A Chef in Love

"Bolshevism will disappear, fine cuisine won't." The first film from the Republic of Georgia to be nominated for Best Foreign Film, this delectable bittersweet comedy is, like Tampopo, Babette's Feast and Big Night, a celebration of life as well as food (and other appetites). French treasure Pierre Richard (best remembered domestically as The Tall Blonde Man With One Black Shoe) stars as Pascal, a lusty French chef whose book, A Thousand and One Recipies of a Chef in Love, is legendary. The story of how he reveled in 1920s Georgia searching for "new tastes," fell in love with the delicious Princess Cecilia, opened a famed restaurant and was undone by the Russian Revolution, is told in flashback. Chef's ingredients (boisterous comedy and devastating drama) do not always mix well, but this cinematic feast will satisfy discriminating tastes. Recommended. (K. Lee Benson)