BLISS RATING: ★★★★+
“Food is symbolic of love when words are inadequate.” – Alan D. Wolfelt
It is graphic. It is both a BL and a bl (boys’ lust). It dramatically shows what two men are like in the throes of sexual passion and lust in which the world does not exist except for them. While some of the explicit scenes are blurred out, you know exactly what they are doing. My profound appreciation for making this story so raw, real, and adult.
In an oxy-moronic way, this story is a spiritual story. It is deeply intrinsic and almost surreal. Let me explain. It is about two men, not young, whom we can only assume have been deeply in love with each other and are profoundly intimate with each other for a long time. Both men are chefs, but one stays behind while the one goes off to study and work in Italy.
Takeshi, (Tadaoki Igami), remains in Japan to run his parents’ restaurant business and to take care of his elderly parents. His father is wheelchair bound and pretty much needs continuous care. Takeshi is a quiet soul who is dutiful and more-or-less accepts his fate in life. Kazuyoshi (Shinya Orikasa), returns home to attend his brother’s wedding.
Hard as Takeshi tries, Kazuyoshi seduces him, and both resume their passionate affair. Kazuyoshi is still in love with him, and Takeshi’s love is reciprocal. But when Kazuyoshi asks Takeshi to go back with him, Takeshi’s answer is matter of fact – no.
Seemingly like a Phoenix rising out of the ashes, Akira (Takenori Goto), comes out of the ocean apparently from nowhere or at least not identified. He is stumbling on the road when Takeshi nearly runs him over in his car. Akira is a big muscular guy who is a bit of an enigmatic character.
He says that Takeshi’s food is the best he has ever tasted and begs to stay there and work for him. In a very real sense, he becomes the liberator for Takeshi and his savior. He helps him in the restaurant and learns to cook somewhat their signature dish (which as the title implies is caponata, a Sicilian appetizer made from eggplant).
He has an exotic, almost erotic, yet child-like manner, of cooking this signature dish. It is quite fascinating to watch as he cooks, nearly naked. Akira falls in love with Takeshi and one day while Takeshi takes him to his favorite place, they both engage in passionate sex. However, Kazuyoshi comes to say good-bye but stumbles across the both of them engaging in sex. He is devastated, hurt, dismayed, and seemingly bewildered.
Quietly, unperceptively, and frustratingly, the father has taken all of this in and realizes what his son needs, wants, and desires is his own life. He manages to wheel himself towards a hill but before he can do anything, Takeshi finds him and takes him home. On the way home, his father whispers faintly to his son to close the place and live his life. It is one of the most touching scenes in any movie I have ever seen. The father senses and knows Takeshi’s unhappiness and is trying to release him from his obligatory bonds.
Akira, after, being caught with Takeshi by Kazuyoshi, leaves but as fate would have it, before he can board the ferry, the weather cancels the trip. In the same ironic twist, Kazuyoshi is on the same platform. Kazuyoshi sees Akari and proceeds to approach Akira. While we are not privyed to their conversation,
Akira runs back and in a gesture of profound kindness, tells Takeshi to go off with his love and he will take care of his parents and the restaurant.
That scene shook me to my core, as it was such a magnanimous gesture of love for Takeshi. In the last scene, we see Takeshi and Kazuyoshi hugging, smiling, and simply calling out each other’s name like they were schoolboys again.
This movie is an intense tranche de vie. It is like we are watching down on them in an episodic fashion. We really do not know these characters at all EXCEPT that Takeshi and Kazuyoshi love each other deeply and intensely and have for a very long time. And in comes this gentle giant who out of love forfeits his own life for the sake of the person he loves. Yet, he does so willingly and without a sense of duty; merely love.
This is an astonishing film that left me feeling profoundly sad, enraptured, happy, and wondering if it simply is not fate that drives us to do what we do. It is a story of deep love that displays itself more so in physicality than emotions. It is a strange twist of the romanticized version of the world of BL. This movie is a slice of life that we see only for an instant. Almost as if we drive by something that catches our eye, we wonder about, and then come up with a story about our fascination of it. We know nothing of their pasts, nor their futures. Only what we see in front of us. And it is truly a mesmerizing world to muse about.
Who really S.T.O.L.E. the movie? Tadaoki Igami as Takeshi is phenomenal. His way of portraying Takeshi with introspective reflection is expressed on his face and mannerisms most wistfully. He portrays his character’s life as fate determined and as a resignation of its acceptance. His pain is so buried and deep that he has covered it over with meaningless expressions on his face. But never quite elegiac When he sees Kazuyoshi for the first time in seven years, he tries to fight off his feelings and his advancements towards him but cannot. He gives in, knowing full well he will need to give him up again. Takeshi remains buried into himself until Akira forces him to confront his feelings for Kazuyoshi. Only then is he able to express himself as if the weight of the world has been lifted from his shoulders. He can finally be himself. He can be with his love.
This story is so difficult to watch because of the many unknowns. We have no idea who Takeshi or Kazuyoshi really are. We can only imagine the pain of seven years of separation for both. And we can only imagine the pain that the father was going through to want to commit suicide so he could free his son from his tortured self-imprisoned that his son created within himself. We can fathom the deep love his father had for his son and the understanding of his son that he had for him that went expressionless.
We have no idea who Akira is; yet he shines with goodness and trustworthiness that we accept. We can only surmise the depth of love Akira had for Takeshi to exchange his life with him and the phlegmatic life he is now destined to live. These are just some of the profound enigmas this story leaves behind.
This is a profoundly moving story shown through lustful eyes but with a realism that is so pensive.
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