An (film)

This article is about the 2015 Japanese film. For the topic, see red bean paste.

An (Sweet Bean)
Film poster
Directed by	Naomi Kawase
Screenplay by	Naomi Kawase
Based on	An by Durian Sukegawa
Starring	Kirin Kiki
Release dates	14 May 2015 (2015-05-14) (Cannes)
Running time	113 minutes
Country	Japan
Language	Japanese
Budget	¥234 million (Japan)

An (Japanese: あん), released in the US as Sweet Bean, is a 2015 Japanese drama film directed by Naomi Kawase. It was selected to open the Un Certain Regard section at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival. It was also selected to be screened in the Contemporary World Cinema section of the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival.

Cast

• Kirin Kiki as Tokue
• Masatoshi Nagase as Sentaro
• Kyara Uchida as Wakana
• Etsuko Ichihara
• Miyoko Asada
• Miki Mizuno

Reception

The film has grossed ¥234 million in Japan. On Film Business Asia, Derek Elley gave it a 3 out of 10, saying that "after a promising start, Kawase Naomi's latest feature is more of the same empty jottings."

Plot

The film centres around Sentaro, a middle-aged man who runs a small dorayaki shop frequented by locals and secondary-school pupils. When he puts up a notice saying that he is looking for a co-worker he is approached by Tokue, a lady in her mid-seventies, who states that she has always wanted to work in a dorayaki shop. Sentaro initially rejects her application, afraid that the work would prove too much for the old lady who, moreover, has somewhat deformed hands. He is swayed, however, when he tries Tokue's bean paste. Its taste and texture are far superior to that of the factory-made bean paste Sentaro has been using. Sentaro asks Tokue to start making bean paste with him, revealing that up till now he did not actually like his own product.

Business begins to thrive, and very soon Tokue also starts serving customers and packaging dorayaki. When customers realise that the deformities to Tokue's hand were caused by leprosy they begin staying away, however, and Sentaro is forced to let Tokue go. Wakana, a school girl whom Sentaro has befriended, eventually suggests that they go and visit Tokue at the sanatorium where she and other patients were forced to stay until the 1996 repeal of the [[{{{1}}}]]. Sentaro feels guilty as he was not able to protect Tokue against the prejudice of their customers, but she assures him that she is grateful for the time she was allowed to spend at the shop.

When some months later Tokue dies, she leaves Sentaro her own bean paste making equipment, as well as a cassette recording intended for him and Wakana. In it, Tokue stresses that a person's worth lies not in their career, but, simply, in their being, and that joy comes from taking in the sensory experiences of the world that surrounds us.

Through most of the film, Sentaro had been a man weighed down by his past. As Sentaro reveals in a letter he sends to Tokue when she no longer works for the shop, he once seriously injured a man in a pub brawl, something of which he is still ashamed. He was subsequently imprisoned and had to pay a large reparation payment to the victim. Physically, Sentaro is tied to the dorayaki shop, which is owned by the loan shark that furnished the money for the reparation payment; money which Sentaro has not yet been able to pay back. Yet at the end of the film Sentaro is seen selling dorayaki from his own stall in the local park, clearly more at ease with his existence.

Themes

The film centres primarily around the themes of freedom and joy, suggesting that by embracing our sensory experiences we may attain richer, more rewarding lives. As Deborah Young writes, "The undercurrent that runs through the film is a message to learn from nature and enjoy the wonder of life moment by moment, no matter what hard knocks you're dealt". This aspect of the film ties in with the director's earlier work, "A consistent underlying concern of [which] has been the unspoken bond between man and his environment".

External links

• An (Sweet Bean) at IMDb
• Official website (Japanese)