TIFF REVIEW: Beauty of ‘An’ Lies in Its Simplicity

“An” is a Japanese subtitled film about making pancakes. It’s one of those slightly artsy films that find their audience at film festivals with people who want movies that mean more than your average Hollywood fare.

(L-R) Kyara Uchida, Kirin Kiki, and Masatoshi Nagase play a student, elderly woman, and cook whose lives are entwined through a Japanese confectionary in "An." Courtesy of TIFF

TORONTO— “An“ is a Japanese subtitled film about making pancakes. It’s one of those slightly artsy films that find their audience at film festivals with people who want movies that mean more than your average Hollywood fare.

Cages abound in this life. Jobs, debt, parents. Sometimes the cage is our own dreary resignation to mediocrity. At some level, “An” is a movie about being stuck and trying to enrich the places we are confined, like the canary that sings from its perch within the bars.

But on the surface “An” is about a man who makes dorayaki, a Japanese treat comprised of red bean paste slathered between two pancakes. Sentaro (Masatoshi Nagase) bakes those cakes adeptly, but an, the red bean paste for which the film is titled, is beyond his skills.

Not particularly gripping stuff, and that’s life. And that’s where the beauty of “An” lies.

(L-R) Masatoshi Nagase and Kyara Uchida star in "An," a film celebrating everyday triumphs and historical tragedies. Courtesy of TIFF