A poster for a screening in Brazil courtesy of the Japan Foundation Tour

I seem to have managed to ‘Log-in’ to the online Japan Film Festival which has, I think, six free films on offer at the moment. The one I chose is Takano Tofu and I enjoyed it very much. OK, it is a conventional family melodrama with comic elements and possibly too sentimental for really critical audiences but it worked for me. The film is set in the coastal town of Onomichi in Hiroshima prefecture. The town is very attractive and is used as a setting in many films but especially Ozu Yasujiro’s Tokyo Story (Japan 1953), featured in the opening and closing of that narrative. The narrative of Takano Tofu includes elements from two of Ozu’s family melodramas, Late Spring (Japan 1949) and Early Summer (Japan 1951). Both these films feature a father-daughter relationship in which there are questions about whether one or the other will marry or re-marry. Ozu was very keen on the transition from the traditional view of ‘arranged’ marriages to the modern style of young women finding their own partners. Takano Tatsuo is a widower and is still working as an artisanal tofu maker, helped out by his grown-up daughter Haru who did once marry but was divorced after only a few years. The tofu is very good and highly-prized by its customers but the old man is stuck in his ways and won’t expand the business despite Haru’s good ideas. Something clearly needs to give.

Tatsuo with the comic chorus intent on finding him a son-in-law

There are some other Ozu elements in the film, including an occasional glimpse of the passing train running a little above the waterfront and moments when we see young boys running through the streets or watching the antics of the adults with bemusement. These moments perhaps reference Ozu’s comedies such as Ohayo! (Good Morning 1959). Takano Tofu is not an arthouse Ozu hommage, its tone is more obviously contrasting its moving underlying narrative with the broad comedy featuring the old man’s cronies who gather in the local barber’s shop run by one of them. There is also what can only be described as a ‘tofu procedural’ element – we get to see the whole process of tofu manufacture and to appreciate the potential for the product in the food supply industry.

Tatsuo and Fumie on the waterfront. She lives on the other side of the channel

The inciting incident which kicks off the narrative is Tatsuo’s realisation that he is possibly not immortal. His angina flares up and he visits the local hospital where a more serious heart problem is diagnosed. He realises that Haru could be left alone and resolves that she should be found a partner. Takano’s cronies are only too eager to help to find candidates. But at the hospital Takano has a chance encounter with Fumie, a woman of his own age who is waiting for a check-up. They will meet again and there is something they share which will be revealed later in the narrative. I won’t spoil the plotting of the film which proceeds quite happily at its own pace (nearly two hours) and concludes very satisfactorily.

Father and daughter exercising outside the shop

The film works for me for several reasons. One is the performances. Tatsuya Fuji who plays Tatsuo is a veteran actor with over 150 credits and is best known in the West for his roles in Oshima’s In the Realm of the Senses (Japan 1976) and Empire of Passion (Japan 1978). He is remarkably sprightly in the film for a man in his early 80s. Asô Kumiko plays Haru and she is also a very experienced player as is Nakamura Kumi who plays Fumie. She played a role in the Korean film My Way (South Korea 2011). Takana Tofu is directed by Mihara Mitsuhiro whose first film was in 1998. He also wrote the script. Onomichi and its environs look very photogenic and a nice place to live, thanks to the cinematography of Suzuki Shûichirô.

Another successful batch of artisanal tofu

I must confess that a large part of my enjoyment was in the making of the tofu and the insights into how artisanal tofu might be different to the stuff I buy in the supermarket. I note the tofu I buy is made in North Yorkshire and I think my soba noodles come from China. I think Tatsuo would give me a real dressing down and I do wish I could buy the real thing. Films about food and food preparation are relatively common in Japan compared to the UK (but I do remember one about a Jewish bakery – Dough (UK-Hungary 2015)) and if this film sounds like one you’d like to see, you might also look at Naomi Kawase’s Sweet Bean (Japan 2015) which shares some elements with Takano Tofu.

Here’s the Japanese trailer (no subs, but it doesn’t really need any). I forgot to say that the music sets the mood very well: