Food Film Feast at the Firehouse Theatre: "Tampopo" January 11, 2008

The Food Film Feast at the Firehouse Theatre continues Friday January 11th with the Japanese film"Tampopo."And as a special treat, Marblehead Chowder Company will be in the Firehouse Theatre at 6:30 to serve hot soup and bread to all movie lovers. FREE!

Juzo Itami, the director of "Tampopo", may be the most impenitent hedonist the movies have ever seen. As a filmmaker, he revels in sensual pleasure, and the spirit of his film is exultant, orgiastic. The movie has been described elsewhere as "Zen and the Art of Noodle-making," but its spirit couldn't be less Zen-like. Itami isn't interested in detachment. He's a zesty, immoderate connoisseur of pleasure-taking in all its forms -- food, sex, movies -- and he jumbles them all together here into a hilarious concoction. It's half movie, half dessert-topping -- a film gourmand's lusty dream.

The movie, which Itami calls a "noodle western," is a rambunctious mixture of the bawdy and the sublime. Primarily, though not exclusively, its subject is food -- or, more precisely, eating. The main story is that of a dishwatery little restauranteuse named Tampopo (which means "dandelion" in English ) who struggles mightily to keep going the modest noodle shop her late husband had opened on the outskirts of Tokyo.

Tampopo is a willing but hopelessly inept cook, and she can't attract much of a clientele. One afternoon, though, a truck driver named Goro (Tsutomu Yamazaki) wanders in with his partner during a downpour and offers his opinion of her cooking in the presence of a gang of rowdies that regularly gathers there. His reward is a sound thrashing -- at five against one the match is hardly even -- but Tampopo, touched by his honesty, nurses his wounds. Also, it seems, his criticisms of her culinary skills have struck a chord, and soon she is begging him to stay a while and help her become a real master chef, to instruct her in the path of the noodle. The film is Rated R.
The Firehouse Theatre doors open at 6:30- with a special soup and bread treat fromMarblehead ChowderCompany- andthe film beginning at 7. Tickets at the door are $5. We also offer a "10 Pass" for $40 that is fully transferable and never expires. It can be used for multiple entries to the same film.

Official Website: http://www.m-l-t.org/movies/