Japan is no stranger in delivering quirky cinematic narratives. Every cinephile who has delved into the rich cinematic history of Japan will be able to remember, at least, one or two films that delivered unexpected weirdness and charming quirkiness (General-note 1).    

[The Taste of Tea was releaded on blu-ray by our friend’s at Third Windows Films. Click the banner for more information.]

Some readers will instantly be reminded of Katsuhito Ishii’s The Taste of Tea, a quirky slice-of-life film exploring the daily lives of the members of the Haruno family in rural Tochigi prefecture. Ishii’s absurdist take on Ingmar Bergman’s semi-autobiographical Fanny And Alexander (1982) offers the spectator a kaleidoscopic exploration of the emotions of life (e.g. falling in love, fear of failure, embarrassment and inhibition, being taken by surprise, the intrusion of sadness, blossoming of happiness and joy, the subjective and inter-subjective impact of loss, … etc). With his narrative, Ishii invites the spectator to appreciate, just as one would taste tea, the flavour of the emotions that season a subject’s life. And he succeeds in transforming the filmic screen into a mirroring frame that enables the spectator to explore the flow of emotions of mark and steer his own life. 

What makes analysing this kind of film a challenge that the thematical width – the struggles and joys of life – leaves little room for deep exploration. The Taste of Tea is not a depth-narrative, but a surface-narrative. Yet, just as Ingmar Bergman’s Fanny And Alexander (1982) focuses on the siblings Fanny and Alexander, Ishii’s The Taste of Tea focuses on Hajime Haruno (Takahiro Sato) and his younger sister Sachiko Haruno (Maya Banno).

The subjective trajectories of Hajime and Sachiko create the minimal orienting structure of the narrative. These narrative threads allow a whole amount of loosely related vignettes (e.g. Uncle Ayano’s tale of shitting on a giant egg and the death yakuza that continually gazed at him, the four school-boys, laying in wait to prank Haruno, chatting about which girl they fancy, … etc.) to be fluidly interweaved together.  

This structure allows Katsuhito Ishii to deliver a lot of narrative variation. While each vignette is, in one way or another, related to a member of the Haruno family, the spectator is never able to predict what will follow and whose trajectory will receive further elaboration (Narra-note 1). This unpredictability urges to the spectator to keep on watching – and many comical surprises lie waiting for him to be discovered and experienced.

Despite the thematical richness of The Taste of Tea, an analysis on the two main subjective trajectories will bring the structuring themes of Ishii’s narrative to the fore. If we take a closer look at Hajime’s subjective trajectory, we easily discern that his narrative thread deals with love. Through his narrative, the spectator is introduced with the fear that can be aroused by being confronted with the non-existence of the sexual relationship but also to the energizing effect of falling in love and the way fantasies fuelled by romantic desire erase the non-existence of the sexual relationship.  

Not long after the girl he had a crush on moved to the city – leaving a hole in his heart/head, Hajime brutally witnessing the consequences of the non-existence of the sexual relationship romantic interactions and develops a phobia for women. The first incident that causes his phobia confronts Hajime with a woman who, dictated by her hysterical need to receive the impossible-to-give definite sign of love, is eager, yet not with some reservations, to submit herself to the signifier of the male partner (Narra-note 2). For Hajime, the idea that a man’s signifier, as carrier of a sign of his love, can have such a hystericizing effect on the female subject is quite anguishing. The second incident, which takes place in a convenience store, introduces him to the different yet equally anguishing dynamic. The male subject, who hops in to buy some stockings, is revealed as being completely subjected to his girlfriend’s violent signifiers and her physical sadistic excesses.     

Despite his phobia and his avoidance of (interacting with) female subjects, Hajime immediately falls in love with Aoi Suzuishi (Anna Tsuchiya), a new transfer student. Will he be able to overcome his lingering phobic feelings for the female subject? Or will he keep dwelling in his romantic fantasies which, by visualizing the possibility of writing a harmonious relationship with her, keep her image pristine (Narra-note 3)?

Sachiko Haruno’s trajectory, on the other hand, deals with desire. Throughout the narrative, she is shown as merely lazing around the house. She is a radical passive presence within the societal field, inhibited due to a lingering fear of failure. Yet, thanks to misunderstanding a story told by her uncle Ayano (Tadanobu Asano), she slowly comes to be able to overcome her fear and walk the path of desire.

The way Katsuhito Ishii combines static and dynamic shots and fluidly interweaves visual decorations (e.g. slow-motion, atypical camera-perspectives, cross-fades, inter-titles, … etc.) into his visual fabric demonstrates his compositional versatility and his confidence in utilizing the cinematic image both as a naturalistic frame and an impressionistic tool.

Yet, what gives Katsuhito Ishii’s composition its true appeal is his fluid integration of surrealistic imagery to playfully visualize the inner world of Hajime Haruno and Sachiko Haijme. The train that flies out of Hajime’s head into the sky and leave a hole in his head, for example, perfectly evokes how his crush’s departure has left a hole into his subject. 

The reoccurrence of Sachiko in the societal field as giantess – e.g. her head half popping out of the ground, sitting on the fence of the school’s ground, seemingly follows a similar dynamic. However, as Sachiko can perceive this giant double, one cannot reduce this surrealistic occurrence to a mere symbolic expression of her subjectivity.

In our view, the giantess functions as a visualisation of the unconsciousness, as that which keeps pushing against her ego. While Sachiko considers the giantess a blotch in her perceptive field, it is a sign that signals that subjective change is necessary. Rather than lazing around the house, she must find a desire to orient herself and experience fleeting moments of pleasure to finally inscribe herself into the metonymy of desire.

The Taste of Tea, a light-hearted and peaceful sketch of life in rural Japan, offers the spectator a satisfying kaleidoscopic exploration of the emotional fabric of life and the importance of familial bonds. The ability of the narrative to charm and affect the spectator lies in the fact that Katsuhito Ishii’s narrative functions as a reflective surface, serving the subject’s own emotions on a a platter to contemplate.  

Notes

General-note 1: Some quirky narrative that might arise in the spectator’s mind are Milocrorze: A Love Story (2011), House (1977), Tampopo (1985), Funky Forest (2005), and Survival Style 5+ (2004).

Narra-note 1: The narrative also sketches out Yoshiko Haruno’s (Satomi Tezuka) return to her passion, animation and offers a glance at hypnotherapy through Nobuo Haruno (Tomokazu Miura), the father of the family.

The narrative thread concerning the eccentric grandfather, Akira Todoroki (Tatsuya Gashuin), plays a very important role in bringing the narrative to its heartwarming conclusion.  

Narra-note 2: The division of the woman is, in fact, central in this vignette. While she is eager to please her biker boyfriend for a sign of his love, she also harbours a certain reluctance towards exploiting her breasts for money.

Narra-note 3: By not approaching Aoi Suzuishi at all, he can uphold her within his fantasies as an idealized image to desire. Her physical presence is but a support for the Hajime’s ideal image of her – she is the phallus, the sparkling agalmatic object. What inhibits him in approaching her is the unvocalized fear that he is not desirable, that he does not have the phallus for her.