I saw 'Look At Me' when it was released which struck me as quite true to life with one lead character, a daughter, coming to terms that her difficult father will never change. Perhaps I should have seen 'The Taste of Others' first as it is the counter-point to Jaoui's follow-up as it is about a slow unwitting change.
After watching 'Taste/Others', I read reviews including a perceptive one by Roger Ebert, though I felt like Peter Bradshaw, that this film didn't leave as strong impression as I thought it would. It was interesting to read about Agnes Jaoui & Jean-Pierre Bacri's style, ensemble pieces with shifting story lines which make their films difficult to categorise after twenty minutes in. And 'The Taste of Others' is a film about individuals who cannot be easily categorised.
It is initially about Castella, an unsophisticated businessman who is drawn to Clara, an actress & part-time English teacher. She appears in Racine's 'Berenice', a play about a lover spurned because of Roman society's disapproval of her, echoing how her coterie of friends disapprove of Castella later. Her impassioned performance leaves Castella moved. This is a subtle film where scenes inform each other. Life imitates art. Later, we see that her performance is not that far off from her own disappointments in life – as a middle aged actress going nowhere – during a heartfelt confession to her friend Manie. Clearly, Castella possesses a much more sophisticated eye than we first realise in contrast to his sometimes rough manner.
The film then broadens out to become a variant on a theme, examining a number of relationships as a loose collection of characters are drawn together. Castella has a bodyguard, Franck, a former policeman with serious issues about trust (personal & professional) and his chauffeur, Bruno. The film becomes an intricate & deftly written ensemble piece as two apparently disparate, incompatible groups of characters, inhabiting very different social milieus (commerce v art, conventional v bohemian), come into contact, clash and eventually reach some kind of rapprochement.
After a brief fling with Bruno, Manie & Franck become mutually attracted despite themselves, with Bruno more preoccupied with his girlfriend in the US. In a sense, you wonder if Franck's profession as a bodyguard is another comment on the story: he may offer physical protection but the film is about emotional vulnerability, how we are touched despite ourselves and dropping our emotional guards. And in the end, Franck doesn't manage to protect Castella on the one occasion he is needed.
The film is about unlikely romances and friendships (Castella & the gay arty bohemians Antoine & Benoit, his wife Angelique & her long suffering sister-in-law who offers her comfort, even background characters like Valerie, Clara's friend, with a bar-owner). Initially, Castella is drawn both to Clara and her bohemian world with comical results, his ignorance sent up by the cruel mockery of the arty set, but they, too, in a way are guilty of making assumptions by failing to see Castella's hidden depth & open-mindedness.
Clare maintains a wary distance of Castella after he makes a clumsy declaration of his feelings in English, but it is when the businessman resignedly accepts her apparent lack of interest, that Clara begins to realise her own feelings. I did feel that this could have been explored in more detail. For much of the film, she keeps him at arm's length and then towards the end desperately seeks his presence.
I have to admit that I didn't found the film uproariously funny as others. There are amusing moments such as when Manie tells a non-plussed Bruno that they once slept together; the scene where famous tragic playwrights are described as comedians or my personal favourite, the scene in the nightclub where Castella, Franck & Bruno all sit glumly together clearly wishing they could be somewhere else.
'The Taste of Others' deals with emotional themes with a light touch though there is a note of sadness at the end that falls short of tragedy. Franck has long regarded Bruno's attachment to his stuttering long-distance relationship as naïve but it is the bodyguard who ultimately cannot move on or take the leap of faith required when he goes back to Manie to seek a reconcilement. Bruno phlegmatically accepts, with a Gallic shrug of the shoulders, that such is life when his girlfriend ends their relationship.
