Food, Sex, and the West in Tampopo

A man and woman share an egg in an intimate embrace

In the Japanese film Tampopo, director Juzo Itami uses food, ramen noodles in particular, to highlight the explosion of new goods and the emergence of a consumer culture during the Bubble Era in Tokyo and the consequential drowning out of long-standing Japanese traditions. The film follows a young Japanese woman, Tampopo, on her quest to turn her small restaurant into the best ramen noodle joint in all Japan. Itami plays on the western genre in conjunction with a salute to ramen noodles and Japanese food in general to emphasis the collision of two opposing cultures. A reoccurring theme that best demonstrates this cultural mingling is food as a driving force in sex.

The above clip is taken from one of the film’s odd sex scenes. In this particular case, a man and a woman are standing in an uncomfortable yet intimate embrace passing an egg between each other’s mouths. With each exchange they grow more and more excited until finally the women breaks the egg between her teeth and lets the yoke run down her chin in a fashion that mocks the overcoming feelings of ecstasy and sexual release experienced after an orgasm. This, without question, was one of the stranger scenes in the film and elicited nervous laughs throughout the class. However, this scene is extremely important in combining the undeniable human need for food for survival with raw sexual desire. Through the use of food as a stimulant, Itami demonstrates that these desires are closely linked and that eating food can bring a person the same deal of pleasure as can a sexual act. Itami also demonstrates that eating should be a celebrated experience that is intended to bring the consumer great satisfaction and happiness.

This scene is also significant in that it represents the complicated relationship between the Western world and Japan during the Showa Era. During this postmodern time, Japan was the world’s second largest economy. This resulted in an overflow of money, people, and goods from overseas into Japan. Because of this explosion of new cultures and ideas, Japan quickly adopted the mentality of “out with the old” in order to remain relevant. The man and women’s intimate sharing of the egg can be interpreted as the unstable and uncomfortable relationship between the West and Japan at this time and their sharing of ideas, goods, and cultures. The man is the West and stands dominate over its Japanese counterpart, as depicted by the woman. However, the relationship grows more equal and intimate as they stand with locked arms and faces pressed together. This represents Japan’s growing importance to the West as it began to emerge as a world super power. The final breaking of the yoke in the woman’s mouth emphasis Japan’s subordinate role to western powers and how it was unable to maintain all of its roots and traditions during this time.

In this way, Itami brings food to the forefront of cultural importance in Japan during the Bubble Era by using it to represent both our primitive desires as well as the fragile yet intimate relationship between Japan and the West.

Ramen: An Innocent Meal

Even if Tampopo wasn’t necessarily your ideal bowl of ramen, it would take a rather cynical individual to not admire Juzo Itame’s tasteful interpretation of an evolving Japanese cuisine. At its heart, Tampopo is a tale of struggle and triumph, driven by the innocence of Tampopo (a small-time ramen chef) who perfects her ramen cooking abilities. Through the magic of cinematography, food becomes subject to its context. Itame skillfully weaves through different images of Japanese cuisine, all of which carry distinct references to Japan’s culinary landscape.

In one scene, an old lady squeezes a ripe peach until it seems to lose its value, much to the dismay of the store owner. The scene continues with a very satirical cat-and-mouse pursuit, until the owner finally catches the old lady red handed. In ways, this scene conveys the sense of innocence typically associated with traditional foods. Furthermore, it could also represent the struggle between so-called high and low culture foods in modern Japanese cuisine.

Itame uses a satirical approach to help portray the innocence of food as the old lady is being chased by the store owner. In a sense, the scene alludes to Tom and Jerry, Hannah-Barbara’s iconic Sunday morning family fixation. Such an allusion promotes the thought of childish innocence and warmth often found in traditional foods. Itame’s choice to use an old lady solidifies this idea. She seems to be looking for something specific in her food, but seems unable to find it. Could she be looking for the innocence food has lost as Tokyo ascended modern food’s globalized plane?

