Japanese films, at both ends of the commercial-indie spectrum, are often about extremes. Deadly disease and violence are rampant. Characters sweat bullets and cry rivers. Viewers, including this one, sometimes wonder if their circuits are being permanently fried from all the over-stimulation.
The films of Naoko Ogigami are not only an answer to the noisy domestic competition, but also an antidote to everyday urban stress. Beginning with her 2006 hit "Kamome Shokudo (Kamome Diner)," a dramady about a middle-aged Japanese woman who finds a second start running the title eatery in Helsinki, she has made one film after another that detox their mainly female audiences with gently comic, enticingly homey visions of a less-hurried way of life. (Men here, as everywhere, tend to unwind at the theater with explosions and fart jokes.)
Meanwhile, members of Ogigami's staff and cast have made other films that are similarly woman-centered, life-affirming and blood-pressure-lowering, such as Mika Omori's "Puru (Pool)" and Kana Matsumoto's "Maza Wota (Mother Water)." This is not to say Ogigami and her associates are making the cinematic equivalent of aromatherapy: Smart insights into the vagaries of the heart are served together with images of scrumptious home-cooked meals.