TNL Movie Club - Tampopo

[Scourge]

This movie may be hard to find. NetFlix has a copy. Check your local rental places. eBay has several copies for decent prices. It's worth it. This is one of my favorite movies. I'd really like other people to see it so I'm hoping people will seek it out.

Excerpts from the Washington Post review:

'Tampopo' (NR)
By Hal Hinson
Washington Post Staff Writer
June 17, 1987

Juzo Itami, the director of the Japanese film "Tampopo," may be the most impenitent hedonist the movies have ever seen. As a filmmaker, he revels in sensual pleasure, and the spirit of his film is exultant, orgiastic. The movie has been described elsewhere as "Zen and the Art of Noodle-making," but its spirit couldn't be less Zen-like. Itami isn't interested in detachment. He's a zesty, immoderate connoisseur of pleasure-taking in all its forms -- food, sex, movies -- and he jumbles them all together here into a hilarious concoction. It's half movie, half dessert-topping -- a film gourmand's lusty dream.

The movie, which Itami calls a "noodle western," is a rambunctious mixture of the bawdy and the sublime. Primarily, though not exclusively, its subject is food -- or, more precisely, eating. The main story is that of a dishwatery little restauranteuse named Tampopo (which means "dandelion" in English ) who struggles mightily to keep going the modest noodle shop her late husband had opened on the outskirts of Tokyo.

Tampopo is a willing but hopelessly inept cook, and she can't attract much of a clientele. One afternoon, though, a truck driver named Goro (Tsutomu Yamazaki) wanders in with his partner during a downpour and offers his opinion of her cooking in the presence of a gang of rowdies that regularly gathers there. His reward is a sound thrashing -- at five against one the match is hardly even -- but Tampopo, touched by his honesty, nurses his wounds. Also, it seems, his criticisms of her culinary skills have struck a chord, and soon she is begging him to stay a while and help her become a real master chef, to instruct her in the path of the noodle.

...

What fuels the movie's comedy is its characters' exaggerated lack of perspective about their enthusiasms. The movie's ground is the ludicrousness of its characters' passions. It's a parody of the epicure's fetishistic rapture in obscure delights. Itami forces his characters to extraordinary lengths to feed their appetites. In order to attain her goal of becoming a master chef, Tampopo trains like a decathlete, with Goro acting as her coach. And to get just the right recipe for her soup, they're not above bribery or rifling through a successful restaurant's garbage to filch their secrets.

...

Itami has crammed his movie full of allusions and mini-homages to westerns. When Tampopo dreams that a visiting gang of ramen chefs from another restaurant comes to challenge her noodle-making skill, they stride down the street like gunmen out of "The Magnificent Seven." And when the time comes for Tampopo's final noodle exam, Itami films it like a shootout. (It's Gunfight at the OK Bar and Grill.) There are also comical western aspects in Goro, who functions as a sort of combination of Shane -- the mythical hero, who comes to town, sets everything right, and then moves on -- and the tight-lipped, Man-With-No-Name character Clint Eastwood played in the Sergio Leone spaghetti westerns.

...

"Tampopo" is perhaps the funniest movie about the connection between food and sex ever made. But, as you're watching it, the movie's base broadens, and the parallels between the noodle-maker's art and the filmmaker's become richer, sweeter.

...

"Tampopo" is rated R and contains explicit sexual material.


Copyright The Washington Post

It's really not all that explicit, but it does have some kinky weirdness in it.

[bbobb]

Great movie choice Scourge.

Tampopo is one of Juzo's best films. Although Ososhiki is still my personal favorite of his works.

I don't know what's up with the R for Explicit Sexual Material rating though. It's really not.

[Scourge]

I've never seen The Funeral but would like to. I think as a companion piece to Tampopo, if you haven't seen Supa no Onna (Supermarket Woman), I highly recommend it. The Taxing Woman movies and Minbo are really good too, but I enjoyed Supa no Onna more I think. I should really do an Itami marathon to rewatch all these...

I think what sets Tampopo apart from the others I've seen is the homage to classic cinema that Tampopo revels in. Not just the man-with-no-name type western, but the whole film just has a tone to it that is classic. Plus the cinematography and score are beautiful.

There are scenes in Tampopo that are so absurd and yet so touching that it makes for a special film I think. The hobos singing? So left-field but beautiful. The young oyster diver licking the blood off the gangster's lips? I love this movie.

[D_N_G]

damnit, another OOP htf one.

Ive been trying to pick this up at a decent price forever, heard great things about it. This is nowhere to rent around here, and these always end for 30-50 on the bay

also FYI, Itami's the funeral and a taxing woman are both also oop in R1

[Scourge]

You can get region zeros on eBay for $15 and less.

[animegirl]

This movie is awesome. I did finally watch it a few months ago, and it's pretty damn funny and cute. The food couple was wtf, too. I got mine off of eBay for like 10 dollars.

[Compass]

NetFlix has a copy.

No, they don't. It's been in my "Saved" section forever. I think they did at some point, and then someone lost/stole it, and they haven't been able to replace it due to it being oop.

[D_N_G]

You can get region zeros on eBay for $15 and less.

im weird when it comes to my asian dvd collection, i only buy official r1 titles if they were released here. unless its a region exclusive or wont be available for a few years, then i might pick it up but then i replace it when an r1 is released.

i did end up winning an R1 copy, so hopefully ill get it by next week

[Scourge]

Cool, glad you were able to get a copy. Enjoy.

[D_N_G]

i enjoyed this for the most part. the different ways that Juzo presented experiencing food were phenomenal. the old lady in the supermarket feeling textures, the foreigner slurping his noodles and the etiquette class turning tables, the assistant to the execs knowing his french food culture while the execs themselves were clueless, and especialy the main storyline about the exquisite soup/noodle creation. i also enjoyed the many allusions to a western theme especially Goro's character and style. Tampopo (the woman) was very likeable and i thought she gave a great performance, subdued yet emotional. the range of different characters and their combining skills to create the perfect blend was a great addition to the movie

the one thing that felt really out of place was the nudity. all of it could have been done more discreetly or even alluded to. if the nudity were left out, this could easily be a more family centric film. aside from the 15 minutes worth of scenes featuring the gangster, easily relatable is exactly how the film portrays itself. dont get me wrong, i enjoyed the different interactions between the gangster and the girls, these were actually the most creative use of food in the movie. they just kinda threw the flow of the movie into a tailspin

anyways, overall Tampopo didnt quite do it for me to skyrocket it into my faves. ill prob watch it a few more times though in hopes that it may spark something. At this point, I would have to give it a solid B+. Definitely at least worth watching once for its ingenuity and amazing use of food as an inanimate main character.

i picked up 'the funeral' too, and am looking forward to watching it soon as a followup. i want to grab a Taxing Woman, but the R1 is pretty hard to find

Thanks for the recommendation Scourge!