What happens when green tea meets milk? Four young urban nomads meet up in Tokyo – a city alive with pop culture and old traditions. A strange Austrian artist feels attracted to an unusual Japanese young lady he met in New York’s Chelsea Hotel and who found a mysterious monument in Tokyo. The privileged young Japanese girl finds her freedom in the role of Lift Girl, which reduces her many choices to a simple ‘up’ or ‘down’. A British radio reporter who lives in New York falls in love with a sacked Japanese salaryman. Characters and cultures clash, opposite poles meet.Milk does not have a storyline in the usual sense. The characters are not ‘built up’, there are no conclusions. Thanks to the simple script, according to the maker, there was space for improvisation – that was also predictable in view of the very heterogenious group of young actors. The title refers to the Westernisation of Japan: it was the Europeans and Americans who introduced dairy products to the country.Milk is a very original and sensitive film, that has been warmly received by many critics, among them renowned Japan expert Donald Richie: ‘I have just seen Milk, and I think that Honetschläger might well have made something like a cult classic.’
