Film: Tampopo (1985)
Director: Itami Juzo
Country: Japan
When I think of Japanese movies, there is a certain stereotype that comes to mind: three hours of black-and-white samurai in the sengoku period running frantically about killing and dying for their honor.
It's either that or giant fighting robots manned by androgynous teens who have have pet adorable creatures to help them battle some evil force hellbent on tentacle raping everything in sight.
Tampopo is pretty much the opposite. It is a series of elaborate spoofs about Japanese culture with the main story line of a woman, Tampopo, who is trying to recharge her dismal noodle shop.
Skits poke fun at salarymen, the elderly, marriage, gangsters, children, white people, and homelessness, etc. This sounds a bit nonsensical, but what brings everything together is food.
There is rarely a moment where there isn't some sort of delicious food on the screen, whether it is being eaten, prepared, looked at, sniffed, described, discussed, poked, caressed, or eroticized.
Imagine every movie stereotype you can think of, but stick a food item in between the action. A homeless man breaks into a building and makes an omelet. An expert conman swindles an associate, only to be undone by his love of Chinese dumplings. A handsome gangster has a secret tryst on the beach with a beautiful young woman... and a raw oyster.
Needless to say, things get sexy, and very, very weird.
Besides appealing to those with a borderline food fetish (myself included), this movie is actually funny. Foreign humor is often hard to convey, but Itami has somehow succeeded in creating a movie that, even through the lens of one specific culture, is still funny abroad.
The more you know about Japanese food, movies, and culture in general, the funnier the movie will be, but even with no knowledge of the nihonjin you'll still find plenty of humor in Tampopo.
Final word: Tampopo will make you laugh, make you think, and - without a doubt - make you very, very hungry.
