Sweets are the most universal beauty in the world. Both its sense of taste and the symbolic meaning derived from it are all related to beauty. But "The Taste of Chengsha" uses the sweetest food as an intermediary to write a bitter story. It is about death, predicament, and the light of hope and humanity.
Compared with the once-popular "Little Forest", this "Smell of Chengsha" does not win with the aesthetics of the pictures. If the protagonist of the former is the food itself, the dorayaki of the latter is only the catalyst.
The relationship between the three characters in this movie has always maintained a kind of "distanced intimacy". A man who had to work for a dorayaki shop for a lifetime because of debts; a middle school girl from a single-parent family who could not feel caring; an old man who suffered from leprosy in his youth and was isolated from the world for a long time. The individuals met because of a dorayaki dessert shop, and were deeply involved in each other's lives.
The movie begins with a scene full of frustration. The man reluctantly gets up, shakes, cleans up himself, and prepares for the opening of the dorayaki shop. For all this, it can be seen that he is extremely reluctant, compared to life. , It's more like a struggle. He was doing dorayaki lazily, with a look of despair. The middle school girl who comes to the store every day is also cautious and alienated from her peers. The arrival of the old man Tokunaga was like a miraculous light. When she was over seventy years old, she wanted to work in the store. In order to achieve this goal, she gave the man a box of homemade red bean paste. The box of sweet fillings is amazingly delicious. The man decided to accept the old man Tokunaga. From then on, the small and small shop where it was difficult to get along with each other began to experience some subtle changes.
The old man teaches men how to make bean paste fillings, washing them one by one, waiting slowly, and stirring gently. Many people think that this is the spirit of Japanese craftsmanship, but it is not entirely true. Rather than saying that this is an old man teaching skills and experience to others, it is more of a meditation and enlightenment. Tokunaga conveys more like an attitude towards life. She has to wait for the beans to soak for several hours with a sense of ritual, and listen to the sound of them rolling in the water. All these are actually more formal than actual things, but it is these "useless" forms that make this small shop also Let that man have a kind of respect for life. What's more, this delicious filling makes the shop's business better.
Symbolically speaking, the man has always been stuck in material difficulties. He is imprisoned in that small shop and is exhausted for his livelihood all day long. Meaning and hope, such metaphysical propositions, have been drawn out of his life. The arrival of Tokunaga means the coming of a certain spirituality. The old lady came out suddenly and without warning, looking up at the cherry blossoms and sunshine all day, she burst into a smile, which was almost neurotic in the eyes of others. But her mental phototaxis, to some extent, countered the distressing odor that had been lingering on the man for a long time. She became his god and suddenly descended to the world, blowing away the unfavorable dust from him.
The secret of the old man suffering from leprosy is still revealed. Her crooked fingers and mysterious life experience still stimulate the secretion of fear between word of mouth. She returned to the sanatorium hidden in the woods and spent the last part of her life. The man and the middle school girl who was a regular customer visited her together. In that isolated community, they knew each other's stories completely for the first time. The old man was abandoned by his family since he was a child, met her husband here, and later lost his son; the man was sentenced for fighting, and his mother died in prison; and the girl lived with an unaccountable mother and went to high school for tuition. The class expenses are nothing...So far, this story has formed a wonderful interpersonal relationship. The old man has no sons, the man misses his mother, and the girl lacks father’s love. Three strangers together form a spiritual family. They complemented each other and became the person who yearned for the most in each other's heart.
The three of them are actually "prisoners." The old man Tokunaga was imprisoned by the discriminatory disease and the nursing home that looked like a tomb. The man was imprisoned with lifelong debts and the small dorayaki shop, and the girl was imprisoned by his father. Absence and mother's indifference, but the three prisoners eventually became a key to unlock the other's cell door. It was like the little bird that the girl had been keeping. It was trapped in a cage and was finally released by the old man.
The death of the old man Tokunaga freed himself, and the girl finally entered high school, and the man's shop was usurped by his boss' nephew. He started to set up a stall in the park and shouted bravely. This time, he was not just for his livelihood, but for hope.
This "Smell of Clear Sand" directed by Naomi Kawase is peaceful and quiet, full of respect for life and trust in human nature. Those dorayaki have become the most practical existence in life. It solves the livelihood of some people and comforts the hearts of some people. In a life full of bitterness, that sweet, fragrant and soft bite may be the best salvation.
View more about Sweet Bean reviews
