Vietnamese-born director gets 7-minute standing ovation after Cannes premiere

During the premiere on Wednesday, Tran Anh Hung said: “What an excellent opportunity for me to have worked with Juliette [Binoche] and Benoît [Magimel], and the others, of course.”

“This film is my declaration of love to the French, to the French’s spirit which is so magnificent.”

“La Passion de Dodin Bouffant” director Tran Anh Hung (third to the left) and his family, lead actress Juliette Binoche (second to the right), and gastronomic director Pierre Gagnaire (far right) on the red carpet during the film’s Cannes premiere. Photo from Festival de Cannes’ Facebook

After his speech, the audience, including Cannes artistic director Thierry Frémaux, applauded for a further minute, before bidding him and his wife, actress Tran Nu Yen Khe, goodbye.

“La Passion de Dodin Bouffant” was adapted from French author Marcel Rouff’s 1924 novel “La Vie et la passion de Dodin-Bouffant gourmet” (The Passionate Epicure).

The film is a historical drama set in the 19^th century and tells the story of a chef named Eugénie (Juliette Binoche) and a gastronome named Dodin (Benoît Magimel), who have worked together for 20 years before finding they have emotions for each other.

The picture has received positive acclaim from critics.

“Hung resists overlaying the action with music,” Guy Lodge wrote in his review in Variety.

“All the better to focus on every pop and chop and sizzle of the cooking process, every soft grunt of bliss in the eating, every shared sigh or sotto voce instruction between its two entwined chefs.”

The Guardian regarded the film as “beautifully shot,” while for Deadline, it features a “beautifully handled treatment of cookery as both poetry and performance art.”

Tran Anh Hung, 61, attended the prestigious École Louis-Lumière film school in France. His work “The Scent of Green Papaya” received an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language Film.

It is the only Vietnamese-language film to be nominated for an Academy Award.

In 1995, Hung won the Golden Lion award at the Venice Film Festival for “Cyclo.”

He also directed the film adaptation of Haruki Murakami’s famed novel “Norwegian Wood” in 2010 and was nominated for the Golden Lion.