Can you personally relate to the film?

Thanks for your comments.

I think it's very interesting what you mention about pretending to ourselves that "the social construct called civilisation" defines us. I'd say that Tokyo Sonata is very much about exposing that game of pretence and role-playing.
In fact, this is put forward in the film not only by content (the story itself), but also by the way the story is narrated (breaking the realistic approach halfway the film). Maybe because of this, the movie came out a bit odd to you, but perhaps that was due to the fact that since you were presented with realism in the very beginning of the movie, you expected realism all the way through (?).

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Thanks for your comment.

I also felt somewhat frustrated that the resolution of the film is sort of half-hearted. The characters go through major crises, but in the end nothing fundamentally changes, i.e. the same structure remains.

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Thanks for your comment.

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Thanks for the comment.

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Thanks for your comment.

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Thanks rmikku for your honest response.
I think it's important to challenge the established patterns of relating to others. Ways that might have made sense at some point might not make sense in the present. In most cases, I think it's positive to embrace change. Good for you if you've tried to break through patterns you felt were not working.
Edo.

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Re: Can you personally relate to the film?
by - rwmj on Tue Sep 18 2012 15:27:56

My "willing suspension of disbelief" was suspended several times through this film. I don't know if this film relates to my experience because I couldn't relate to the film. It really needed a much better screenplay. Given the screenplay, the direction was rather good, but it's the script that counts.

I related -- and relate: present tense -- to this film in a big way. I love its beautiful minimalism, the clean yet somehow dingy and almost cramped spaces of inner-city Tokyo, the tight editing, the sharp beats, and, of course, the characters, in the writing, directing, and the performances therein; especially the father figure, who you may or may not see as the lead (the ultimate hero/anti-hero: the isolated average Joe with just a spark of rebellion/defiance/difference in him; and maybe the finest everyday schlump character, with comedic misanthropy, I've ever had the pleasure of encountering). Given that I'm a huge fan of Sofia Coppola's "Lost In Translation" (it's my all-time favourite film), "Tokyo Sonata" has special resonance, to me, making for a wonderful companion piece: where LIT uses the opulence of Tokyo to create a dreamy pastiche of isolation and disconnect, with a rich, privileged air, "Tokyo Sonata" manifestly offers a different fabric of working class doubt and anxiety against a backdrop of quiet bleakness and grim hope; in short, one helps correct for and contrast against the other; and I love that.

In terms of the more conventional argument people tend to make for or against a film when asked if they "relate" to it, I can say that I was very moved by the father's personal journey, in particular, and the way he seems afflicted by this awkward, clammy, uncertain, desperate, child-like air: that general sense of not quite fitting in; and maybe feeling himself like a square peg being beaten to fit a round hole; and his flawed actions going some way to shrink away from and defy that. The solidarity of the mother figure, with a slightly bonkers streak, maybe fits the profile of my own mom, too; at the least, I could see an exact parallel with the way the sons speed off to their rooms, somewhat taking their mom for granted, when she is just trying to maintain a little bit of sanity and decorum in hers and their world. Kenji's journey is also affecting. I certainly have a few incidents from school that shine brightly in my mind -- not necessarily in a positive sense -- from when I was blamed for something that I categorically was not at fault for; and the teacher couldn't really give a crap about true order or fairness. I guess, really, the father and the younger son want to be alone, mainly, while the mother and the older son are more communally-driven, desiring to bring cohesion or dignity to others, but struggling to fit pre-approved social roles that may not be all that good for their long-term well-being; and may also ruin them, ironically, if they stray too far from them on impulse alone. I guess I could relate less well to that -- I'm more of an isolationist/loner; and I don't consider myself hugely impulsive -- but I found myself sympathizing with these other two figures regardless. Still, the father: he's like my avatar or something.

And the screenplay, to me, is a fine one, wonderfully stocked with irony, and managing to instill a level of humanity in all its characters, without them coming across as too dry or caricatured. An early highlight is the scene of Kenji in the classroom, and the way his teacher whacks him on the head with a confiscated book -- erotic contraband -- calling Kenji "pathetic", and saying he has "nothing but contempt" for anyone that "sneaks this stuff" into one of his classes, despite him just saying everyone in his class was about to learn how to address others (elders) "with respect", and Kenji's injurious revelation when he nails the teacher for reading a porno mag on a train, ruining his authority (a theme obviously to be found in Kenji's father's own dilemma). Kenji is made the target of blame: he is singled out and punished to maintain a thin social fabric that the film goes some way to both critiquing and attempting to find some remaining good in. The follow-up scene is also great, with Kenji's teacher expressing surprise that Kenji came all the way to apologize for his earlier outburst, only to then indicate that they can simply ignore each other; with Kenji slinking away, clearly dejected by this trite solution (again, a thematically solid point, given that the narrative is concerned with how everyone's fate is bound up: i.e., people are in this together; cause and effect; Kenji, then, is both more naive and pragmatic than the very adults around him). Or what about the scene in the shopping mall, on the first day of the father's new cleaning job, when he's told about the different cleaning products, and asks why he can't just use the multi-purpose bottle for everything, and is told that "it's not professional"? How could that fail to elicit a chuckle? It's a glorious distillation of much working world nonsense. There are more subtle twists and riffs in the Kenji-teacher dynamic, too, like the way the teacher self-pityingly tells Kenji that they shouldn't rub sticks in each other's wounds, as if the teacher feels singled out and bullied (something he later makes a point of saying to the mother). So, quite acutely, I think the film paints a comedically dark picture of modern patriarchal society, hinting at some of the fragile egos that punctuate and ripple through the various communities of this world, big and small. And as per the "first day in new job" scene, the overly-formal, image-driven effluvia that compels people to make themselves hypocrites and liars; but done in a way that means you can laugh at the madness of it.

