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Café Lumière

6.6

687

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Original title

Kôhî Jikô (Café Lumière)

Year

2003

Running time

108 min.

Country

Taiwan

Director

Hou Hsiao-Hsien

Screenwriter

Hou Hsiao-Hsien, Chu Tien-Wen

Cast

Music

Yousui Inoue

Cinematography

Mark Lee

Producer

Co-production Taiwan-Japan;

Genre

Drama

Synopsis

Imagine enjoying a coffee. Now imagine having a coffee and transforming your mood, forgetting all that has happened previously, resetting yourself to be able to move on to what you are going to do next. It may only be a short time, but this coffee time is a treasure that imbues these benefits.

2003, Tokyo. A part of a residential neighborhood where the tramcars still run. Freelance writer Yoko (Yo Hitoto) has just returned from Taiwan the previous night. Before returning to her home in Takasaki, she decides to visit the second-hand bookstore in Jimbocho owned by Hajime (Tadanobu Asano), who has taken on the running of the store from his father. Hajime and Yoko first became friends when she began coming to his store searching for research materials. She has also come to know Hajime's best friend, Seiji (Masato Hagiwara), who owns a tempura restaurant and the three have become very close. Yoko is researching materials on the Taiwan-born musician Jiang Ewn-Ye who was also active in Japan, and Hajime is helping her in her search for these materials. Given that her parents divorced when she was just a child, Yoko was brought up in the rural northern island of Hokkaido by her uncle, who was troubled by poor eyesight, but she has since built up a relationship with her real father (Nenji Kobayashi) and his new wife (Kimiko Yo).

Yoko returns to her father's house for the annual Obon festival in August. It is there when Yoko, who hasn't spent time with her parents for a long time announces the fact that she is pregnant. This sudden news shocks her father and step-mother into silence. To collect more materials about Jiang Ewn-Ye, Yoko makes a trip to Ueda in Nagano Prefecture. She visits the Ueda High School where Jiang studied and the kindergarten where the missionary who influenced Jiang used to work, walking in his footsteps.

Hajime, who is something of a railway fanatic likes nothing better than to record the sound of trains in his spare time. There are therefore many occasions when he and Yoko will meet up on station platforms. On her recent trip to Taiwan, Yoko has brought back an old pocket watch that used to be owned 50 years ago by a driver on the Taiwan railroads, as a gift for Hajime. Yoko feels that she can tell the silent and calm Hajime anything. She finds that when she is with Hajime, she feels an unusual peace of mind and special calmness of spirit in herself.

Yoko is fond of coffee and has a favorite coffee shop with a favorite seat in particular wherever she goes. Yoko and Hajime talk about nothing of any consequence, and enjoy the peaceful flow of time with each other. On the other hand, Hajime who is fond of Yoko, is shocked to learn that she is pregnant and is unable to convey his own feelings. In the midst of this situation, Yoko receives word that her uncle in Hokkaido will undergo eye surgery.

One day Yoko's parents come to Tokyo for the funeral of an acquaintance. While eating the mother's homemade potato stew in Yoko's apartment, the parents have it out with Yoko about her pregnancy. It turns out that the father was one of the students to whom she taught Japanese in Taiwan, who is now managing an umbrella factory in Amoy, but she has no intention of marrying him. Although he is worried for his daughter as an unmarried mother, her father cannot bring himself to put these feelings neatly into words. Yoko who has fallen asleep on the train wakes up and notices Hajime watching over her and is reassured. In the daylight of another ordinary afternoon, Yoko starts to evaluate her life, and consider her family and the new life growing inside her…

Awards: 2004: Venice Film Festival: Official Selection

2005: Premios de la Academia Japonesa: Newcomer of the Year.

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User history

Café Lumière

2003

Hou Hsiao-Hsien

6.6

(687)