The Taste of Tea

This film may be easier to experience than describe. Beautiful, cosmic, and goofy, this Japanese family comedy is overlong at 143 minutes, but never fails to entertain. Writer-director Katsuhiro Ishii's 2004 feature won several awards and was featured at Cannes.

The episodic story features overlapping vignettes following the lives of six members of the Haruno family in their strange world. The daughter is plagued by a giant-size version of herself, and the lovesick teenage boy has trains coming out of his head. Mom is trying to restart her career in anime, hypnotherapist Dad practices on his family, and the sound mixer uncle is drifting, unable to resolve emotional issues. Grandpa is just strange, listening to tuning forks, striking poses for Mom and hiding in his room.

Then there are lots of quirkier minor characters, including cosplayers, yakuza, a horndog manga artist aspiring-musician brother-in-law, and a free-spirited dancer. There are lots of little throwaway scenes, both charming and hysterically funny, and nature panoramas beautifully photographed. Legendary anime director Hideaki Anno has a cameo as -- an anime director.

This is reminiscent of an Ozu film as a quiet family story, with not much action but just the progress of life. While the gentle humor sometimes recalls Ozu, there are outrageous gags as well, a lot of surrealism and general strangeness, adding up to lots of fun!

Here's the music video that brother-in-law made with Grandpa: