Midnight Diner 2

In the back streets of Tokyo a diner is open from midnight until morning. There is one item on the menu; for anything else the customer tells the Master what they want and he makes it. Three stories are told in this film: a woman coming back from a funeral, an elderly man who realises he has been swindled, and a delivery man who cannot bring himself near the person he loves. The Master gives none of them advice; he only prepares the food. The source is Yaro Abe's manga; the story ran for a long time as a television series first, and this film is the second cinema extension of it. The mould never changes: each section starts with a dish, goes on with what that dish means to someone, and leaves it somewhere even when nothing is resolved. The strength of the telling is in its smallness; nobody is saved, another night simply passes. Kaoru Kobayashi has played the Master with the same calm for years.