The Saint Anselm College

Film Discussion Series

Katsuhito Ishii’s

“The Taste of Tea”

(2004)

The Taste of Tea is perhaps the strangest, certainly the most extraordinary, and quite possibly the most beautiful film to come out of the surprisingly large and extremely productive Japanese film industry in recent years.  More touching than Ingmar Berman’s Fanny and Alexander and odder than Luis Buñel’s Un Chien Andalou, The Taste of Tea presents a surrealist portrait of a contemporary Japanese family which includes the likes of an aspiring Manga artist for a mother, an eccentric Manga legend for a grandfather, a realist hypno-therapist for a father, GO playing romantic for a son, and a curiously silent daughter who, stranger still, appears to be haunted by a 30 foot version of herself.  Throw in the curious uncle or two and the stage is set for one of the most bizarre and charming pieces in cinemagraphic history.  Eschewing a traditional plot arch, director Katsuhito Ishii moves the film along through a series of character sketches reminding the audience that every family and every family member, no matter how peculiar when viewed from the outside, has its own internal logic and coherence and that familial love is, ultimately, one of the most singular and uncanny graces offered human existence.

 

 

Wednesday, March 17^th @ 7:00, Perini Lecture Hall