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Backyard Coffee and Jazz in Kyoto

(thedeletedscenes.substack.com)
592 points wyclif | 3 comments | 23 Jun 25 14:37 UTC | HN request time: 0.413s | source
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frereubu ◴[23 Jun 25 15:03 UTC] No.44356536[source]▶
This reminds me very much of one of my favourite series on Netflix, Midnight Diner (not Midnight Diner - Tokyo Stories, which is a Netflix remake with many of the same cast, but not as enjoyable as the original in my opinion). Most of the action centres around a group of regulars talking while at a small izakaya in Shinjuku, Tokyo, which is run by someone known only as "Master" and only opens from midnight to 7am. You see a bit of their lives outside, but it always reverts back to the izakaya where they debate on various topics. Given the setting, each episode feels a bit like a theatre play.
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sho_hn ◴[23 Jun 25 15:37 UTC] No.44356851[source]▶
I tend to react a bit allergic to the Japan-everything fetishizing so prominent on Hacker News (although I've come to realize that it's mostly Americans holding up an example of everything they feel they lack domestically, and in that sense isn't so much about Japan as it is about America), but perhaps it's an interesting data point that at as a grumpy cynic I still want to second this recommendation. :)

For one reason or another, the Japanese school of story-telling has a pretty prominent streak of this type of low-stakes, downtempo "slice of life" premise like this, that I find very satisfying. The director Hirokazu Koreeda has made many films of this type as well. For a while my wife and I would alternate watching Spanish films by Pedro Almodóvar and Koreeda on movie night, working through both catalogs, which somehow made a lot of sense together.

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prideout ◴[23 Jun 25 16:13 UTC] No.44357250[source]▶
I have never seen a Koreeda film but he sounds compelling -- which movie would you recommend for a first-timer?
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1. sho_hn ◴[23 Jun 25 16:20 UTC] No.44357340[source]▶
Shoplifters was a recent international success and is maybe the most accessible. My favorites of his are After the Storm and Maboroshi, though. All of them feature wonderful characters and quiet adult moments.

On the arthouse circuit, I think he's best known for After Life, which is a bit more challenging (honestly: I found it a bit dull) but worth biting into.

Do you know that pang of melancholic joy-and-regret you feel after you've had a wonderful day and you know no matter how much you and the others involved try, you can probably never quite recreate that magic a second time? Grateful for the memory you'll always have, yet at the same time sad? That's how his movies feel to me, where I'm often both happy and sad I've seen them. It's pretty damn great when a movie can do that.

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2. flobosg ◴[23 Jun 25 16:56 UTC] No.44357707[source]▶
I can second the Shoplifters recommendation.
3. the_af ◴[23 Jun 25 17:13 UTC] No.44357864[source]▶
Interesting. I think I've only watched After Life and indeed found it very dull (and for the record: I enjoy slow-paced Japanese movies with "quiet adult moments"). I actually thought the premise of the movie wasn't well explored at all.

So maybe I would enjoy his other movies, if you liked them!