Kamome shokudô (2006)

Director:

Naoko Ogigami

Writers:

Yôko Mure (novel)
Naoko Ogigami (screenplay)

Release Date:

April 2006 (Japan)

Genre:

Comedy | Drama

Plot Keywords:

Based On Novel

Awards:

1 nomination

Cast

Satomi Kobayashi	...	Sachie
Hairi Katagiri	...	Midori
Masako Motai	...	Masako
Jarkko Niemi	...	Tommi Hiltunen
Tarja Markus	...	Liisa
Markku Peltola	...	Matti
Anita Linnasola
Eine Räihä		(as Eine Raiha)
Marjatta Salin
Pentti Heinonen
Pertti Roisko
Irja Punnonen
Pekka Punnonen
Jussi Vehviläinen		(as Jussi Vehvilainen)
Milja Huimala

Also Known As:

Kamome Diner (International: English title)

Runtime:

Japan:102 min | Finland:104 min

Country:

Japan

Language:

Japanese | Finnish

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

DTS

Certification:

Finland:K-3 | South Korea:All

Filming Locations:

Helsinki, Finland

Company:

Nippon Television Network Corporation (NTV)

Come for the food, stay for the companionship

Like the items from the menu of its titular establishment, "Kamome Diner" may be deceptively simple, yet within it is an amusing and sometimes hilarious contemplation on living in a foreign land, accompanied by droll performances and oozing sincerity so keen to please it would be churlish to fully dismiss. Naoki Ogigami's travelogue-slash-food show revels so much in its simplicity and oddity it's to the writer-director's credit that she succeeds on pulling it off with a material that sometimes border on sheer kink.

Sachie (Satomi Kobayashi) solely runs Kamome Diner (Ruokala Lokki), a restaurant in Helsinki she envisions catering to Finns looking for other than the typical Japanese fare -- a dream that, judging from the perpetually empty tables and chairs, is getting a cruel disappointment. Never getting more than curious stares from passersby, wheels of change start turning soon, however, with Sachie's first customer, an apparent Japanophile (Jarkko Niemi) whose eagerness to start up a small talk with her paves the way to meeting with Midori (Hairi Katagiri), a Japanese woman who is in Finland, as she explains in one of the film's most comical moments, by blind luck. Midori strikes a friendship with Sachie and helps in maintaining the diner, which gradually sees patrons trickle in even as Sachie develops a bond with some of the restaurant's customers.

Essentially a dissertation on the Maslowian hierarchy, Ogigami incrementally surrounds her characters with the core components for the survival of man (or woman, for that matter) by having them realize first the significance of basic necessities (the need to earn, the need for lodging, the need to find a lost luggage, etc) before they learn the value of peripheral essentials such as the camaraderie among themselves and the eventual self-actualization of Sachie as a restaurateur. The warm cinematography by Tuomo Virtanen lends a homey feel to the quaint diner -- a rather cramped but cozy place in the otherwise large but damp Finnish capital -- that furthers the empathetic kinship within its walls, a pleasing, if not perfect, marriage of the hospitable Japanese and the laid back Finn.