Cafe Lumière | 珈琲時光 (2003)
Japanese Title: 珈琲時光 (rough trans: Coffee “Light Time? Time to Shine?” Guessing that its a representation of “Lumière”, from the French, “light.” See note below.)
Alright, so I’ll break away from the opening “horror” theme for a bit. Can’t go getting all typecast or anything.
Cafe Lumiere is not a particularly exciting movie, nor is it scary, or tear-inducing, or hilariously funny. No, its none of those things really.
What it is is a “window” into the life of one Japanese girl, Yoko (Yo Hitoto) and the events that surround her for a few days. That’s about it, really. No big plotline, no real drama to speak of. Actually it might seem rather boring.
That’s what I thought about half-way into it. “This should be boring me to tears!” But it wasn’t. I found myself fascinated by it. Mainly because it was such a window into everyday life, feelings, situations, places, etc. in everday Japan.
But fair warning: Without at least a little insight into Japanese culture and places you might become bored rather quickly, and not understanding exactly what it is that’s going on.
For example: Yoko’s parents arrive at her tiny apartment in Tokyo, and when the sushi delivery guy arrives, her mother says something to the effect of “Oh, I’ll get it, you don’t have any money anyway.” Just a passing statement? Hardly! Given the fact that she’s pregnant with her Taiwanese boyfriend’s child, and can barely make ends meet… That’s quite the parental indictment!
There are similar moments when the (ironically Taiwanese) director captures the essence of certain experiences perfectly. A great example of this is the beginning of the film, where Yoko is riding the train to her parents house in the country. The sounds and sights here brought back some instant memories of riding the rails in Tokyo for me, the whine of the electric train, the click-clack of the rails, the little tunes at each stop and the loudspeaker announcements. Just capturing the experience.
Like her would-be boyfriend Hajime (Tadanobu Asano) does every day, recording audio of the trains and creating art from rail-related imagery….
So yeah, on the surface its like a more serious Japanese version of Seinfeld. About nothing inparticular. But its really about Japanese life. Maybe that’s what’s so damned engrossing about it.
On the DVD is an extra bit about the film, and how Taiwanese director Hsiao-hsien Hou was asked to make this film as an homage to the late Yasujiro Ozu, a prominent director from the ’30s to the ’50s. Now that I’ve seen this, I really want to delve into his films. From the snippet-descriptions I’ve read of them, they haven’t seemed that interesting, but now…
(Re the title: Also interesting is that Lumière was the name of the person who gave the first performance of a cinematic film in 1895….)
IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0412596/
Amazon: Cafe Lumiere
(Sorry, couldn’t find an English trailer, you’ll just have to translate!)
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