Napszállta (Sunset)

Dreamlike exploration observing radical tradition, patient determined movements discovering reticent clues, modest celebrity cultivating passage instinctual grace establishing ties, temperate precipitation intuitively encompassed, like Napszállta (Sunset)'s surreal backgammon, and curious Írisz Leiter (Juli Jakab) keeps rolling double sixes.

She would have been an heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire's most prestigious millinery shop if grand misfortune hadn't necessitated alternative fortunes.

The new owner still supplies elegant hats to fashionable royals, and one of his resident artists will perhaps serve at court one day.

But it's not that simple, not quite so clear cut, so homely.

It's a different time, just before the outbreak of World War I, and the aristocracy and the people are expressing themselves confrontationally, neither group willing to accept the other's terms, destructive conflicts having arisen consequently.

The film and myriad other sources truthfully suggest the upper crust was none too kind to its workers of the day, and the people had no means to hold them to account.

Írisz's brother, in hiding and displeased with the corruption, has abandoned peaceful methods of persuasion; she's caught between his anger and the traditions of her artistic heritage.

She's just moved to Budapest and doesn't understand what's happening, wandering somnambulistically between the two parties, accessing highly secretive and exclusive realms without censure, maladroitly assured that peace is ecumenical.

Even though her family was well thought of, and her name is widely known and respected, it's still quite improbable that she would be able to proceed so freely, to go wherever she wants at whatever time.

Thus the dreamlike qualities of the narrative, the intense nightmarish revelations accentuated by obsessive close-ups.

Napszállta's more like grim realistic fantasy than lively magical realism, its chaotic combative testaments composed in dismal haunting fairy tale.

Mátyás Erdély's cinematography creates sombre phantasmagorical confusion that asymptotically incarnates horror, thereby reflecting the terrifying nature of the times, wherein which nothing seems concrete or stable.

But it's still loosely grounded inasmuch as you know where you are and what's transpiring, or at least know as much as Írisz, who knows close to nothing at all.

The total absence of concerned mediators intensifies the conscious anarchy, as does the lack of conversation or explanation, as if a child's on its own for the first time, lost and leading in Twin Peaks's Black Lodge.

Napszállta's bewildered sincerity magnetically draws you in, substituting nausea for lucidity with morose desperate conjecture.

The effect is nauseating at times so it's difficult to take the whole way through, but that doesn't mean its aesthetic isn't uniform, nor its ambivalence, inarticulate.

Bold filmmaking.

Grizzly style.

Ramen Teh

A young man, longing to prove himself, sets off from Japan to visit his mother's family in Singapore.

His father was a celebrated chef who settled in a small town to the delight of its local residents.

Widely renowned he may have been, but easy going (like my dad) he was not, and although he sought to diversify fundamentals, he never shared his knowledge with his respectful son (Takumi Saito as Masato).

After his passing, his son Masato discovers a suitcase full of memorabilia which poses a treasure trove of questions he's ill-equipped to answer.

Yet they lead him to Singapore and its own tempting culinary traditions.

Sleuthing in a foreign country, and overflowing with purposeful examination, his friendly uncle lends a hand, although he can't appease his hostile grandmother.

For his parents married against her will in the aftermath of World War II, their budding love and youthful devotion then overlooked forever after.

She can't forgive.

Even after all this time.

But Masato's full of endearing pluck.

And won't yield to the hardhearted flutter.

Dramatic family drama.

Soothed by gastronomic arts.

Ramen Teh takes one part stubborn and another openminded, blends them intergenerationally, then prepares a multifaceted feast.

The narrative generally follows a linear recipe, but there's enough scenic spice to atemporally tantalize.

It wouldn't have been easy to forgive after the war, and I can understand if some people simply won't/wouldn't.

Watch the videos, the documentaries, Schindler's List, teach yourself about how cruel and horrifying World War II really was.

It's not a humorous subject, not something to be taken lightly, not something to be romanticized, it was systematic abject terror.

Tenderly, in the war's long reaching wake, Ramen Teh uses food to harmonize different peoples.

I'd wager it's impossible to emerge from watching it without a new found respect for Asian cooking, and a strong desire to head out and try something new posthaste.

Ramen noodles for me.

Sitting back and enjoying a meal is something peoples everywhere love to do, and the simple act of enjoying food with friends and/or loved ones unconsciously unites the globe in wonder.

Ramen Teh excels at bringing people together without sermon or sentiment, through the simple act of modestly preparing something.

Compromise leads to reconciliation.

Listening promotes curiosity.

Some of the time anyways.

Some of the best of times.