Itame comically adds to this through his editing. Much like a high-stakes action movie, the scene uses quick cuts in between frames. After all, the store owner is after the bad guy. Using images such as close-ups of the store owner with the old lady quickly moving through the background creates a sort of Bond-esque spy thriller. Disappointingly, the old lady stops when she receives a slap on the hand with a fly swatter. In my opinion, Itame’s chase is not limited to the store owner and the old lady, but the underlying chase of an older Japan and the innocence of the food it once held so dear. A struggle seen clearly in the contradicting nature of high and low culture foods. Nevertheless, Tampopo’s pursuit of ramen, which in its essence is the most basic of Japanese dishes, rekindles this sense of innocence. Ramen is Food that is mutually loved for its sincerity, rather than its adherence to a vision of a global food city.

This struggle between low and high culture foods is the essence of Itame’s film. Whether it is Tampopo herself, or through this very scene, Itame constantly reminds the audience that food is one of the most sincere forms of culture. Losing this could be as devastating to culture as losing a language. In a way, food is language. It speaks through its innocence, its love and even today as a rather dominant form of high culture. Tampopo is not just about how to make ramen, but if it was, I’m pretty sure I would make a pretty good bowl if I was asked…

Tampopo: The Power of Comfort Food in Forging Personal and Communal Bonds

In the bubble era ramen western, Tampopo, Itami Juzo depicts Tampopo’s journey to have the best ramen shop in the city. The structure of the film is interesting in that seemingly unrelated vignettes related to food are interspersed between scenes of this overarching plot. This screenshot is from the scene in which a husband sees his wife on her death bed. In an attempt to revive her, he orders her to go make dinner for their family. Surprisingly, the wife recuperates and shakily cooks a pot of fried rice. After serving her family, she dies with a smile on her face; glad that her last act was spent satisfying her family’s culinary needs. I believe this scene is one of the most significant because it stresses the power of comfort food in forging personal and communal bonds.

 

A family enjoys the last meal made by their dying mother.

 

Analyzing the mise en scene, the mother is the closest to the camera, signifying her important role in feeding her family. Her family is captured in a medium shot at eye level. This angle allows the audience to sympathize and connect more with the family’s emotions. The family clearly indicates their gratitude, since both the husband and his little girl are gazing at their dying mother in admiration. The scene also features the train motif, which foreshadows the mother’s transition from life to death.

This vignette parallels Tampopo’s story in that they both feature lowly, humble foods. This movie was released when Tokyo was in the process of becoming a global city. This process gave rise to a postmodernism ideology, in which people believed that it was in society’s best interest to constantly throw out old things and focus on the future. This post-modernist perspective was strongly emphasized in Japanese culture. With food, Japan emulated French haute cuisine during this time period. Therefore, Itami chose to feature the lowly ramen and fried rice dishes to enhance the cultural status of traditional Japanese comfort foods and prevent those aspects of their culture from being thrown away. This scene builds upon the idea that beautiful concepts such as love and familial bonds can be produced from humble beginnings.

This scene also highlights Itami’s idea of female social roles in Japan. In Tampopo, he features several women as nurturing, food providers. For example, in this screen shot, the mother is literally on her death bed, yet she manages to recover enough strength to create a delicious family style meal and serve her family. In this final act, she manages to not only nourish her family, but also give them hope that she might survive. The act of nourishing her family also allows her mental state to be at peace with her death. She dies with the satisfaction of knowing she has given her kin the pleasure and biological nourishment that comes with food. The profound, multi-layered sentiment connected to providing food is echoed in Tampopo and the breast-feeding mother at the end of the movie.

Everyone’s Gotta Eat!

Director Itami Juzo’s style of incorporating many different genres into one-film gives the image of the purpose of food is universal. Even though the movie, Tampopo, is not filmed in different areas of the world besides Japan. However, because of the different genres, the audience feels the sense of being in many different worlds. The movie is in fact based in Japan; the movie is also filmed in many different areas and still gives a sense of being somewhere completely different from the main plot.

