Sweet Bean

Nominee
Un Certain Regard ~ Avenir Prize
Cannes Film Festival
A celebration not just of homemade cooking but of taking your time and doing it right - precisely what the celebrated director does herself.
-- Alan Scherstuhl, Village Voice

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Sweet Bean

Sweet bean is a delicious red bean paste, the sweet heart of the dorayaki pancakes that Sentaro (Masatoshi Nagase) sells from his little bakery to a small but loyal clientele. Absorbed in sad memories and distant thoughts, Sentaro cooks with skill but without enthusiasm. When seventy-six-year-old Tokue (Kirin Kiki) responds to his ad for an assistant and cheerfully offers to work for a ridiculously low wage, Sentaro is skeptical about the eccentric old lady's ability to endure the long hours. But when she shows up early one morning and reveals to him the secret to the perfect sweet bean paste, Sentaro agrees to take her on. With Tokue's new home cooked sweet bean paste recipe, Sentaro's business begins to flourish, but Tokue is afflicted with an illness that, once revealed, drives her into isolation once again.

Not Rated
Genre
Drama, Food
Runtime
113
Language
Japanese
Director
Naomi Kawase
Cast
Kirin Kiki, Kyara Uchida, Miyoko Asada, Etsuko Ichihara
Awards:
Nominee, Un Certain Regard ~ Avenir Prize, Cannes Film Festival
FEATURED REVIEW
Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor

“An” is the sweet azuki bean paste that serves as the filler in the pancake-like Japanese dorayaki. “Sweet Bean” is probably the only movie that provides what amounts to a tutorial in how to make the perfect dorayaki. In that sense, and in that sense only, it recalls other Japanese films, especially ...

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