Browsing around YouTube instead of working, as you do, today I found this little gem. It’s a commercial for Ajinomoto Mayonnaise, by Juzo Itami, the late, great director of the best food movie ever, Tampopo [1]:
The actor (not sure if it’s Itami himself) is talking on the phone to a friend, when he gets hungry. Still remaining on the phone (and inexplicably on his back), he scoots over to the kitchen to get white bread, mayo and chirimenjako, little semi-dried fish. He tops it off with a fresh shiso leaf, and is in heaven. The dialogue is just like the dense, obsessive dialogue in Tampopo. I’ll have to give that sandwich a try one day…it is odd enough that it has to appeal only to a really curious food person.
(The second commercial is cute yet odd, like many of the best Japanese commercials.)
The actor (not sure if it’s Itami himself) is talking on the phone to a friend, when he gets hungry. Still remaining on the phone (and inexplicably on his back), he scoots over to the kitchen to get white bread, mayo and chirimenjako, little semi-dried fish. He tops it off with a fresh shiso leaf, and is in heaven. The dialogue is just like the dense, obsessive dialogue in Tampopo. I’ll have to give that sandwich a try one day…it is odd enough that it has to appeal only to a really curious food person.
(The second commercial is cute yet odd, like many of the best Japanese commercials.)
Links:
[1] http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000GG4RMU/ref=nosim/wwwmakikoitoc-20