The Ramen Girl (2008, Robert Allan Ackerman)

There’s not much good to say about The Ramen Girl, except the Japanese cast does pretty well. They don’t get actual story arcs, and they’re only around to service the vanity of narcissist protagonist Brittany Murphy. But their acting is good, even though director Ackerman is terrible with their scenes too.

Murphy is a trust fund Barbie who runs off to Japan pursuing bro Gabriel Mann, who throws her aside after one night together. While Mann seems quite the villain, once the film gets into Murphy’s behaviors more, it plays just as likely she’s a stalker. Becca Topol’s script is godawful to be sure, but the film’s literally about Murphy not learning anything and being rewarded for it. So any time there’s a moment of character development or revelation, it’s simultaneously obviously accidental and also mildly interesting what it unintentionally explains about Murphy’s character (and the film’s mentalities).

After Mann runs out on her—leaving her with nothing but a sad pair of ex-pats (Daniel Evans and Tammy Blanchard)—Murphy finds her way to the neighborhood ramen shop and starts insinuating herself into the lives of the owners. Nishida Toshiyuki is the depressed, drunken chef, and Yo Kimiko is his tolerant wife. Murphy decides Nishida will teach her to be a ramen cook, which is a big deal for Nishida. He’s sad because his son didn’t want to be a ramen chef, making him feel less of a man than pseudo-competitor Ishibashi Renji. It doesn’t matter. It’s all background to Murphy being cloying and clingy. And bad. Her performance is atrocious. Again, Ackerman’s directing is awful throughout, but when it comes to directing Murphy, Ackerman manages to get worse and worse at it as the film progresses.

Maybe because her character arc is all being mad at Nishida for expecting her to understand Japanese. And if not Japanese, to understand the secret ramen chef camaraderie he’s convinced is a thing. More, he’s convinced Murphy is his heir apparent even if she doesn’t ever understand what he’s trying to tell her about it. At one point, she magically understands someone else’s Japanese. The magical realism aspects are Girl at its most inventive, so it’s too bad Ackerman entirely bungles them.

Technically, it’d be too nice to call it a mess. Ackerman’s composition is lousy, and he doesn’t seem to understand how DV works, which is fine since cinematographer Sakamoto Yoshitaka doesn’t know how to light it. Bad music from Carlo Siliotto and bad cutting from Rick Shaine lump things out.

It’s possible a better editor would’ve helped—better music definitely would’ve helped—but there’s only so much anyone could’ve done. Murphy’s performance and Ackerman’s direction are incompetent.

Though Blanchard’s also risible. Every time she shows up, it reminds Ramen Girl could be worse, actually. She could be in it more.

The only engaging aspect—besides the Japanese actors, who just get screwed over, so they’re a wasted investment—is trying to figure out if Murphy’s a narcissist, sociopath, or just a solipsist (doesn’t believe anyone exists outside her own mind).

Ackerman can’t even shoot the food. It’s ostensibly a cookery picture, and Ackerman can’t even shoot the food. Ramen Girl is less filling than a Cup o’ Noodles

Departures (2008, Takita Yôjirô)

Departures suffers for its DV photography. Suffers. Hamada Takeshi cannot figure out how to light for the video and, as a result, the film never looks good. Maybe if director Takita were somehow taking it into account, but no, Takita just pretends it doesn’t look like an ornate Hi8 camcorder production.

With some competent mise-en-scène, Departures might be able to get away with its other big problems. Though the score—composed by Joe Hisaishi—definitely part of the wanting audiovisual tone—would also need to upgrade. Otherwise it’s just a disaster third act and middling acting from its leads, sometimes due to the script, sometimes due to Takita not directing them, sometimes just the actors.

The film’s about failed cellist Motoki Masahiro returning to his hometown after his latest failure. Except Departures opens in a flash forward revealing the film’s actually going to be about Motoki becoming an encoffiner and the antics of the job. An encoffiner is a class of mortician who prepares the body to be placed in the coffin, including doing makeup, usually with the family watching. The film immediately establishes it’s a solemn, ritualistic, respectful ceremony.

And then veers into transphobia as a joke, though who knows how the scene would play if Motoki were capable of emoting. He’s capable of reflecting, with Takita setting up the object, event, or person for Motoki to respond to with reflection, but Motoki can’t reflect without stimulus.

Then the film flashes back to Motoki’s latest orchestra collapsing (he went with a bad one because he’s not very good) and him having to convince wife Hirosue Ryôko they should move to his hometown. There’s no subplot about returning to the hometown outside running into old friend Sugimoto Tetta, who’ll end up shunning him for being in the funeral trade, but Departures avoids a “returning home” plot for Motoki like the plague. Maybe it just cut. Like when he finds out coworker Yo Kimiko worked for Motoki’s mom for years before she died and he doesn’t tell her the connection. Motoki’s got no interest in the dead single mom who sacrificed all to raise him. He just obsesses on his dad leaving when he was five because dudes.

He’s going to have a terrible arc with Hirosue, who seems utterly personality-less (she just giggles for the first half of the movie), only to discover she’s actually got lots of thoughts she hasn’t been sharing because they’re have screwed up the narrative. Hirosue’s not good. She also doesn’t get a single good scene in the film. They cut away from potentially good scenes occasionally, but usually she doesn’t even have them set up. It’s mildly annoying.

The real star is Yamazaki Tsutomu, the encoffining boss, who hires Motoki for his initial gumption and is convinced Motoki will be great at the job for some reason. Also Motoki can’t remember what his dad looks like so is it impossible Yamazaki’s his dad? No, not impossible. It’s a mystery to be solved it turns out, because Koyama Kundô’s script goes for the predictable and obvious every single time. Sure, sometimes there’s a skipped scene to finish a character arc, but you can always guess what would’ve happened. I guess at least Departures isn’t patronizing… but it’s almost stranger it isn’t.

Yamazaki is great. Motoki is middling. Every time you want to cut Motoki some slack because the direction and photography is wanting… you realize Yamazaki is excelling under the same conditions.

Then there’s Hisaishi’s score, which you might think would leverage a lot of cello. Nope. Piano. Even during scenes where Motoki is playing the cello onscreen, eventually there’s some kind of non-diegetic accompaniment. It’s like… pick an instrument you at least want to have run the score. There’s no reason Motoki couldn’t have been a mediocre pianist. It also would’ve made for a more visually interesting scene with he sits alone outside playing to nature.

Departures is what happens when you don’t balance your character study right. And you don’t have the technicals down. And you don’t have the right leads.

But Yamazaki is outstanding and there are a bunch of great ideas. Just with a muddy result.