Rating: B+
Ever had doriyaki before? I haven’t, but from what I now know, they are little pancakes filled with sweet bean paste (called an). In An, doriyaki shop manager Sentaro (Masatoshi Nagase) hires Tokue (Kirin Kiki), a little old lady who makes the best an he’s ever tasted.
The detail with which the process of making an is delightful – Tokue may be a sweet little old lady, but there is nothing she takes more seriously than her beans. Tokue is is content to just stay in the back of the shop making an, she so happy to have a job, but when her manager asks her to help serve customers her excitement is euphoric. Her new lease on life contrasts wonderfully with the brooding Sentaro, and their relationship drives the film. This may seem cliché, but a stellar performance by Kirin Kiki keeps it from being cloying.
Director Naomi Kawase uses this dynamic to artfully draw in her audience and then eases into the terrible history of leprosy in Japan. To me, leprosy was something that only happened in the bible or the occasional episode of House, so I was very surprised to learn that until as recently as 1996, Japanese people who had suffered from leprosy lived in quarantine. An avoids getting political though – it focuses on the freedom those people may experience now rather than their years of isolation.
Usually I’ll have my guard up when watching any film with an adorable old lady (9/10 times it’s going to make me cry), so I almost felt tricked by how easily I came to care about the characters.
This isn’t a ground-breaking film by any means, but it is still very sweet and enjoyable. An is subtle and poignant but without any pretention, and thankfully avoids being preachy. It may be slow paced, but it will still have you googling leprosy in Japan (or how to make doriyaki) hours after watching.