Noodle Slurping

“They say when you die you see something like a movie. A life kaleidoscoped into a few seconds. I look forward to that movie. A man’s last movie. I don’t want it interrupted. ‘Darling don’t die!’ and tears… I can do without that. Hey, our movie’s starting.” The man who speaks these words is seated in a movie house with his partner and a luxurious cart of goodies is wheeled before them. He wears a white suit. In later scenes, they are shown as lovers. He salts her nipple, squeezes out a lemon. Licks honey from her lips. She dips her breast in whipped cream. He presses a bowl of thrashing shrimp against her stomach. She takes an oyster out of its shell, into her hand, and up to his mouth. Famously, they snowball egg yolk. Tampopo, the first film in the “noodle western” genre, is about a stoic truck driver who helps transform a young woman into a ramen master.

As good as that story is, the best part of the film may be the multifarious subplots. Food is the topic at hand, and each minor act contributes to the mythos. Cross cultural miscommunication is contextualized nonverbally, through noodle slurping. A group of women are learning to eat pasta, the Western fork and spoon method, with twirling, in quiet bites, while well within earshot an American businessman noisily defies this lesson. Five out of six Japanese businessmen place the same order, for sole, consume, and a Heineken, while the sixth, a foodie, does not bow to social deference. A father rushes home to his sick wife, lying on the floor, struggling to stay awake, surrounded by their children. He urges her to focus on cooking the family dinner, and she does, collapses at the table and dies. The father urges the hysterical children to eat up while its hot, to remember it as the last meal their mother made for them.