Read disc | Serenity Café Song

"Song of The Quiet Cafe" is set on the Noto Peninsula in Japan, where Cape Yoshida, who drives from Tokyo, returns to her father's hometown. The father, a fisherman who disappeared with the boat eight years ago, left no inheritance for his daughter, except for a dilapidated houseboat by the sea, which was completely worthless, but the daughter believed that her father was still alive and that she was here to wait for his return. When her parents divorced when she was four years old, she thought that she had chosen to follow her mother, abandoned her father, and she wanted to ask his father for forgiveness. For more than thirty years, she had never seen her father again, and this became an eternal guilt in her heart.

This light-hearted film, like a wave on the seashore, gently stirs and floods with pity. Alone, Cape Yoshida pulls open the wooden door of the crumbling houseboat and sees darkness, messiness and dirtiness: overturned kerosene lamps, cobwebs crawling all over the corners, fishing gear and ropes huddled together, rain boots worn by his father... But a guitar reminded her of the scene when her father taught her to play the piano when she was a child: the melodious sound of the piano, the sound of the waves lapping on the shore, and the sound of birds from the sky...

Deserted and deserted by the sea, except for a homestay with no tourists, there is no one left, but Cape Yoshida still converted the houseboat into a café and named it "Nighthawk". She bought coffee beans from Africa, bought roasters, grinded and concocted coffee, and then sold them to distant guests. She deliberately erected a telephone pole in front of the wooden house and installed electric lights. At night, the shining lights, like a lighthouse, the father who was wandering in the dark sea, must be able to see the way home.

The scenery here is extremely beautiful: the blue sea, the rushing waves, the silent mountains, the clouds in the sky... Paired with the aroma of coffee, it can relieve people's sorrows, but we clearly feel the loneliness of Yoshida's heart. Although the hostess of the neighboring homestay, Eriko, was not kind to her—she was refused the first day because of the dirty houseboat to spend the night, but Eriko's two children made Yoshida's life a little angry.

The elder sister Arisha and younger brother Shota, interested in the newly moved neighbors, lie down at the window and look at the locomotive-like baking machine in Cape Yoshida's house, their faces full of surprise. The two children's single mother, Eriko, often abandons them and goes to the nightclub in the city to become a lady, and the grandmother who originally took care of them is sick and hospitalized, so that the unattended brother and sister, in addition to paying the school food fee, also steal goods in the supermarket. Cape Yoshida asks Yusha to work for a café, so that she can earn a salary to pay for food, and also teaches her about coffee and the principles of being a person. Yoshida Point, like a mother, makes the sisters and brothers feel warm.

Eriko doesn't know why Cape Yoshida is so unpleasant to see, she refuses to let Yoshida Head stay, does not let her daughter and Yoshida Cape interact, saying that Yoshida Point is a bad person. In fact, she herself was dating a scumbag, because she didn't graduate from high school, and went to a neighboring city nightclub. The film does not reveal who the father of Eriko's children is, but arranges for the scumbag to rape Cape Yoshida, and Eriko happens to meet, knock the scumbag unconscious, and save Cape Yoshida. It is the most intense passage in this diluted and gentle film that makes Cape Yoshida and Eriko go from strange roads to acquaintances, become friends, and establish strong friendships. Eriko eventually quit her nightclub job and became a member of a seaside café. Cape Yoshida and Eriko and her two children are like a family and can no longer be separated.

Matching the color of the sea, the film's hue is dominated by blue. Although it is a little lonely, it is also comforting, and love and affection always ripple. For example, the female teacher in the movie buys a tie scarf for her parents for her first salary; Yousha's classmate buys coffee for her mother's birthday; the daughter of the shipwrecked crew wants to welcome home her father's remains, "no matter what he becomes, he has returned"; Yoshida Point learns the news of his father's death, expresses disbelief, and stubbornly waits for his father's return in the café.

It was easy to understand Cape Yoshida's mood, and on that dark night, she listened to the sound of the waves, tossing and turning; several times she wanted to play the guitar, and lost her voice a few times. Losing her father, she "couldn't stand the waves here anymore" and decided to leave. Bidding farewell to Cape Yoshida, Eriko still goes to the telephone pole standing in front of the houseboat every night at dusk to light the lamp, and Yusa says, "She is not lighting the lamp for me to be afraid of the dark", she is using the light to summon Yoshida Cape. One day, Yusha looked out the window, and the painting outside the window stood on the seashore looking out at the sea, and a blue car came and stopped, and the background of the blurred Cape Yoshida became clear: "I'm back." Turning to the close-up view of Eriko: "Welcome home." "This is home, the children run out, everyone hugs together, the picture is frozen here, and it becomes the most touching moment in the movie!" (Liu Weixin)