Through out the different genres, Itami provides a theme that not only that everyone eats but we live our lives around food. Through food people can come together, express their love, grieve over sadness, and present a higher status. Between westerns, mafias, and even mentoring adventures, Juzo beautifully ties in all the underlying themes of the world coming together over food in Tampopo.

The over all, or main genre of the film would be characterized as a “ramen western”. It is an interesting genre to pick for the overall theme; to have what seems to be an older based genre for very modern plots and concepts for the time portrays the ideas and cultures of food are timeless. Within this ramen western, food is portrayed as being traditional. Westerns are characterized as very traditional in the sense that the plot generally follows in a specific formula: the main character, who is a stranger to the town, walks into the saloon, gets in a fight, is begged to stay, saves the town, and leaves being remembered as the hero.

Goro and Gun walking into the “Ramen Saloon”

 

 

This idea of tradition can also be seen in the actual food that is the main topic of this Japanese film: ramen noodles. The audience can see the tradition through the specific way of how the dish is made. The dish is prepared in a specific way: things must be place in the soup in a specific order and specific time in order for the soup to be clear, the noodles must be let to sit in cook for a certain time, no longer or shorter, and they must be served in a very specific way.

While the audience is intently watching the Ramen western the shot suddenly pans over to a group of businessmen and into a new theme of a mafia film and new idea of food. With the break in the main plot there is still a significant message that gets tied into the overall theme that food is not only nutritional or traditional, but also a way of life. In this case, the audience witnesses how food can show a sign of status and dominance over a group of people. The screen shot the audience is first introduced to is the scene of the business man and his minions walking over to a nice restaurant at the top of a very modern, powerful, towering building. Everything is extravagant from the room to the French menu. Once inside one can get a sense of who stands where within the business food chain. People refuse to order because it is out of their place to call the shots and only order what their boss is ordering.  In this scene the food is bringing people together and also putting people in their place.

Not only does food have many different functions in our lives but also is a universal concept.  Juzo smoothly represents the universal theme through many different genres within the film.

1, 2, 3… Fish Cake! : Tampopo’s Take on the Western Classics

Tampopo, a 1985 Japanese film directed by Juzo Itami, is defined as a spaghetti western or, in accordance with the movie’s focus, a ramen western. The essence of the film is considered to have a comical interpretation of the typical western cowboy theme as well as parodic elements of popular western movies. Together, these plot traits create a modern genre that uses a comical approach toward an older western genre to attract both fans of the old style and those seeking a new outlook on movies.

The plot line of Tampopo is relatively simple with the main storyline constructed around a noodle shop owner, Tampopo, and her journey to perfect her ramen recipe and make her business successful. It is the way in which the movie’s form is presented that the references to western ideas are made apparent. Upon observing the movie production staff’s choices in such matters as costume and set design, one notices that stylistic decisions were made to mirror those of already popular western films.

In analyzing the opening scenes shot in Tampopo’s shop, a reference to cowboy style movies arises. The manner in which the shop’s curtains are situated on the set hints at their similarity to the doors of a saloon.  As is common in cowboy movies, the patrons of the noodle shop all stop and turn to glare at Goro, the truck driver who later becomes Tampopo’s ramen teacher, and his coworker Gun as they enter through these door-like curtains. Moreover, the accompanying crescendo in the background music as Goro and Gun make their appearance in the scene is representative of the western style of hinting at an upcoming conflict.

