THE TASTE OF TEA

We took a company field trip the other day to see the very sublime film The Taste of Tea. Everyone loved this film so much and Hillary is going to share a few thoughts on this must-see, one of a kind film [PS - check out Hillary's amazing illustrations in the new Amy Sedaris book I LIKE YOU!]

-Todd

The other day we all skipped out of the studio earlier than usual to check out The Taste of Tea, by Katsuhito Ishii, who has made several previous films, as well as having collaborated on Kill Bill with Quentin Tarrentino. This lastest being touted as an original departure from an earlier martial arts direction, and a promising addition to his list of films. The whole reason we became interested in seeing this film in the first place was due to seeing the movie poster featuring a little girl and her one hundred foot tall doppelganger that sometimes turns up and stares at her.
There is an Alice in Wonderland quality that is set against a cool domestic non-drama also an homage to Fanny and Alexander by Ingmar Bergman, the two worlds weave in and out with fluid abandon. The film basically follows all the family members around in their daily lives, which go from the mundane to the "lysergic." This film, was also a nod to the films of Yasujiro Ozu, one of Japans’ national treasures who coined the tatami shot, the angle at which you would see things if kneeling on a tatami mat. This makes a particular kind of sense when watching A Taste of Tea, that is at once a meditation and the bliss of the small moment as well as a distilled view af life's mystical underbelly. I love this film on many levels. The family members all have special supercharged attributes, like the characters are drawn by an everpresent anime artist, also the film gives me hope in it's ability to see the world with the magical eyes that it does.