Restaurante Gaivota

The movie features a weak story-line but is quite unique in a way (desert humor and lazy screenplay). Something like the fact that music can bring people together, here the director displays that food can also bond people in a similar way. I did watch the movie having dinner which I recommend the viewers to do so. I've never been to Japan or known much about their food habits and so the 'rice balls' (which is mentioned as the soul-food in the movie) reminded me of the rice-balls I did have when I was young. Its made in southern part of India (mothers make a similar kind of rice-ball with fish/ vegetables inside and give it to kids except they don't cook after making one). The actors did a fine job. The acting of the Finnish boy was below average and was good the director didn't show him up close. Apart from these positives, the movie lacks logic. The events are pretty unreal and no money issue is dealt throughout and good characters throughout (something like a cartoon, everybody is nice to the other) that is not practical. The bottom line is that I liked the movie irrespective of its lack in logic for the director served it with the magic word "KOPI LUWAK".

This is Naoko Ogigami's third feature film, and the first Japanese film to be shot entirely in Finland, land of the midnight sun. As I mentioned in some other postings, cinema allows you to be transported to fantasy worlds, and of course in a more realistic sense, going to countries we have yet to set foot upon.

The movie is set around a Japanese diner in Finland, and its owner, Sachie (Satomi Kobayashi). The story revolves around the diner, as well as the friendships that Sachie develops, with customer and crew. The food, "soul foods" as in the menu, can make anyone salivate and feel hunger pangs, especially when the movie was screened into dinner time.

Pretty nothing much happens in Kamome Diner, except that there are plenty of people flitting in and out of the eatery. It's like watching a television series with episodes strung together, each putting the focus and theme on guest characters of the show, how they interact with the established leads. We are introduced to Sachie's first customer, a Finnish teenager who enjoys Japanese anime, and from there, one thing leads to another, as Sachie meets up with Midori (Hairi Katagiri), also another Japanese who left Japan to seek her fortunes in a strange land.

The customers in the diner is set up in the story such that it's directly proportionate to the friendships established by Sachie. It's like a vicious circle being broken, with the seizing of opportunities and the chance of befriending a customer, comes the breaking down of hesitation that others have about something that is new, something less seen, something different. And as it grows, so too does the number of friendships being formed, nurtured and developed, akin to the care put into the creation of recipes and the cooking of food.

By the end of it, everyone had undergone changes in their lives for the better, through subtle interactions, lessons learnt, and all these in a rather mundane manner of living life, in normal day to day activities.

The cast is a mix of Japanese and Finnish, and the dialogue too a mix of languages. But given its themes of friendship, belief, keeping the faith and being positive just about everything, it's ultimately a feel good movie, with plenty of subtleties, a dash of humour, and generous servings of well intentions.

Some might call this simplistic, I would say efficient.

This is my first Ogigami Naoko movie, and it seems her films are known to be categorized as "healing" stories.. cultivating feelings of harmony and relaxation. So now I'll definitely search for what other entries I can find!

Anyway, while it seems to lack narrative depth, I can't help but think someone studying psychology would have a field-day with it, as if they studied a lot to come up with the core of it! Connecting with people, woes of life, belonging. Everyone has an effect on others.. showing the fact that just existing in a place leaves a mark. This is, of course, assisted by the peculiar cast of actors, the roles they play and how warm and inviting they are : Satomi Kobayashi's smile. Hairi Katagari's roughness. And Masako Motai, my favorite, portrays to perfection a lady that has worked properly her whole life and has no qualms with tackling something head on.

Some absurdity, and no straight-comedy, but still quite fun. It's very "soft" and would easily recommend it for a laid-back movie night.

I have to agree with Shusei: This director isn't very concerned with cinema. The film doesn't speak to Japan's great cinematic history in any way. But the director is obviously very satisfied with herself. This film is emblematic of Japan's contemporary fetishism and myopia. It displays, unknowingly, a lot of the problems plaguing artistic and media discourses in Japan. There is a general sense of shallowness and lack of awareness that one notices if one is able to sit through this tripe. You get the Japanese constant and bizarre fascination with food, the lack of irony, the fetishization of and yet total disdain for and other-ing of all things "not Japanese," plus, you will observe the ghettoization and, again, fetishizing of a gender-group. This is very much a movie that is unselfconsciously and unwittingly by and for Japanese unmarried desexualized middle- aged "ladies" - a demographic distinction that is a kind of stigma created by the dysfunctions and pathologies of modern Japanese society. The film imagines that these Japanese "ladies" can escape their marginalization and branding in Japanese society while existing in a safe magical "foreign" world that is, obviously, anything but what life would be like if one moved and started a business in a foreign country. In this sense, the movie is both a product of and for masochistic Japanese propaganda.

Great Film ! Very much influenced by Finnish Filmmaker Aki Kaurismaaki. Dry humor , still and slow story of A Japanese woman trying to make it in Helsinki , running her own Diner with Japanese food. Satomi Kobayashi plays an incredible role as the main character.definitely had me falling in love with her character. A good natured film about inter-human relations.A slow film about being nice towards each other.... a humoristic sketch of events in the life of the women and her 2 other Japanese helpers , running the Diner in downtown Helsinki. Though not packed with action , this film radiates a true sense of positive human interaction. Has me longing for other work by this young director !