role they play in everyday life...
"You should live in Disneyland."
for ADULTS only!
Life Imitates Art Imitates Life
Good Taste

The Taste of Others
Starring: Anne Alvaro , Céline Arnaud , Jean-Pierre Bacri , Robert Bacri , and Marie Agnès Brigot
Director: Agnès Jaoui
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Comedy | Genres | DVD | Video

( T ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video
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