2022 Japanese Film Festival in Review # of Watchers: 103
Reviews: 1 user
Documentary taken over 10 years, showing the life of a 70 year old ramen cook who had devoted his life to making the best ramen and teaching others to do the same. Every day, customers queued for 2 hours to eat his ramen. Age, osteoarthritis, varicose veins and weight gain impede his ability to continue to work. A heart-warming story of a man's devotion to his work and to his wife who died 20 years before and of the devotion of his apprentices to him. (Source: IMDb) Edit Translation
- English
- magyar / magyar nyelv
- עברית / עִבְרִית
- dansk
- Native Title: ラーメンより大切なもの
- Also Known As: Ramen yori Taisetsu na mono , Râmen yori taisetsuna mono
- Genres: Food, Documentary
Reviews
Intended for a domestic, not international, audience, this documentary does not need to tell the story of Tsukemen, the ramen variant invented by Yamagishi-san in 1961, and it does also not need to tell us about the dish itself.
Instead it focuses on the last active years of Yamagishi, and some of his years after retirement -- as well as how his work and marriage has shaped his life and his legacy.
As always with these documentaries that follow a person's personal life, I admire how close the film maker is able to get to the subjects of his film. The raw honesty with which Yamagishi can show us his life is the main reason this documentary can evoke the deep feelings viewers can feel while watching it -- personally, I cried throughout the last third until the very last second of the closing credits -- they were tears of suffering, of relief, of nostalgia for a life I did not live. Every moment of happiness was tinged with a deep melancholia for the passing of time and the changes it brings with it.
The way Yamagishi suffers through most of the film, and how he is still able to look back on his life and see the good things -- how he can accept the finality of age will stay with me for a long time.
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