A Taste of Tea (aka: Cha no Aji) movie review

by Chris   ⋅   September 5, 2006   ⋅   Comment now   ⋅    RSS

Summer’s over and stress is back, so, I offer up a review of a relaxing flick.

A Taste of Tea, not to be confused with Wayne Wang’s Eat a Bowl of Tea, concerns a family of dreamers living in the Japanese countryside, and their efforts to realize their respective dreams. Really, that’s about the simplest plot synopsis one can manage for this film. Mom (Satomi Tazuka) is an artist looking to get back into the animation field, and Father (Tomokazu Miura) is a hypnotist looking to provide for his family. Ayano (Tadanobu Asano), the nomadic rock-n-roll uncle, aspires to become a sound engineer, while Grandpa (Tatsuya Gashuin) longs to sing. Son (Takahiro Sato) yearns to have the courage to profess his affections for a beautiful girl, and daughter (Maya Banno) seeks to perform the perfect back flip in order to rid herself of a gigantic pest. Each family member stars in a series of loosely related vignettes, ranging from flashbacks and imagined scenarios to experienced episodes, which in turn are braided together to form the film’s narrative. These little episodes feature a variety of dissimilar subjects covering everything from haunted woods and yakuza ghosts to cosplay and baseball antics, but somehow seem to flow quite naturally given the film’s laid back, relaxing vibe. It’s almost like a Japanese Short Cuts, if Altman could ever withstand a bit of silence.

If you’ve seen Katsuhito Ishii’s Sharkskin Man and Peach Hip Girl or Party 7 you probably expect a delightfully oddball time, but what you may not be prepared for is Ishii’s shift from manic comedy to meditative drama. Sure, his signature absurdity is evidenced in plenty of scenes, but with A Taste of Tea Ishii radically pulls back the throttle, opting for slow burning amusement and genuine character identification instead of rapid fire punch lines. Throughout the film’s two hour 25 minute running time, Ishii maintains interest, relying on an omniscient camera and lengthy, beautifully realized takes to observe the characters in their native environment, and allowing the audience to really get to know and establish a relationship with them. Furthermore this approach helps to drive home the humor of the various awkward situations they find themselves in. Many of these scenes of quiet, unforced humor would make even a hard hearted Scrooge chuckle; as the swami said in Man on the Moon, “silence is the key to laughs.”

Ishii seems also to have a nice hand with his actors, as near all performances come off as natural and unguarded, whether from the two young actors, or Ishii veterans Tadanobu Asano and Tatsuya Gashuin. Every character, whether of the main family members, or supporting curiosities such as the vagrant dancer living on the beach, is believable and likable on some level. Their respective personalities are sufficiently nuanced and for the most part (save for the few transitory yakuza and students) even supporting characters are not relegated to stock filler caricatures.

A Taste of Tea cements Katsuhito’s position as the Japanese filmmaker to watch in the coming years. Not only is the film funny, but it is cinematically beautiful and genuinely touching. Given the film’s rather low key vibe, languid pacing, and “Japanese” humor, I don’t imagine it will be picked up by any American distributors anytime soon. It’s too tame for Tokyo Shock or Titan, too risky for Weinstein, too obscure for Criterion. At best I could possibly see Kino opting to release the picture. It’s sad, because films such as this one, Heaven’s Bookstore, and Crying Out Love in the Center of the World are quite good, and would certainly find audiences here in the US (as evidenced by similarly toned films, Shall We Dansu? and After Life), but distributors are far more concerned with distributing “extreme” fare than dramatic. However, if you have the means available to you, do make sure to check out this film.

About the Author

Chris Nelson has been a film fanatic since age six. A former film and English major, he is now a Java Developer and contract Technical Writer living in the Silicon Valley. Some of his favorite Japanese films include Shall We Dansu?, Chushingura, Lady Snowblood, The Hidden Fortress, After Life and Kikujiro.

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