Goro challenging Pisken by flinging a fish cake

The layout of this scene helps highlight the idea of good and bad as well as the impending conflict. The contrast in the white costumes of Goro, Gun, and Tampopo with the dark dress of the other patrons exhibits who are the protagonists and antagonists in this scene. As seen in cowboy movies, the tension that builds between Goro and Pisken, the lead antagonist, surmounts to a shootout. However, the comical styling of Tampopo creates a play on the old genre by turning what would normally be a shot from a pistol into a fish cake being flung at Pisken. Furthermore, the idea of Goro rising as Tampopo’s savior from Pisken’s verbal assaults is another idea reminiscent of the sense of justice and righteousness in western films.

In Tampopo, the parodies of such popular films as Indiana Jones and Rocky Balboa use the easily recognized attributes from these films in their own interpretation to attract fans. The style in which Goro is dressed throughout the film very well resembles what Dr. Jones wears in the Indiana Jones franchise. It is the insertion of this costume in a film about ramen that brings about the comical idea that Goro is a ramen adventurer. Likewise, the sequence of scenes in which Goro trains Tampopo resembles the montage of the training scenes that the Rocky franchise is known for. In this manner, Tampopo is making a parodical assertion that training to be a ramen chef is similar to training to be a boxer. All together, these comical puns at classic western ideas help make Tampopo a hit.

Goro resembling Dr. Jones

Tampopo, a Ramen Western Film

Spaghetti western: a western movie made in Italy (usually) with Italian actors and an American star (Webster’s Universal College Dictionary, 2004).

Is a ramen western film therefore a western movie made in Japan with Japanese actors and an American star? Why yes, yes it is (essentially) according to the film titled Tampopo directed by Itami Jūzō in 1985. Specifically, the introductory shot of the film which is an overview of Tampopo’s ramen shop, visually embodies and represents the ramen western genre in three particular manners. First off, the color scheme contrast in the clothing of the actors highlights the typical good versus evil Western theme. That is to say, Goro’s and Gun’s white clothing versus the dark clothing of Pisken and his four thugs figuratively speaking, equals good and righteousness versus evil and villainy, Western morality in a nutshell. The Western ideal of chivalry is also exhibited in the scene at hand via Goro’s defense of Tabo and Tampopo. The defense of women and children (especially of women) is a trademark theme of the spaghetti western.

Good vs. Evil

Also, Tampopo’s ramen western nature is further made evident by the shot’s music choice. For instance, the second Goro and Gun step into Tampopo’s ramen shop, a dramatic crescendo plays reminiscent of the American old west as it is portrayed in 1960s and 1970s film. This crescendo in the moment of its rendition transforms the ramen shop into a hostile western saloon.  Accordingly, the setting is overrun with unwelcoming shadows, and the camera’s curt transitioning style foreshadows social antagonism and conflict. In addition, take note that the camera is quite stationary in the lateral sense throughout the scene. Its inactivity and/or limited movement that is carefully slow and steady, conveys a sense of caution and alarm that accurately invokes the iconic Western theme of violence. Furthermore, the ramen shop’s saloon-like nature is enhanced when Goro flings a naruto piece at Pisken in a pistol-wielding manner. Ready. Draw. Shoot.

Ready. Draw. Shoot.

Last but not least, where is the American star in Tampopo? Answer: Goro. Mainly, Goro’s “Americaness” is stereotypically indexed by his cowboy-like garb. Also, his trucker occupation is Western/American that is to say, foreign and exotic.

Goro, the outsider.

All in all, the film titled Tampopo (1985) directed by Itami Jūzō in many ways and instances is a Japanese rendition of the West be it comical or serious. Its ramen western attitude is a double-edged sword in fact. That is to say, Tampopo comically plays on western cultural symbols but the fact that the film’s main focus is the West exalts the West and shadows Japanese culture. Elaborating on the later point, the West, knowledge and familiarity of the West is a source of power in the film. Nonetheless, it is also a potentially destructive essence when not handled and carried out correctly (reference to the film’s French dining scene). Altogether, Tampopo’s great regard of the West (negative or positive) as a ramen western film is a comment on Japan’s past cultural insularity. Before, Japan knew something and knew nothing of the West.