Livre d'Or

Getting ahead of you a bit, for Japan, I'd like to recommend the legendary "Tampopo" (1985). It's a comedy. Though the reason to show up isn't the laughs. It's very thoughtful and I found it absolutely delightful in the way an insightful essay is. I could tell you what it's about but in a sense that's a spoiler - note it concerns a topic that is a trigger for some people and should perhaps come with a warning. I think it's a spoiler that doesn't ruin the movie, and in fact makes it easier to access. The movie can be slightly tough going for a while because it has a super weird structure. The structure is necessary to the movie and what's being said in it, but isn't actually informative itself; it took me a while - and some questions to people watching it with me who had seen it before – to get that there wasn't any meaning to decode there and then be able to parse what was going on.

I'm happy to just give you the two relevant clues to parsing the movie if you want; or if you like playing anthropologist (I wonder if this was easier for Japanese audiences to parse, and the issue is just that it violates American/Western norms for fiction) and solving puzzles for yourself, you can tackle it cold (read nothing about it).

The original has a part that's briefly sexually explicit, it is sometimes blacked out for several seconds for Western audiences. Note, the sexually explicit bit is wildly consensual and enthusiastic and joyous and has nothing of violence or meanness in it.

I've heard the movie described as being specific to Japanese culture, and in some ways yes, but, oh, no, this one is universal and arguably existential (though not a part of what I've ever seen considered existential).