Tirez sur le caviste (2009)

Gérard lives as a winemaker on his estate in southwestern France. He is a gourmet, a perfectionist in every respect, and a loner. He is married to a woman who, unfortunately, is a terrible cook. When she once again ruins the céleri rémoulade, he pulls a pistol from the table drawer, shoots her, and then eats at a restaurant where the food is prepared to his satisfaction. He tells the neighbors that his wife has gone to Rwanda for an aid project. In the park, he watches a young drifter spooning céleri rémoulade out of a plastic container. He speaks to her, and she explains how céleri rémoulade ought to be made. He then offers her a job as his cook. Her céleri rémoulade is perfect; as Gérard observes, she has the gift of a Michelin-starred chef. But then the problems begin: She regularly sleeps in, starts flirting with his farmhand, which displeases Gérard, and does not stick to the menu he has prescribed in detail. When she once again cooks something “wrong,” he completely loses his temper and brutally presses her face into the plate of food. The girl is horrified, and her anger is plain to see on her face. While searching through used clothes in the attic to send to Rwanda—supposedly to his wife—she finds bundles of money in a laundry bag. And once again, a meal has supposedly gone wrong. Gérard flies into a rage, throws himself on her, and nearly chokes her to death. A little later, he apologizes, but accuses her of being a lesbian and says lesbians can’t cook anyway. This triggers a flashback: She remembers her lover, with whom she used to travel around, rob shops, and then blow the money in five-star hotels, and with whom she planned to open a gourmet restaurant in Portugal. She remembers her stepfather, who repeatedly abused her mother, and how she shot him during one such assault, with the unfortunate result that her mother was also killed. The film then tells the story from her perspective: how she met Gérard and what she thinks of him. At the next meal, she watches him closely. As he is about to have a fit of rage over the failed stuffed artichokes, she reaches into the table drawer and shoots him. She gets rid of the body by dragging the dead man to the wine cellar, opening the hatch to the cesspit, and lowering the corpse into it. The body disappears into the black mass; bubbles rise, and a body comes to the surface—it is a woman’s body. She packs the plastic bag of money into her suitcase, leaves the house, and decides that next time she will prepare the artichokes with lemon.