Tokyo Sonata

The family is one of nature's masterpieces

Directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa

Japan, 2008

2008 was – to borrow a title from another film – A Most Violent Year. While the global financial crisis sent shockwaves across the world, Japan was still bogged down in the economic travails of its Lost Decades. The Nikkei Index crashed, and the country plunged into a recession from which it has yet to fully recover. One casualty of the mass downsizing is Ryuhei Sasaki (Teruyuki Kagawa), a stereotypical salaryman – black suit, white shirt – in Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s compelling and unsettling domestic drama, Tokyo Sonata.

The film opens in the Sasakis’ home: a house in isolation, wedged between a road and a railway line – the walls rattle with the passing trains whenever the family sit down for dinner. A gust blows through the house, newspaper pages flap, rain spatters on the polished floor… an ill wind?

Sasaki, a dough-faced administrative director for a healthcare equipment company, is precipitously let go from his job. Rather than admit this to his wife, Megumi (Kyoko Koizumi), and their two sons, he carries on regardless – getting up each morning, dressing for work, and leaving the house as if nothing has changed. It is all a pretence but is it a question of denial? Shame? Maybe both?

However, as Kurosawa pulls the camera back to widen the shot, we realise that Sasaki is not the only one in this situation. Tokyo is filled with unemployed white-collar workers forming an unending snake-like queue for the job centre, and then for a free rice porridge lunch at a soup kitchen, most of them still attached to their briefcases and mobile phones. The phones, of course, are programmed to ring at regular intervals to make them look busy.

Life at home is not great either. To counter the collapse of his authority in the wider world, here Sasaki acts the bully. He swaggers into the house every evening hectoring his wife and sons. In one prolonged moment of unease, his family watches in silent anticipation as he retrieves a beer from the fridge, half-fills a glass with froth, takes a slow sip, burps, and then commands, "Let’s eat!"

Despite his masquerade they all seem to know what’s going on. For starters, Megumi has spotted him in line at the soup kitchen but doesn’t let on. And his sons have little faith in him:

‘All you want to do is lecture me and act tough’ – Kenji

‘You say you’re protecting us dad, but what do you do all day?’ – Takashi

Authority is crumbling all over the place. At school, eight-year-old Kenji (Kai Inowaki) is punished by his teacher for passing along a manga magazine. With his classmates a gleeful audience, he snaps back that he saw the teacher reading a porn manga on the Metro.

The film’s title echoes that of Tokyo Story, the masterpiece by one of cinema’s great directors, Yasujirō Ozu. Similar themes: a critique of Japanese conservatism, the collapsing codes of patriarchy, and existential ennui. Kurosawa also mirrors Ozu’s photography with a static camera and formal composition. That is, until he gets three quarters through the film, recalls his roots in psychological thrillers and J-horror, and decides to shake things up. Abruptly, the pace of the film accelerates, skewing into unexpected, sometimes absurdist, territory. At which point Tokyo Sonata either flies off the rails or veers meaningfully into a slapstick satire. ReidsonFilm were divided on this point.

Sasaki clambers into an orange boilersuit and starts a new job cleaning toilets in a mall. His elder son, Takashi (Yû Koyanagi), enlists in the US military, gets deployed to Iraq, and promptly switches sides. Meanwhile Megumi falls victim to a home invasion and kidnapped by a wild-eyed burglar – played by Koji Yakusho, later to be seen as the Zen toilet cleaner in Perfect Days (ReidsonFilm review). Taken hostage on an isolated beach, she awakens the following morning to find her erstwhile abductor has driven the car, and himself, into the sea. Imagine an Ozu production being taken over midway by Michael Bay.

I may be exaggerating, but as the film reaches its conclusion we are offered a sublime closing sequence that suggests the possibility of redemption. Kenji, despite his father’s opposition, has been secretly paying for piano lessons. It turns out that he is something of a prodigy. Sasaki and Megumi come together to watch his audition for admission to a music conservatory. Parents, teachers, and judges sit stunned, transfixed, as Kenji plays his piece, not a sonata but Debussy’s Clair de lune. The piece is played in its entirety. As a crowd gathers to watch, the hall fills with light. It is a mesmerising scene yet in no way assuages what has gone before: the unravelling of a family, or perhaps the unravelling of society itself.

Tokyo Sonata is a bleak film – there are two suicides – shot through with the blackest comedy. The deadpan, yet compelling, performances by Teruyuki Kagawa and Kyoko Koizumi anchor the film, providing it with depth. Kurosawa may have intended that Debussy would end the film on an optimistic note, but to be honest, the dark and thunderous close of Rachmaninov’s Sonata No. 2 would have been the perfect finish.

---

A forgettable masterpiece - C

---

Reids’ Results (out of 100)

C - 72

T - 79

N - 80

S - 69

Thank you for reading Reids on Film. If you enjoyed our review please share with a friend and do leave a comment.

Coming next… In the Mouth of Madness(1994)