The best films on the kitchen have familiar tropes. Food must be delicious, meticulous and artistic cuisine, capturing the profession and dedication. However, many programs and films on the kitchen also concern the way in which the art of cooking is hell, and all those who work in a kitchen cross trenches night after night, with enough stress to destroy almost anyone. This is part of what is the best episodes of “The Bear” so convincing, as well as family drama, funny moments and enough nail situations with nails to eliminate all hunger that could come from delicious food in the series.
Whether you enjoy each new episode of “The Bear” as long as possible or you look at it as quickly as possible, you will finally go through the withdrawal of the theater, and this is when you need to watch the best new Appletv + show of the year: “Lent”. This is a show that does not only present sequences of chefs and chefs who try to offer new dishes, but they are constantly threatened with execution for a tumultuous period in French history. It is also a fantastic vision of the biopic genre that reinvents the story of the first famous leader in a story of political intrigue and romance, revealing how food helped Napoleon – and perhaps helped him lose it.
That’s right. It is a biopic show that is not only a kitchen drama, it is also a political thriller on the rise of a dictatorship and how the resistance can come from the most discreet sources. This makes “Lent” a program with each “fan of” and “The fan should also watch, now that the best” Star Wars “project in 40 years is finished.” Lent “is essentially like the Tony Gilroy Show but more sexy, with more food and as many French people.
What if a biopic was not dull and predictable?
“Lent” is a dramatization of the history of the first famous leader, Antonin Carême (Benjamin Voisin), a talented cook at the time of Napoleon who ends up working as a chef for Diplomat Charles Talleyrand (Jérémie Renier), who owns a lot of diagrams involving the first consul. It is a rather spectacular vision of biopic, which belongs to the same category as the “strange: the story of Al Yankovic” than projects that completely reinvent the life of their subject and choose a fun history rather than historical precision.
Of course, the spectacle follows certain tropes of biopic origin, such as the way in which it depicts the most famous achievements of Lent as the popularization of the chef’s hat or the croquembouche as great and situ discoveries, but that’s almost everything. “Lent” is mainly like an attempt to place a bunch of historic people on a board like chess and tell a wild fictitious story about the way in which Napoleon’s rise in power occurred because of a single former opportunistic bishop and his leader. This Lent is more a modern rock star than a chef, with an earring, clothes that looked more like the 1980s than in the 1780s, and an impetuous and too confident personality that looks like Gordon Ramsay in his many television reality TV shows.
This “Lent” is co-created by Ian Kelly, who wrote the book on the chef’s biography and his gastronomy, only adds to the strangeness of the program, which tries to opt for wild fantasy and authenticity at the same time. You see, there is technically no knowledge that Lent was a spy, but he never really talked about his personal life, so he could have been! He made the cake for Napoleon’s wedding cake, so who means that he did not bake it in a specific attempt to deliver a hidden message that would influence French foreign policy?
The show constantly uses food as a diplomacy tool, using important guests, attracting a future empress with tasty desserts and even delivering secret messages in the confectionery. There is also a fascinating representation, on the outskirts, of the response of people to the Revolution and at the time when Napoleon’s call to order has turned into another authoritarian regime.
Food as a tool for the revolution
Director Martin Bourboulon, already responsible for the adaptation in two very successful parts of “The Three Musketeers” by Alexandre Dumas, gives the History of Lent a successful air, an epic scope that feels up to the film “Napoleon” by Ridley Scott – but with more sex and more than one attitude of rock. There are sumptuous cabinets and extravagant sets, and it really seems as expensive as any other Apple TV + show (which says something). Like “Andor”, he has an exquisite production conception that really paints an image of the period he represents (real or other), making you feel the scope of a country transforming into an empire and the anger of a people who was fooled by those in power.
All this is represented through food. There are a lot of fantastic scenes from Marie-Antoine Carême creating incredible dishes, showing the beauty of French cuisine, but this is how food is linked to the political intrigue which makes “Lent” a spectacle that deserves to be watched. This is a show on the power of food to influence people, bring them together or separate them. Take a scene in which Lent convinces Louis XVII to give up his claim from the French throne by literally making a ratatouille so good that he returns to his childhood in a scene drawn directly from the film Pixar, without rat.
It is ridiculous, exciting and he has interesting things to say about the rise of Napoleon and the answer to the Revolution, while featuring a lot of hot hot romance and delicious food. Whether you are in historical fiction, shows on food or stories of political intrigue and revolution, “Lent” is worth it.
