Film: Call Me Chihiro

In a week I didn’t feel like taking my plastered arm to the cinema, a delightful Japanese film will do.

Chihiro is a former prostitute, working in a Bento takeout place and seemingly living her best life. We see her breathing in the sea air, enjoying the view, returning to her tiny home - they are all tiny homes in Japan and even helping out a homeless man with a bath at her place with an air of ‘seen it all before’.

Chihiro also befriends a teenager who seems obsessed with her and a young kid often on his own while his mum works. In fact, everyone is enamoured with her sunny dis[ostiion, including the many male customers that turn up regularly. I thought they were former happy clients.

I love how amiable she is with all ages, particularly the older lady she visits in the hospital and her employers at the cafe, who know her background. It always amazes me how Japan is not prudish about these things yet so conservative otherwise.

On top of all of this Japanese loveliness, I got a big Muji fix throughout from observing people doing the laundry to eating their lunch from Bento boxes on the beach

More of this please.

8/10

Netflix