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Chris Fischer, the Beard Award winning author and chef is going to present a new short film beforehand and talk afterwards about Tampopo, a film he specifically selected for us this evening.

The sophomore directorial effort from ill-fated Japanese filmmaker Juzo Itami, Tampopo is an off-beat comedy featuring several intersecting stories all related to food. Tsutomu Yamazaki plays Goro, a truck driver and his assistant (a very young Ken Watanabe) who helps a young widow named Tampopo (Nobuko Miyamoto) improve her noodle restaurant. Over the course of the film, the story drifts around, not only following the stories of Tampopo, her son, and Goro, but also a number of customers who come through the diner, including an old woman (Izumi Hara) who insists on squeezing the cheese at a market and a criminal (Koji Yakusho, who later starred in “Shall We Dance”) with a food-based kink. Tampopo was nominated for Best Foreign Film at the 1988 Independent Spirit Awards.

hersh-2

A short film by Conor Hagen and Chris Fischer

Synopsis:

Hershel West has worked with the Larsen family for over 70 years and still works nearly every day during the high season at Larsens Fish Market. A short film by Conor Hagen and Chris Fischer follows Hershel, 92 years old, through his routine at the fish market. Original music by Adam Lipsky. Filmmaker Conor Hagen and author Chris Fischer have collaborated on many film projects examining the lives of islanders including subjects such as Johnny Hoy and The Allen Farm.

“Playful and self-reflexive, Itami’s delightful shaggy-dog tale makes allusions to Samurai, American Westerns, Spielberg, but above all it’s about the power of food, specifically the art of preparing and eating noodles.”

“Tampopo” is one of the more engaging films to be shown in this year’s series. It’s also another example of the eccentric humor that has been showing up recently in Japanese films” — Vincent Canby, The New York Times

“Director Itami has produced an engaging cinematic hybrid, brilliantly stir-frying Japanese food — and other — obsessions into cowboy themes. He calls “Tampopo” a noodle western.” — Desson Howe, Washington Post