Tampopo [15]
(1985, Japan, Director Jûzô Itami, 1hr 54mins, English subtitles)

Cast: Tsutomu Yamazaki, Nobuko Miyamoto, Kōji Yakusho, Ken Watanabe

Tickets: £3 | £2
You can book directly with us: info@campleline.org.uk | 01848 331 000

We are really pleased to be screening the wonderful ‘Tampopo’ as part of the BFI’s Comedy Genius season, with support from Driftwood Cinema.

How far would you go for the perfect ramen? ‘Tampopo’ is a brilliant underdog story of a roadside ramen shop vying to create the best ramen noodles around. Trucking stranger Goro drives into town and takes shelter in the failing, out-of-the-way ramen bar. He takes pity on its owner Tampopo, and with a diverse team of local noodle, broth and topping experts, he sets out to turn it into the finest noodle bar in Tokyo. Along the way, ‘Tampopo’ riffs on Japanese corporate culture, internationalism, domestic relations, cinema and sex. One of the best Japanese films of the 1980s, it is often referred to as a ‘ramen western’ and has only recently been re-released. Director Juzo Itami has said:

‘I made this movie entirely out of things I like. Ramen noodles, Westerns, some parts of Tokyo, and these actors. A long time ago, I had this idea of making a film concerning human behavior about food, because a sensual movie could be made from such a theme. I began collecting episodes, but thought there would be no way to string them all into a workable film. Then I considered doing something about a noodle shop, and doing it as a Western. But I still wanted to fit those episodes in. So I thought of the Buñuel film The Phantom of Liberty, the kind of film where the last thing of the scene before leads to the next event — that kind of quick-change thing.’

Comedy Genius is a nationwide celebration of comedy on screen, led by BFI, the Independent Cinema Office and BFI Film Audience network, supported by funds from the National Lottery.