JFF Theatre

I'm not sure what to make of this except it was worth the time. Might Should have watched again :)

I finally made it through a Japanese documentary (no shade, my options are limited, they tend to be somewhat slow paced, assume big picture knowledge i lack and go into finer detail than my limited knowledge can sustain strong enough interest in), so that rates as a big compliment here :) Ryuden's personality was a big help.

They really made this work.

This was really well done. I can't be comfortable with the father or a family business so dependent on child labour, but much respect for the film makers.

I really loved the friend group and their interactions. It felt like nostalgia for something I never had.

sadly not available to me

Very dark, measured and often subdued comedy.

intense, quiet, beautiful, difficult, hopeful, sad, contrasts.

Somewhat disjointed in the beginning before it settles. Slow and gentle pacing but intense in emotion, wonderful found family dynamic

it was hard though, without that Thai way of cradling pain and grief

Slow, sometimes stark, bio-documentary about the later years of a man's life, but also his love for his wife and work.

A fairy tale I think, about loss and healing.

Utterly bonkers parody and very well done.

see summer JFF online festival list, didn't get around to watching again

So much work went into this, as befits the labour-intensive subject.
(Ishikawa: Handful of Salt, Genealogy of Sake, Traditional Puppet Theatre: Bound by Spirits)

Coming of age done a bit differently. Really loved this one.
(Aomori: Ito, Ki & Ki (shamisen), Aomori Museum of Art)

Loved it even more the second time. There's a magic to it I don't know how to put into words.

i'm just going to consider this a meditative experience more than learning :)

Gentle, very slice of life. Marriage, relationships and an unconventional family.

It's like a plucky business making a success of itself against the odds drama, with love stories, compressed into a movie.
(Not literally, it's an unassuming son proving himself to his father through the medium of an old local tradition.)
(Kagoshima: Love and the Grand Tug of War, Three Sisters, Kirishima Open Air Museum)

Fascinatingly odd slice of life. Drops into Irish music, Appalachian, Carmen's Habanera, the Star Spangled Banner on sanshin, silent film and old home movies. Sometimes crude, sometimes gentle.
(Okinawa: Nabbie's Love, Ryukyu Buyo: Okinawan, Honensai: Prayers for the Harvest, Sakurazaka Theater, Nago City Hall - Built Environment)

Japanese work ethic harnessed to mayhem. Very clever.

Important issues, superficial treatment. More like a European man on a work jolly rather than a serious documentary. Maybe the full length version is better but this gave me no reason to hope for that.

I stumbled into the right day for this, and the way it brings hope into grief.

A genial man who likes cooking for friends and customers, customers who like eating what he cooks and it all goes on over so many years they become a sort of family. There isn't much more to it than that.

"I had a little affair with that one for a time" - a customer on a favourite dish
"He makes my favourite ramen, I grow his favourite pears. In that sense, we are connected heart to heart."

Excellent film, though difficult for me in many ways.

Coming of age with a vein of comedy throughout which shifts from young people taking high school problems seriously to taking them too seriously to overtly exaggerated melodrama comedy with a bunch more stuff thrown in. Wasn't sure at the beginning but loved it by the end.

Food to express love in that Japanese way, rebellious daughter and a mum who's her equal, with some rom com tropes and a touch of melodrama thrown in. A lot of fun and even more warmth.