[quote=“MaladyNelson, post:18, topic:4224”]
I’ve always aspired to be this elderly lady in Tampopo:
[/quote]I’m not surprised. You’re a good girl.
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If you want to fast-forward through the scenes with Man in White Suit and his mistress, I’m afraid you’re missing Itami’s central theme.
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i agree, the couple and her dipping her boob in food - Wait. Whut?
Maybe i’m not smart enough to understand those scenes…
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thanks for the article. Yes, some parts of the movie did go over my head.
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Ah yes, my first name, Yoshiko, means “good child.” Those familial expectations! The elderly food fondler is coming to a farmer’s market near you in a handful of decades.
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Oh goodie, a dialogue.
I like the filmcomment article. Funny, I first wrote “gangster and his moll”, but thought the sentence too wordy. Didn’t mean to reduce the characters… too trite?
Like @Hungrydrunk, I knew parts were going over my head. Like the oyster sea nymph scene. All I could think about was “How old is she!” But I also had to remember it was the 80’s. I love Pretty Baby, but might be outraged if I saw it today. The article also thankfully explained the breastfeeding at the end… Now I love that.
It’s not that I didn’t like the gangster, moll, food-erotica vignette or the others. Well okay, I was a little squirmy. I actually thought the food loving gangster storyline might have made a good movie on its own. I just would have liked the vignettes to be more interconnected to the main story, à la Robert Altman.
I do admit that quirky is not my favorite movie genre. And no matter how “in” I think I am, there were probably things lost on me that tickled those who grew up around themes and people similar to the characters.
Anyway, fun thread @J_L.
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LMAO! Love it.
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The vignettes are the primary business of the movie. The story just ties them together into a workable film.
Yoriko Dôguchi, who played the pearl diver, was 19 or 20 when the movie was shot.
Or the scene with the prepubescent pearl diver girl slurping oysters for him? I’m smart enough to be totally creeped out by it.
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Spoiler Alert:
Not to mention the ice cream scene. That tiny little thing with a note and a half eaten carrot around her neck. It was one thing on the surface. A man feeling empathy for a deprived child. But he was also tempting her. She was alone and vulnerable, doing what we’re told never to do, accepting candy from a stranger. I don’t even want to get into her licking the same ice cream cone as this strange man. It goes beyond erotica into, well…
Juzo Itami is very clever. I’m going to rent more of his films. Do they have food in them too 
?
Like I said, Yoriko Dôguchi was 19 or 20 when that was filmed. She had a baby-faced look, but was quite obviously years past puberty.
For me the bit with the post-dental-work guy and the boy with the horrible sign is one of the funniest scenes in the movie. It’s like something from a Chaplin silent. I’m sure Itami didn’t intend anything like your interpretation.
Yes the actress was not underage. But the implication is there.
I think this is what makes the movie interesting, viewers’ varying interpretations of the scenes. It seems from this thread that women have different interpretations than men.
Oh okay. I wasn’t sure if the child was a boy or girl. I will watch that scene… again! I did think it was touching on one hand and how the child will never forget that ice cream. But there is something about that dangling carrot, and sharing an ice cream with a stranger. As one of my friends likes to say “That don’t look right.”
Read the thing I linked to.
To be honest, I haven’t seen Tampopo since I was in my late teens. I loved it then and hold quite a lot of affection for that film, especially for that food-squishing obachan, but it would be interesting to revisit it in its entirety as an adult. Would my views change, especially considering my feminist framework?
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Yep I did.
[quote=“MaladyNelson, post:76, topic:4224”]
I loved it then and hold quite a lot of affection for that film, especially for that food-squishing obachan,
[/quote]I loved Tampopo the character, her motley crew and that whole storyline, and of course the food-squishing obachan (is that little grandma?).
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Those were characters and storylines that I gravitated towards. Yup, obachan means grandma or granny.
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