The Taste of Tea: Persona 4 the Movie?
Okay, so the title of this entry is slightly misleading, but there is a connection; I promise you.
When I think of Japan, the hustle and bustle of the city is what usually comes to mind. The bright lights of Tokyo, the gadgets of the famed Akihabara district, and the hipster trendiness of the Shibuya district. Why? Well, this is how Japan is generally presented to me via Japanese video games and movies. Hell, if I were only slightly less intelligent than I am, I might even think of Japan as a mystical place where everybody has blue hair and rides a giant, laser-beam-shooting robot. However, those in the know (which is not me) will tell you that if you look beyond the mainstream offerings from Japan, you’ll find that there are actually small villages and rural areas squeezed between the urban density. And while these areas aren’t often depicted in movies and games from Japan, they are definitely worth exploring.
It’s not so surprising that Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4 traded the bright lights of the big city for the relative calm of the countryside. The series has been ditching tired cliches and expanding the genre for years now. And as the game begins, the setting is referred to as “boring” and “dull” by many of the characters, though the game gradually reveals that it is anything but. As it is, the setting of Persona 4 is one of the main reasons I love the game as much as I do, despite the fact that I’ll never come close to finishing it. But I’ve never been a completist. The great thing – to me – about gaming is the escapism. I’ll probably visit Japan someday – at least I hope to – but in the meantime, I’m able to be transported to a reasonable facsimile and explore it at my leisure. Now, I don’t really think that the real small towns in Japan are exactly like the town of Inaba, but until I buy my plane ticket it’s good enough for me.
This same factor is what attracts me to film. I was asked yesterday if I was a “cinephile”. I said no because to me that would imply that I not only watch movies, but I also study and “dissect” them, and while I am more of a fan of cerebral films rather than mindless shit (read: Transformers 2), as with games, it’s all about the escapism. I watch movies not only to enjoy a story or to ponder a certain situation, but also to “see the sights”, so to speak. Take last week’s feature film Paris Je T’aime, for example. Half the enjoyment I got out of that movie came from seeing Paris in a fairly intimate way; intimate for a film, that is.
Hilden and I first saw The Taste of Tea a few years back at the Minneapolis/St. Paul International Film Festival, which you can read an account of right here. In my original description of the movie, I compared it to The Royal Tenenbaums, which, I suppose, is mostly fair. The Haruno family is not nearly as dysfunctional as the Tenenbaums, yet they manage to be just as interesting. There is the grandfather who carries around a tuning fork, the uncle with the flatulence problem, the daughter with the giant omnipresent doppelganger, the manga-drawing mother, and Hajime, the awkward love-struck teenager. And I haven’t even mentioned the pair of drunken cosplayers.
But the most compelling character of all is the setting. Out of all the great movies we saw during the festival, this was the one that stuck with me the most, perhaps because of its location: rural Japan. The movie stayed with me so long that I’ve continually checked on its domestic availability for the last four years until finally I saw it available on Netflix this past week. I immediately pushed it to the top of my queue and began watching it the moment I retrieved it from the mailbox.
The Taste of Tea transports the viewer to a side of Japan not often seen by foreign viewers. The train ride from the city reveals gorgeous pastoral landscapes, small family houses, and a lifestyle far different that the urban Japan I’m used to seeing. And aside from that, the movie is just simply hilarious. Check out this video of the uncle in his recording studio working with a trio of whacked-out musicians singing “The Mountain Song”:
Want more? Here are the aforementioned cosplayers. Bad ass…
So do yourselves a favor: add The Taste of Tea to your queue and enjoy a little escapism. And when you’re done, let me know how you liked it.
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Tags: escapism, persona, the taste of tea
August 12th, 2009 at 12:24 am
It is #1 on my queue. Can’t wait to watch it.