{"id":3619,"date":"2016-12-04T19:26:27","date_gmt":"2016-12-05T01:26:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/wordsintobytes\/?p=3619"},"modified":"2019-12-27T17:51:35","modified_gmt":"2019-12-27T23:51:35","slug":"an","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/wordsintobytes\/reviews\/movie\/an\/","title":{"rendered":"An (Sweet Bean)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<!--\nGPlus Timestamp: 2016-12-04 19:26:37-0500- Updated: 2016-12-04 19:28:04-0500\nGPlus Permalink: https:\/\/plus.google.com\/+MSinclairStevens\/posts\/4RmyoxGqeZG\n\n-->\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"alignleft\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/lh3.googleusercontent.com\/a-\/AN66SAz1i_7J6EYHgkyq6UMuO_7halWK_czpgMkeZYGK6Q=s64-c\" alt=\"M Sinclair Stevens\"\/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>The&nbsp;<em>an<\/em>&nbsp;of the title is a jam made of beans (in this case, red adzuki beans) which is used as a filling for all kinds of baked goods:&nbsp;<em>anpan<\/em>,&nbsp;<em>manju<\/em>, and&nbsp;<em>dorayaki<\/em>, a sort of jelly sandwich made with two small pancakes instead of slices of bread and&nbsp;<em>an<\/em>&nbsp;filling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The story concerns three misfits from three generations, who come together in the making of dorayaki. The movie is leisurely slow-paced. Nothing much happens. The moral is summed up in the end, as one character addresses and comforts another.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\"><p>&#8220;You know, boss<br>We were born into this world<br>to see it and to listen to it.<br>Since that&#8217;s the case,<br>we don&#8217;t have to be someone.<br>We have, each of us has,<br>meaning to our life.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed-youtube wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"960\" height=\"540\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Fp7uy_vWkT4?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Directed by : Naomi Kawase Genre: Fiction &#8211; Runtime: 1 h 53 min French release: 27\/01\/2016 Production year: 2015<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Reaction Elsewhere<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The Japan Times<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>After watching it, I found this review in the Japan Times by Mark Schilling.<a href=\"https:\/\/www.japantimes.co.jp\/culture\/2015\/06\/03\/films\/film-reviews\/director-naomi-kawase-finally-made-real-japanese-film\/#.XIRtArbMyDp\">Director Naomi Kawase has finally made a &#8216;real Japanese film&#8217;<\/a>. <br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\"><p>&#8220;&#8230;at Cannes, critics hurled adjectives like \u201cinsipid,\u201d \u201cfluffy\u201d and \u201csentimental,\u201d much as I expected them to. So-called real Japanese movies are an acquired taste.&#8221; <\/p><cite>Mark Schilling<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>I&#8217;d add that Japanese film tends to be refreshingly &#8220;uncool&#8221;, lacking in Western-style cynicism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The Guardian<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Currently the film is running at 86% on Rotten Tomatoes but Peter Bradshaw writing in The Guardian really hated it: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/film\/2016\/aug\/04\/sweet-bean-review-naomi-kawasw-an\">Japanese foodie movie with and insipid flavour<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\"><p> &#8220;The film has an impeccable technical finish but it is insipid, contrived, sentimental, and ever so slightly preposterous.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>That British self-consciousness and uneasiness is probably as far from the Japanese sense of what makes a good story (or a good telling of it) as I can imagine. Yes, Japanese works often border on the &#8220;slightly preposterous&#8221;, even sometimes wandering into the realm of &#8220;magical realism&#8221;. The Japanese are also more comfortable mixing comedy and tragedy and, for them, both often border on the absurd.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;We were born into this world to see it and to listen to it.&#8221; <\/p>\n<div class=\"belowpost\"><a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/wordsintobytes\/reviews\/movie\/an\/\">Read More<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[374,333],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/wordsintobytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3619"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/wordsintobytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/wordsintobytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/wordsintobytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/wordsintobytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3619"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/wordsintobytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3619\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3630,"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/wordsintobytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3619\/revisions\/3630"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/wordsintobytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/wordsintobytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/wordsintobytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}