Andrew McMurtryTokyo Sonata 7/10
June 14th 2008 15:03
Tokyo Sonata was screened that the Sydney Film Festival last Wednesday and I got to check it out. The director, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, was there to give some quietly thoughtful insights into his film about family. Having previously done work mainly in the horror genre, Kurosawa stated that he wanted to explore issues of family, something he had only done in a minor degree up until this point and it seemed by the reception that he made the right decision with Tokyo Sonata.
Ryuhei Sasaki (Teruyuki Kagawa) is a highly positioned administrator in a big corporation who is suddenly replaced by cheaper labour overseas and becomes, in a blink of an eye, unemployed. Being middle aged and only qualified in one field, he has no chance of getting another job remotely similar and is faced with becoming a janitor to continue supporting his family. Completely humiliated, and desperate to maintain authority in his household, Ryuhei decides to keep his shameful secret and pretends to go to work each day. Meanwhile, his wife Megumi (Kyôko Koizumi) is slowly becoming bored with her housewife life and starts dreaming of breaking free, his sons drift away from his grasp and start going after what they think will make them happy in unconventional ways, and his lies start to fall apart around him.
The film has an overall soft and understated feel, letting the audience settle in to the ordinary-ness that is this family. The stories then slowly increase in tension, making the personal tragedies feel just that little bit more close to home. Now, I don't know if it's because I'm an Australian born Japanese (in other words, not the real thing), but sometimes this understated manner muted the characters too much for me to fully engage with their experiences and I'm not sure if the social shame associated with unemployment in Japan, as well as the almost epidemic identity crisis that's hit pretty much every generation of Japan in the last few decades, were really made clear to the Sydney audience. To me it felt a little underdone, a little too polite in its addressing of a growing problem in Japan. I'm not saying Kurosawa failed, he did a fine piece of work, the elegant camera movements alone were wonderful to watch, and the stories were told beautifully without overdoing the drama or camping up the humour. But... I think he was capable of more. I'm hard to please, I know.
I didn't really like the sons (one was too emotionless, the other was too... pretty-boy-like), but I really liked Koizumi. I don't know any of these actors, but she seemed to me like she was quite elegant and carefree in her youth, and she still has that essence about her now. So casting her seemed to me like genius. By just looking at her, you can see a fire in her that she isn't allowed to let burn because of her obligations to her family and this fact is slowly killing her and it is just heartbreaking. I don't know who Kagawa is either, but he has this really worn out, tired expression all the time, and although you don't always like the guy, you do understand his plight and truly wish for him to not become defeated by his predicament.
In the end, though, everyone in the screening left in good spirits. The characters went through great hardship, with an overpowering sense of helplessness and lack of control of one's own life that we all feel too often, and they, in their own unique ways, overcame them. This is considered Kurosawa's best work to date, so that means it's not too bad. Good, even. See how a good story is told, and look forward to more touchingly told stories we just have to be getting from this guy in the future. We just have to.
Ryuhei Sasaki (Teruyuki Kagawa) is a highly positioned administrator in a big corporation who is suddenly replaced by cheaper labour overseas and becomes, in a blink of an eye, unemployed. Being middle aged and only qualified in one field, he has no chance of getting another job remotely similar and is faced with becoming a janitor to continue supporting his family. Completely humiliated, and desperate to maintain authority in his household, Ryuhei decides to keep his shameful secret and pretends to go to work each day. Meanwhile, his wife Megumi (Kyôko Koizumi) is slowly becoming bored with her housewife life and starts dreaming of breaking free, his sons drift away from his grasp and start going after what they think will make them happy in unconventional ways, and his lies start to fall apart around him.
The film has an overall soft and understated feel, letting the audience settle in to the ordinary-ness that is this family. The stories then slowly increase in tension, making the personal tragedies feel just that little bit more close to home. Now, I don't know if it's because I'm an Australian born Japanese (in other words, not the real thing), but sometimes this understated manner muted the characters too much for me to fully engage with their experiences and I'm not sure if the social shame associated with unemployment in Japan, as well as the almost epidemic identity crisis that's hit pretty much every generation of Japan in the last few decades, were really made clear to the Sydney audience. To me it felt a little underdone, a little too polite in its addressing of a growing problem in Japan. I'm not saying Kurosawa failed, he did a fine piece of work, the elegant camera movements alone were wonderful to watch, and the stories were told beautifully without overdoing the drama or camping up the humour. But... I think he was capable of more. I'm hard to please, I know.
I didn't really like the sons (one was too emotionless, the other was too... pretty-boy-like), but I really liked Koizumi. I don't know any of these actors, but she seemed to me like she was quite elegant and carefree in her youth, and she still has that essence about her now. So casting her seemed to me like genius. By just looking at her, you can see a fire in her that she isn't allowed to let burn because of her obligations to her family and this fact is slowly killing her and it is just heartbreaking. I don't know who Kagawa is either, but he has this really worn out, tired expression all the time, and although you don't always like the guy, you do understand his plight and truly wish for him to not become defeated by his predicament.
In the end, though, everyone in the screening left in good spirits. The characters went through great hardship, with an overpowering sense of helplessness and lack of control of one's own life that we all feel too often, and they, in their own unique ways, overcame them. This is considered Kurosawa's best work to date, so that means it's not too bad. Good, even. See how a good story is told, and look forward to more touchingly told stories we just have to be getting from this guy in the future. We just have to.
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