Greenes Please don't spend money on this.

Taraparain Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

Nicole I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

Hattie I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

politic1983 2003 marked the centenary of the great Yasujiro Ozu's birth, and as such, films in tribute were made. One such film was Taiwanese director Hsiao-Hsien Hou's "Cafe Lumiere". With Ozu so associated with deep Japanese family drama, it may seem difficult to believe that a non-native can take on a film in tribute to him. But with subtle styling and nuances, Hou shows clear touches of Ozu's influence, while still maintaining enough individuality to steer it away from becoming an Ozu paint-by-numbers work of nothingness. Yoko - played by Taiwanese-Japanese musician Yo Hitoto - is some sort of reporter-type who switches her time between Tokyo and Taiwan. Researching Taiwanese composer Wen-Ye Jiang (for some reason), she seeks out a cafe/bar the composer frequented when based in Tokyo. And that's about that: a film low on plot and slow in pace, it's in the nuances along the way that make this a tribute to the Japanese master.Family and its changing nature is a theme hinted at throughout, with Yoko pregnant by her boyfriend in Taiwan. However, she has a somewhat blasé attitude towards the pregnancy, and indeed her boyfriend, unconcerned as to whether she sees him again, let alone allowing him to father his child, reflecting a modern decline in the nuclear family, and particular Japanese attitudes to sex and declining birth rate. Her father seems unimpressed with her attitude, while her step- mother tries to do what she can to please her. Living in the countryside, their visiting her in her small Tokyo apartment is reminiscent of Ozu's "Tokyo Story", with the elders feeling out of place in the modern metropolis; her father maintaining a silence. Her lack of hospitality, with little to offer her parents - having to borrow food and sake from her older neighbours - shows a further distance from the family unit of today's youth, solely concerned by her own endeavours. This mirrors Ozu's take on the empowerment of women, as seen in the likes of "Late Autumn", with young females shunning the traditional expectations placed upon them. Obviously four decades along the line, Yoko is quite content to tackle the pregnancy alone and go about her daily life as she pleases, continuing her research of Jiang - though still in early days, it would be interesting to see how this would continue, finding herself alone on a train station platform, feeling sick. Trains are an important theme in "Cafe Lumiere", Hou choosing to use extensive shots of Tokyo's various forms of railed transportation. This again is reminiscent of some of Ozu's later works, with Tokyo's morphing into a modern day megalopolis - a confusing and sprawling mass of rail networks - a modern equivalent of Ozu's shots of neon lights growing on the landscape. Sexpot Tadanobu Asano plays Hajime, Yoko's book shop worker friend and Tokyo rail network obsessive: recording the various sounds of Tokyo's trains and creating digital artwork based on trains. The sounds he records, such as the infamous Yamanote Line station announcements are part of modern day Tokyo life. As an outsider, it's clear that the transport network was a distinctive point of Tokyo for Hou.The extensive use of shots of changes slowly moving across bridges and weaving between bridges while a disgustingly beautiful shot the modern world summarise the film's slow pace. Low on story, you can't help but feel that the film's running time could be drastically cut. Hou captures life as it happens: trains trundle along; Yoko walks around Tokyo's various districts, taking breaks to sit in cafes and chat in bookshops. This is a documentation, the cast less acting, but filmed as they go about the tasks they are asked to perform. Watched in sections, "Cafe Lumiere" can work, but altogether, it can perhaps be a little repetitive and needing a bit of a kick-start.This is not masterful work, but a well-considered homage and "Cafe Lumiere" can stand alone as a good piece of cinema, though perhaps knowing it is an Ozu tribute adds a little more to it in the audience's mind. Though perhaps this restaurant main could have been condensed to a cafe light lunch. politic1983.blogspot.co.uk

arabesuku I am a complete stranger to the works of Hsiao-hsien Hou and Yasujiro Ozu, but I would like to give my opinion on this anyway.Probably like me, strangers to the works of those directors will find this slow-paced, a little repetitive (with Yoko constantly getting on/off trains) and somewhat confusing in places.However, watching it I noticed how simply human it was. Most films have a terrible dilemma, which usually are very much unlike real life. But this is a very simple film, in which in the dilemma is simply that she is three months pregnant but does not wish to marry the father of the unborn child. Very human.Another way it was a very human hearted film was the relationships between her parents - who watch their growing daughter with concern slowly become more independent - and between her bookshop friend - having little chats in the bookshop, not going into deep conversation but having light-hearted chat.It didn't have to be complicated, and that's what I liked most about this film. It was something to relate to.This film is definitely a piece of art. Notice how the only soundtrack within the whole picture (music-wise) is Weyne's pieces (that is, during the film - there is a song during the credits). This brings more emphasis on the humanity of the film and the artistic camera shots used. It's a very poetic and serene film.Cafe Lumiere probably means more to Hsiao-hsien Hou and Yasujiro Ozu fans than it did to me. But it was a sweet film and I'd definitely recommend it to those who just want something simple and quiet to watch.

tangoviudo Cafe Lumiere is a beautifully photographed nullity. Unacquainted with the work of the director, I am well-acquainted with the filmmaker he is supposedly paying tribute to - Ozu Yasujiro. While not even approaching Ozu in greatness, Hou has communicated nothing of Ozu's depth of emotion and concentration on meaning within a closed space. One of the things he misses entirely is Ozu's attention to character - we are not even "introduced" by Hou to his lead character (a perfect blank page). There are no medium or close shots of his people. One of the DVD extras offers interviews with the actors and gives us precisely what Hou doesn't - a good look at their faces.There was a great Spanish film by Bardem called Nunca Pasa Nada, which translates to something like "Nothing Ever Happens". That would be a far better title to this pointless exercise. All through the film we are given clues about an obscure Taiwanese composer some of whose work we hear on the soundtrack. But the clues, like everything else, add up to nothing. Unless you're a trainspotter, this film has nothing to recommend it.

PenGuhWin Hou Hsiao-hsien's previous film, "Millennium Mambo," was filled with pulsating colors and rhythms - "Cafe Lumiere," on the other hand, offers us classical piano music, bookshops, and trains... lots of trains. To me, the plot, and in some way the characters, seemed very fluid - you never knew where the film was leading you, and (as in many of Hou's films) it's left up to you to form your own opinion about the characters. "Cafe Lumiere" is a very languid, soothing film, filled with marvelous images and memorable vignettes. It is not a good place for a newcomer to Hou's films to start (try "Mambo" for that), and not a good film for the impatient. However, if you approach it in the right frame of mind, you will find yourself somehow transported into another person's life for a couple of hours, and come out with the film rattling around your subconscious for days afterward.