Tampopo

“A bowl of ramen consists of various ingredients: shinachiku roots, pork, spring onions. However, in order to obtain the true essence of the dish, you must observe the whole bowl first. Jûzô Itami's Tampopo is a gastro-lucid, pygmalion-esque ‘Ramen-Western’—a visual, culinary cornucopia where food, life, death, and sex simmer into one singular broth. On the film's glossy surface, it's a slow cooked tale about two slick truckers who act as svengalis to a struggling noodle shop owner, yet, much like chopsticks rotating through the soup, Tampopo throws out parallel storylines like pinches of flavor-enhancing salt. The main ingredients include: a symphony of noodle slurping at an etiquette class, a stylish gangster and his partner passing egg yolk back and forth mid-kiss, and a store owner trying to catch a habitual ‘Food-Fondler.’ Heavily influenced by genre-visionaries like Sergio Leone, Itami's absurdist and downright Dada-inflected scenes also follow the leads of Luis Buñuel and Robert Downey Sr.” (Cinefamily)

Shown in a recent digital restoration.

website: janusfilms.com