Sweet Bean

Senturo makes a living selling dorayaki – a type of pancake filled with sweet red bean paste – but the shop is struggling. That is, until Okue, an elderly woman, applies for a job and turns out to be one of Japan's best at making dorayaki.

Sweet Bean is the most touching and audience-friendly film so far from the Japanese auteur Naomi Kawase, who also opened the Un Certain Regard section at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival. We follow Senturo, who makes a living selling dorayaki, a type of pancake filled with a sweet red bean paste. His shop is struggling, and Senturo is on the verge of giving up. However, when Okue, an elderly woman who turns out to be one of Japan's best at making dorayaki, applies for a job, everything changes. It soon becomes clear that neither Okue nor Senturo are who they claim to be.

Sweet Bean has been described as both «food porn» and an aesthetic masterpiece. However, it is not the food that takes center stage. At its core, this is a beautiful and deeply universal fable about companionship, betrayal, and friendship.

Kristian Takvam Kindt (FFS Arkiv 2020)

Director

Naomi Kawase (b. 1969) had her true breakthrough with The Mourning Forest in 2007, for which she won the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival that same year. In Norway, she is probably best known for Sweet Bean, released in 2015.