Continuing with my admiration for the screenplay, I do like the funny, haunting silences where the screenplay -- or its execution on screen -- "says" nothing at all, with characters just stood (or sat) aghast, the father figure particularly, struck dumb and lost for words. The film trades heavily -- or is that lightly?; but magnificently? -- in absurdity throughout, evoking pain in a satisfyingly off-beat, surreal way, managing to be dark yet tragically funny at various points. One particularly hilarious line that comes to mind is Ryûhei's childish justification of violence towards Kenji: "This is all your fault for not telling us!" Even during a scene of domestic violence, which is still treated seriously, the film remains satisfyingly glib. Then you have lines like Ryûhei's reaction to his older son's request, before he loses it with Kenji, who asks that he sign his army papers, with the father declaring with stone-cold authority, his back turned to the camera, "I absolutely forbid it", and his following line about how he did everything in his power to protect his family (shades of "The Godfather"), and how this path that the son is intent on taking "couldn't be further from that goal". As horribly closed off as the father is, you can't help sympathizing with him as he's arguably dealt the heaviest emotional blow in the entire film (especially coming mere hours, it would seem, after Ryûhei discovers that his jobless friend and fellow-in-arms Kurosu committed suicide and took his wife with him). A moment like this is truly crushing for the father character, yet it rings out in a quiet, sensitive way that moves without being maudlin; and I think that is to the credit of the writing; and yes, the directing and the acting, too.

All of this, to my way of thinking, is wonderfully adept stuff. The dialogue, like the direction, is kept rather spare and stark, and Teruyuki Kagawa delivers a performance to match, keeping the father, and the film in which he is situated, human and real; but there is always a tinge of the bizarre, too. Of course, the film veers off more brazenly into the bizarre in its final stretch, quite cunningly shattering the earlier social-realist framework and zooming into moments of sublime parody, but it's still being serious as it goes, and manages to resolve this apparent recklessness with poetic, transcendent grace (the last bits-n-pieces involving the fates of the four family members, culminating in a final scene of quiet, almost operatic, power). I don't want to give short shrift to Megumi Sasaski, either, who also manages to satisfy the stereotype of "a mother's love knows no bounds", without hitting a single false note as her character remains a rock to others (even those outside of her immediate family circle as the burglar subplot shows). And, of course, this should tell us something about the true nature of film-making: in any great work of cinematic art, a screenplay is merely an assortment of notes with some loose structure to them; it can suggest a tone and a tapestry, but everything else -- all the stitches, all the colours -- must come from the direction and the final assembly of the film during the all-important editing phase. And, in my estimation, "Tokyo Sonata" really shines in these areas, making good on the scant promises in its screenplay, and then some. And in this fashion, I think the various contrivances in the narrative -- everything the characters suffer through, amble past, or half-grasp -- is finally brought to a rousing, and truly moving, conclusion, in the film's final scene: pure cinema.

And without wishing to completely duck the opening questions, I will briefly say that I think the film is designed to have broad appeal, but not so broad that it throws its arthouse patterning out the window. If anything, this film would seem to be the director reaching out for some trans-nationalist understanding, using the contemporary disposition of Japan -- a victim, in part, of its own insularity and isolationism; or the shadows of its past (this being very much a universal theme) -- to speak generally about the death throes of older, pre-global thinking and antiquated mores of varying kinds. I don't really consider myself capable of determining how much "Japanese" there is in the film; and it strikes me as a rather vague term to begin with. Equally, I can't say whether the film has changed my ideas about contemporary society in Japan; but it would purport to suggest that changes are afoot; to use a metaphor, doors have been opened that cannot now be closed. Yet it's the film in its more intimate sense that I find myself profoundly drawn to. I enjoy personal film dramas; and I find something romantic about decaying modernism; particularly in this context of Japan and its clean, polite, yet rigidly hierarchical society. That there is all this autumnal light in the film, casting these soft, mournful, yellow-brown tones -- but often rather subtly; almost imperceptibly -- appeals strongly to my sensibilities. I love the streets and the houses, too: slightly banal, perhaps, but also lovingly shot, and not like the streets and houses I know, offering a joyful sense of "otherness". I can get lost in this world. And THEN there is the genius of the characters, the screenplay, and the controlled direction. So, for me, beyond social politics, "Tokyo Sonata" is an absolutely brilliant film; wonderful in its facets; extraordinary in its enrapturing whole. This is absolutely one of my fresh favourites.

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