Cinema: Crosscutting Across Cultures

In his decorous pictorial style, Wang calls on yet another culture, for Dim Sum is, in a way, You Can't Take It with You as it might have been adapted by the Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu. The eccentric Tam household is memorialized in painterly images: the wind shuddering through the curtains next to Mom's sewing machine, the rows of shoes ceremoniously placed by the front stairway. Tradition holds firm in this house, and those who dwell in it, like Geraldine and Uncle, must be modern martyrs to Mom's insistence on doing things the old way. Here is a life, and a film, built on small, telling gestures. A daughter dutifully brushes her mother's hair. She cries from responsibility and, later, from relief. Her shoes are back in place. With such quiet artistry, Dim Sum proves how moving a still life can be. --By Richard Corliss