Sunday, September 28, 2014

Tampopo (1985)

Today's film is Tampopo.  I love food.  I love reading books about food; I love watching shows about food on networks about food.  So, when I watch any movie, I'm always eating something.  However, if you want to watch this film for the first time, you need to eat beforehand.  It's the same way that you shouldn't go grocery shopping hungry.  This movie is food, food, food.



The film starts with a man asking me what I am eating while watching this film.  I look down at my lap, and say, "Cheerios".  No, it's not fancy, but I like Cheerios.  He mentions that right before we die, we see a final movie of our life.  He is excited to someday see this movie.  Then, our movie starts.


A pair of truckers is going down the street.  The passenger is reading a book about noodles and the enjoyment of them.  This is just the beginning of noodle love.  Caress the pork, caress it.  This makes both of them hungry (because they didn't eat first like I told them to) and they stop at a little noodle shop.  These noodles are bad.  The noodle cook is a sweet widow named Tampopo and asks them for help.  One of the truckers, dressed like a cowboy, agrees to teach her.

Meanwhile, a group of businessmen in town enjoy a different kind of fare - French food.  Compared to the simple noodle soup, rich buttery French food is a completely different world.  We also see a group of women learning to properly eat pasta as to not offend foreigners - no sounds, no slurping, while a nearby American happily slurps away on his pasta.  Sometimes we worry too much about what others think about us, and forget to enjoy things like this American is doing.

There are other vignettes focusing on food, too, but I'm not going to mention all of them.  The man at the beginning and his girlfriend hot with some food porn action, including pass a yolk of egg from one mouth to the other.  Also, lots of licking food off body parts.


As Tampopo learns more about cooking noodles and broth properly, so do we.  The images of food are amazing in this film.  All of the different vignettes in this film are all united by the common bond of food.  I liked the scene where they snuck into a kitchen to make a rice omelet.  This is one of the most enjoyable films focusing on food there is.  I will give it an 8/10.

2 comments:

  1. If you haven't seen it then you should also try Eat Drink Man Woman for another food movie.

    ReplyDelete