Aug 08 (Nikkei) - Is a world that has grown accustomed to expressing passions through masks and at a safe distance ready to embrace a succulent cinematic work that explores the wildly erotic potential of close-up encounters with sensual foods?
The answer may lie in the surprisingly positive reception thus far for "Sexual Drive," a quirky, nearly minimalist feature that probes the connection between secret sexual desires and peculiarly tantalizing dishes without anyone actually removing their clothes. Having launched in February, ahead of its Asian premiere at Taipei's Golden Horse Fantastic Film Festival in April, the bulk of reviews and box office returns have yet to come in. But U.S. and European distributors have immediately picked up "Sexual Drive" in hopes that its cool yet quirky approach to some very hot subjects (and meals) may bring commercial success.
Early response to the film has drawn unexpected attention to its Japanese director, Yoshida Kota, whose matter-of-fact approach is as unusual as his background in directing soft-core porn films that are known as "pinku" cinema in Japan.
While drawing accolades on the art house circuit and several international film festivals, "Sexual Drive" is still to be commercially screened in its home country. It follows in the footsteps of other food-obsessed film hits, from the Japanese 1985 film "Tampopo," which took a hilarious look at the quest for the perfect bowl of ramen, to Ang Lee's "Eat Drink Man Woman," with family relations revealed through the sharing of a master chef's suppers, or the flirtatious foreplay over bone marrow, oysters and fruit in "Tom Jones."
Leave it to Japan to lead the way once again when it comes to examining some of mankind's most repressed, even embarrassing, urges and to do so through focusing on edible pleasures and their emotional context.
A poster for "Sexual Drive." (Courtesy of Film Movement)
The film throws a special light on the erogenous potential of several distinctly Japanese dishes, including natto, the oozing and highly fragrant fermented bean many Japanese cannot resist; ramen laced with pork-back fat; and the odd attraction of instant mixes that replicate the searing pungent sauce of Chinese mapo tofu.
The film is structured into three segments named after these dishes, presenting a triptych of intimate encounters linked through the enigmatic presence of a gritty yet deadpan stranger carrying a gift box of chestnuts while intent on -- pardon the pun -- spilling various personal beans.
