It seems there is a sort of renaissance in Japanese television and movies due to their increased streaming on Netflix with the recent release of Studio Ghibli, among other Japanese shows, including The Naked Director and Giri/Haji.
A show that I have recently become intrigued by is Midnight Diner. Unlike most shows I watch, this is a show on which I do not binge. I try to savour its flavour and to experience it in limited doses to fully appreciate its slow, meditative rhythms. Midnight Diner offers the viewer an intimate, strange and privileged insight into the nightly occurrences of a diner in Japan, which opens from midnight until the early hours of the morning. Who are these shady characters that enter through crooked, hidden steps to enter a magical room of curious, animated faces and the ambiguous, omnipresent Master?
The associations that each character holds with a specific dish, usually tied to some childhood memory often provides the thread to unravel their story. This exploration allows for a strange dichotomy of innocence and delinquency, for most characters hold a shifty background filled with stories of stealing, adultery and lies. Somehow entering the diner allows the characters to use the reconnection with their favourite foods to reconcile with many of their tragic stories and to gain a sense of comfort. Night-time is when feelings of despair and loneliness feel particularly acute. Yet this show demonstrates the simple pleasure to eating with strangers and sharing stories in a small room, when the rest of the city is asleep.
During feelings of loneliness and dislocation, and perhaps even more so today with external threats of quarantine and social separation, this show might provide an unexpected sense of intimacy and simple pleasure. The Master himself acts as more of an anthropomorphic conscience than a man. His presence feels as though it might endure forever within his tiny diner and this sense of constancy seems quite necessary today.