Ramen Shop Analysis

Ramen Shop (2018) 

Directed by: Eric Khoo
Premiered at Berlin International Film Festival 2018. 
Streaming on MUBI.

After his father dies, a young ramen chef in Japan finds an old journal left by his Singaporean mother's who died 10 years back. On a hunch, he decides to travel to Singapore with the diary in hope to piece together their story. It's set in very positive worlds - in specialty food places, where people cook for the love of food and also, it's like a travel film where you travel somewhere to find something - you meet people, have conversations and learn more about life. Here, he meets a food blogger, and in this film - he's also visiting his past because his family is here - he meets his maternal uncle, and has good moments with him - learns a dish and discovers that his grandmother is still alive - which is essentially the piece he was looking for. 

The film has a very sweet, coming-of-age vibe to it. It reminded me of the film 'Sweet Bean'. Though, it doesn't have conflicts, a sense of story, and nor it's extremely engaging - what works is the feeling the film leaves us with, and the kind of feeling it makes us feel even while we are watching it. Recalling past. Memories which linger. Food. Love. Dealing with loss. Moving on and finding life. Family. These are the words that I can put together to describe the kind of vibe the film left me with. I also got a lot of 'Norwegian Wood' vibes from the film. The food is shot very well, the way they show each ingredients before they start cooking, or the way they show every item being individually served, and the way Singapore is captured - it all helps in creating the mood. The house at the ending, the pictures, paintings pasted on the yellow wall - the bed that he sits on - the music that plays in the background - everything comes together so well to create the mood and the feeling that I'm talking about. This film is a lot beyond the script - the way they shoot and edit it, totally makes the film what it is.