The God of Ramen (2013)

Aging Kazuo Yamagishi is the owner and chef of the tiny ramen shop Taishoken. He’s also the vaunted titular God of Ramen, who provides giant portions of the dish so loved, people are standing in line for actual hours to get a seat in a shop only able to serve sixteen guests at a time.

This documentary’s director Takashi Innami follows him verité style over the course of several years, at first clearly fascinated by the phenomenon of this apparently ramen of mythical quality and the huge lines it provokes. But things become somewhat revelatory the more time director, film and audience spend with Yamagishi, surrounded by apprentices he teaches with graciousness and kindness, yet who can’t actually lay a hand on the noodle. There’s as much sadness as there is beauty to Yamagishi’s fixation on ramen as the be all and end all of his life, and something terrible about his willingness to ignore his dangerously bad health just so he can make another bowl of noodle soup.

It becomes clear that much of this has to do with the death of Yamagishi’s wife fifteen years ago, that left behind a grief the chef has avoided working through by focussing on his art.

There’s nothing cruel or lowering about the way the documentary treats Yamagishi. Instead, a sense of compassion and kindness runs through here, a willingness to meet Yamagishi on the level he wants to be met. Which mirrors the many small moments of kindness and compassion Yamagishi shows towards others throughout the film, clearly parts of his character he didn’t bury under grief and cooking. Being truthful about a person yet still respecting their dignity is not an easy ask of a documentary (or of a human being), but Innami is and does in a delicate manner that’s neither cowardly nor manipulative towards his subject.

In fact, if there’s a feeling the documentary seems to have towards its subject, it is the wish for him to be happier in a way that fits him, to make choices he can be happy of, and to be kind to himself. Which it generally does without getting kitschy or high-handed, even though the film’s only true flaw, a terrible score, would really rather like it to.

Fortunately, a very Japanese mixture of respect and kindness prevails throughout The God of Ramen, so much so I found myself deeply moved by a film that’s supposedly about a ramen making sensation.