Made-to-order

Another for the how-did-I-just-find-this files: Bento Monogatari, a Belgian (Flemish) short film about a woman who becomes obsessed with Japanese culture, cooking in particular, and inflicts this on her husband who prefers cheese sandwiches (and nice-looking young men in their underwear). The wife even watches "Cooking With Dog" at one point! You see Francis!

Given the themes this movie addresses, it seems as if it were created from some kind of algorithm designed to find me the movie of my dreams. That said, it wasn't the best movie I'd ever seen. The homoerotic subplot is maybe done in too generic of a 'this is a European art film' way, and the bit in the synopsis about how the wife is making all this Japanese food to save her marriage doesn't really come through at all. What comes through is that she's super into everything Japanese, including looking like a Japanese teenager, which isn't a look that comes naturally to a middle-aged Flemish woman.

(Flashback to the great joy I experienced upon finally seeing those teen clothing stores in Harajuku... only to remember that what works on a 15-year-old looks odd, not cute, on someone twice that age. A realization that saved some yen, but still.)

In other Japanese-cooking news, I recently met a Japanese woman who cooks bagels from scratch at home. Grass is always greener and all that.