Is anything truly achieved alone? From your first job to your first house, or first successful ramen restaurant, how much does success rely on the help and kindness of those around you to inspire change for the better? Jûzô Itami crafts a world within his 1985 comedy Tampopo where food is the language of love, death, and ultimately happiness. The overarching story is conveyed through the relationship between the wider community and their food.

Tampopo’s primary plot is much akin to a Western - it follows cowboy-esque Gorô (Tsutomu Yamazaki) and sidekick Gun (Ken Watanabe) as they roll into town and stumble across an unsuccessful ramen business, run by the titular Tampopo (Nobuko Miyamoto). After ramen-room brawls and a run-in with an antagonist to Gorô, the duo decide to support Tampopo to help her achieve her dreams of owning a successful ramen joint. This is where Itami’s story takes a more unexpected turn, choosing to divert focus onto the wider world of the film and away from what was the main storyline until this point.

Itami pivots to tell stories about food and its impact on those who engage with it; which journalist Willy Blackmore described as ‘Itami’s egalitarian foodie agenda’. One story revolves around a young man at a CEO dinner, wherein he chooses dishes against the norm established by the hierarchy, asking informed questions to the waiter and becoming an individual at a table of collectives by rebelling, much to his superior’s chagrin. Another story follows an experimental couple, who add food to their sex life, ranging from an egg yolk to live shrimp.Additionally, there is an almost silent film-like segment with an older homeless man sneakily teaching Tampopo’s son Tabo how to cook a rice omelette. Here is where the film focuses heavily on the trust in strangers’ goodwill, regardless of circumstance and necessity. It is this recurring idea of the kindness of strangers that lies at the heart of Tampopo, and you can see it clearly in every aspect of the film.

But why community?  Srawgow claims that ‘Itami (...) is more caught up with eating as a universal, supremely sensuous pursuit’, emphasising the film's centralisation of food as Food gives them happiness, and in return, they learn to appreciate and master food, ultimately helping more people learn to love food in an almost cyclical nature. This is echoed heavily in Tampopo’s own story, where she takes time to learn how to cook, cut, manage orders and greet customers in order to create what is ostensibly the perfect ramen joint. 

This is where the key question can be posed: how important is community? 

Nothing in this film is achieved alone, with each character chipping in veritable amounts to achieve Tampopo’s dream. Gorô employs his aid to help Tampopo, Pisuken (the antagonist) provides the signature dish, whilst the Sensei and Shohei aim to better the broth and noodles, all of them coming together to provide the physical labour required to refurbish the joint. Itami emphasises this through Tampopo, who learns from others’ successes and utilises this in the development of her own life. As a result of this, the film rarely feels lonely, almost never having only one character on screen at a time, which makes the world appear to be one of collaboration. 

Aside from this, even the casting in the film emphasises the importance of community. Nobuko Miyamoto (the actress that plays Tampopo) feeds into this idea as she was married to Itami for over fifteen years prior to the film’s release, until his untimely passing in 1997. Miyamoto appeared in every feature film from Itami, often working alongside actor Tsutomu Yamazaki, another frequent collaborator. Tampopo’s cast and crew mimic the community themes of the film in real life and the film would not be possible without trust present in every member.

It is films like Tampopo which present the potential achieved by working together for a common goal, even if it only belongs to a single person. The finale of the film shows the newly opened Tampopo Ramen Shop being overrun by ecstatic customers, punctuating the success built by the community, for the community. However the success is almost bittersweet. One by one, the core crew of Tampopo exit the shop, seeing their hard work has paid off tremendously; each returning to their regular lives after changing somebody else’s. It is this message that remains most prominent, one of banding together to help a stranger in need without the desire of a reward past a grateful ‘thank you’. And ultimately, a message that more people need to hear being conveyed in a film that more people need to watch.

Written by Freddie Smith