Friday, February 15, 2008

The Taste of Tea (茶の味 Cha no Aji)



The film is concerned with the lives of the Haruno family, who live in the countryside north of Tokyo. It has been referred to as a "surreal" version of Ingmar Bergman's Fanny and Alexander. *


The daughter, Shachiko, thinks that if she could do a backflip on a horizontal bar, she could get rid of her giant doppelganger,who is following her. She decides on this plan after hearing from her uncle how he got rid of a stranger covered in blood. Her situation reminds me of my childhood in the 1980s on the outskirts of Seoul where I grew up. The little floor in the house connecting the interior and exterior of the house, the undecorated and natural yard and the vacant lot (Shachiko practices her backflip on a horizontal bar in this area) near the house.....And of course, her struggle fascinated me. (Some a time growing up, I was scared that I thought my reflection in a mirror was another person looking at me.)


The Haruno Family
The Father, Nobuo
: A hypnotherapist who occasionally hypnotizes his family for fun, and is teaching his son Go.
The Mother, Yoshiko: An animator trying to break back into the business by creating a hand drawn segment at the kitchen table.
The Son, Hajime: who is having a rough time with girls and puberty, but is an excellent Go player.
The Daughter, Sachiko: who is being followed by a giant duplicate of herself and searches for ways to rid herself of it.
The Uncle, Ayano: A sound engineer and record producer from Tokyo taking a break from things.
The Grandfather, Akira: an eccentric old man, former animator and occasional model for Yoshiko's animation.


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