Tampopo (1985) film notes by Tova Gannana for CSA Hitchcock

 

Ramen is broth and noodles, an expression, a gesture, like chili and hummus, it’s a popular dish, it’s street food, it’s what you crave when you are hungry. To eat ramen is to make noise. You slurp your noodles. You suck down the broth. Like ambition, great ramen is messy, you take missteps, you get cocky, you lose and gain friends along the way. The film Tampopo (1985) tells us that, “The broth is the soul of ramen.” The story is the soul of a film. What makes the broth is the physical, the whole chicken, the pork bones, the vegetables. What makes the story is the visuals, the faces, the framing, the way a character is dressed or made up. To make ramen is to desire that customers will come and eat at your counter. To make a film is to hope that what you have created will be seen.

Food brings out not just flavors, but also characters. Tampopo opens at the cinema with movie goers and the food they bring to munch while watching the screen. A couple dapper in white sit front and center, a picnic spread before them by three servants. Movies like meals are meant for consumption. The dapper man approaches the camera with the first line of the film, “You’re at the movies too, huh?” He then goes on to explain that he hates the noise potato chip bags make, the rustling, the crunching. He has an ear because he is attentive. He has preferences because he is invested in the whole experience of film and food. Tampopo is as well. 

To watch Tampopo is to learn that great ramen is as elusive as the mythical cowboy who has traveled the world in film. In Tampopo, Gorō (Tsutomu Yamazaki) a truck driver who never takes off his cowboy hat and his road partner Gun (Ken Watanabe) pull over at a ramen joint one rainy night. Behind the counter is Tampopo (Nobuko Miyamoto) a widow with a young son to raise. She tosses her ramen noodles in warm water. A bad sign, Gorō and Gun conclude. They have walked into what looks like a saloon. Bad apples hang on the walls dressed in leather with a scowl. Tampopo is the opposite of the customers she attracts. She is eager, earnest and determined. She wants to learn to make great ramen. Gorō sticks up for Tampopo; a fight ensues outside. We don’t see the fight; we do see the faces of those who are watching, Tampopo and her son, whom Gorō is trying to protect. When cowboys show up in films outside of America they wear cowboy hats, their hearts on their sleeves, they’ve come around to help, not to settle or stay, eventually they will leave. 

We don’t know much about anyone in Tampopo other than that they love food. Everyone is eating in Tampopo, the film is a feast. Rarely are characters alone, they are like ramen, a bowl with many ingredients. Tampopo asks Gorō and Gun, “So how was my ramen?” They answer, “Basically it lacks pizzazz.” With their help, Tampopo learns how to make her own authentic flavorful ramen. She turns broth and noodles into her best version. Tampopo’s ramen bar goes from a medieval haunt to a modern light filled bistro. Everything shimmers. 

“Maybe I’m just a cold hearted guy,” Gorō says as he wipes his lower lip with his thumb the way Humphrey Bogart did. Tampopo covers his hand with her hand. He wears brown plaid; she wears a red and black polka dot dress. They look out over the dark waters of the river, lights brighten the night. “It was raining the night I met you,” Tampopo says to Gorō. A train above chugs by as if to remind them. Tampopo will master ramen. Gorō will return to the road. 

There are side stories throughout the film. The dapper couple in white show up in a hotel room combining their meal with making love. An elderly woman in pearls visits a grocery store to mangle fruit and cheese, to squish bread. She is chased by the store clerk, no words between them are exchanged. Like the train tracks running through the city all the stories in Tampopo feel connected. Food is for everyone. Tampopo means dandelion in Japanese. It is Tampopo who stays put. The cowboys who help her are the ones who take like seeds to the wind.