Written and directed by Jûzô Itami
The culinary arts gets the sports movie treatment in Jûzô Itami’s Tampopo, the story of a novice chef who strives to be the best ramen cook in town with the help of a long haul trucker and other luminaries they recruit along the way.
We’re talking endless practice, demanding teachers, sussing out the competition by rummaging through their trash and spying on them through cracks in walls, stress nightmares, makeover montages of sorts, all in pursuit of perfection. Extreme exertion has never been so salivating.
Itami’s movie is light on its feet, but it’s actually exacting in its exploration of what greatness takes and looks like. From customer service, the energy efficiency of a kitchen setup, and the minute details of the perfect broth, Tampopo is deadly serious about its central topic.
It’s easy to forget because the rest of the movie doesn’t have a serious bone in its body. It’s a pop song in nature, jamming along as the various experts pitch in with knowledge and strange origin stories and Tampopo is almost cartoonish in how this rags-to-ramen-riches story builds to a classic climax where the real victory perhaps was the friends we made along the way.
Alongside Tampopo’s training there are a series of small vignettes all orbiting food and its application. A couple turns room service into an array of sex toys in a love scene both erotic and off-putting. An intern embarrasses his stuffy superiors ordering from a complicated menu with assurance and finesse. A grocery store worker chases an old woman around as she pokes, prods, and caresses the goods.
The abundance of these asides makes Tampopo feel like a collection of short stories with a “medium” story running down the middle as a tree to hang its baubles on. The overall experience isn’t gripping, but it is engaging, because there’s imagination and a deep affection running through all of this. When you can sense the joy behind every frame, that’s infectious, and Tampopo really wants you to have a good time watching it more than anything else.
Few movies have food as such a key ingredient as Tampopo. Discussions as to where it ranks all-time as a food-centric movie is fruitless, but it’s easy to proclaim it the most devoted.
Here, food is love. It’s a point of pride, it’s a means to and end. Knowing how it works can give you standing in society, but food itself knows no class divide. It can be an expression of your affection, your avarice, your cynicism, and the respect you have for yourself and what you do. It’s something you indulge in private and something you share with the world, preparing it for others separated by a thin strip of wood.
This is cinematic comfort food with a twist. The elements that everyone loves: well-executed comedy, self-effacing performances from a cast led by Ken Watanabe and Nobuko Miyamoto plus Kôji Yakusho as a (food) lover, along with a protagonist that’s easy to love. Then the elevation: daring depictions of food sex, quirky asides, and a bravado in how it pieces it all together. Satisfying all the way through.
Mikkel Frederiksen 