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Features: DVD
One of today's greatest filmmakers, Hou Hsiao-hsien pays homage to one of the masters, Yasujiro Ozu, commemorating the centenary of Ozu's birth in this meditative masterpiece of young urban solitude.
Editor's Note
Hou Hsiao-Hsien, one of China's greatest filmmakers, honors the memory of the great Yasujiro Ozu in the beautiful CAFÉ LUMIERE. Like Ozu, Hou tries to capture honesty and reality in the film, which stars pop idol Yo Hitoto as Yoko, a young woman who makes her way through life almost casually, not letting anything get her too upset or too excited. She regularly visits Hajime (Tadanobu Asano) at his small bookstore, where he orders books and CDs especially for her; she has a particular interest in the Chinese composer Jiang Ewn-Ye. She returns home to visit her stepmother (Kimiko Yo) and father (Nenji Kobayashi), who care about her and love her but never take interest in her life. In fact, the characters in the film prefer superficial relationships, that may have some meaning but are not very deep. Yoko seems happiest, or at least most at home, when she's on a train, heading somewhere else; she's never quite content in the moment itself. Hou's film is gorgeous to watch, with long, well-framed shots featuring natural sound and lighting. The story plays out slowly, mimicking real life, with little artifice. There are no big crescendos or dirty secrets unfolding, just a charming, compelling tale about everyday characters doing everyday things.
| Features | "Metro Lumiere" Documentaries | | Audio: Japanese Dolby Digital Stereo | | Interactive Menus | | Interviews | | Original Theatrical Trailer | | Scene Selection | | Subtitles: English |
| Technical Info
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Release Information
| | Studio: Wellspring Media Inc |
| Release Date: 12/27/2005 |
| Running Time: 104 minutes |
| Original Release Date: 2004 | | Catalog ID: FLV5476 | | UPC: 00720917547626 | | Number of Discs: 1 |
Audio & Video
| | Original Language: Japanese | | Available Audio Tracks: Japanese | | Available Subtitles: English | | Video: Color |
| Cast & Crew
| Awards |
Venice Film Festival (2004) | | | Hsiao-Hsien Hou, Nominee, Golden Lion |
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| | Professional Reviews | Sight and Sound
"Hou weaves a remarkably dense filigree of connections between these motifs; a great deal goes on beneath the film's placid, uneventful surface." 06/01/2005 p.45-46Uncut
"Hou somehow cuts deep into the human heart." 07/01/2005 p.129 The New York Times 7 of 10
Cafe Lumiere stands in relation to Tokyo Story as a faint, diminished echo. It is nonetheless a fascinating curiosity, a chance to witness one major filmmaker paying tribute to another in the form of a rigorously minor film. - A.O. Scott
The Village Voice 7 of 10
Dedicated to Yasujiro Ozu (and commissioned by Ozu's old studio, Shochiku, on the occasion of the Japanese master's centenary), Cafe Lumiere is, in some ways, Hou's melancholy rumination on the traditional Japanese family that was already in decline a half-century ago, when Ozu made his most celebrated domestic dramas. Hou's movie is introduced with the classic Shochiku logo and begins with a low-angle shot of a streetcar that might have been framed by Ozu. But for all Hou's supposed stylistic and temperamental affinities to Ozu, as well as a few affectionate quotes from Tokyo Story, Cafe Lumiere is hardly a pastiche. - J. Hoberman
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