Review of Sweet Bean

Masatoshi Nagase runs a dorayaki shop -- a dorayaki is a Japanese sweet of two small pancakes with red bean paste between. Kirin Kiki comes in one day when the cherry trees are blossoming and applies for a part-time job. When she finally gets it, she looks with horror at the paste he uses, a thin jelly that comes in three-gallon tins. She comes in to make the paste from scratch, a laborious, time-consuming process that seems to involve her listening to the beans as they soak. Suddenly, when he opens the doors, he is astonished to see crowds standing patiently in line the the pastries. But there are problems. The young girl he gives the botched pancakes to runs away from home; Miss Kiki turns out to be a leper; and Nagase himself bears a sadness.

It's hard to say what the points the film's director, Naomi Kawase, wishes to emphasize. Perhaps that's clearer in the novel it was based on. Is it having an actual goal or purpose in life, whatever it may be? The need to care for someone and be cared? The life of the cherry trees that line the street of the dorayaki shop? While the film takes its time drawing the audience's attention to these, with the hesitantly spoken dialogue and the leisurely bouts of dialogue-free acting, shots of the moon and the rush of wind, there's never any clear answer.... but there's plenty of handsomely shot images to look at and characters to learn somethng about.