I watched Tokyo Sonata (2008) after Perfect Days, which made for a nice Koji Yakusho double bill (though he only plays a supporting role in Tokyo Sonata). There was also another moment of connection. While I found the upscale public toilets that Yakusho’s character cleans in Perfect Days almost too pristine, one of the main characters in Tokyo Sonata finds himself having to work on a shopping mall cleaning crew. There’s a scene where he is expected to clean the shopping centre bathrooms and there’s a close up of a shit-stained toilet bowl. A clear low-point for the character. Light and shadow, polish and grime; it made for an interesting contrast and definitely speaks to the depressing terrain Tokyo Sonata takes the viewer into.
Tokyo Sonata had always sat there on Mubi (and occasionally SBS On Demand) as an acclaimed Japanese drama, directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa, not working explicitly in the horror genre or any particular genre here. Yet, the film is as unsettling as any of Kurosawa’s horror movies like Pulse or Cure. There were moments where I was blown away by Kurosawa’s filmmaking mastery. A scene of a character forcing a smile to himself out in the street before seeing his family. Another character lying on a beach at night, waves of blackness lapping over them. The composition of shots and the movement of the camera. The way, once again in the movies I’ve seen of Kurosawa’s, he’ll use a master shot, or take in a scene from a distance to create a sense of unease. The way the sense of urban space is drained of colour, emptied of life.
The story feels like a Japanese take on the era of American Beauty type American indie cinema where the nuclear family is unmoored and deconstructed, but here often captured in Ozu-styled framing; the dinner table a site of the family congregating, often in the middle distance of the frame, obscure and further framed by the furniture and design of the house. There’s a stronger sense of despair with capitalism and career advancement as the opening sequence finds Teruyuki Kagawa’s character fired from his office position due to outsourcing cheaper foreign labour. Unable to confess his shame at being unemployed, Kagawa lies to his family and continues putting on his suit and carrying his briefcase each day. His oldest son wants to join the international military effort supporting the American war in the Gulf, his youngest son wants to study classical piano. The wife and mother is often forgotten and ignored. Each character dwells on their ambitions and disappointments. Even within the hopeful ending, Kurosawa uses a distancing effect to let the moment sit strangely and uncomfortably. Kazumasa Hashimoto’s lo-fi score occasionally intrudes to further the quasi-dystopian, recession-focused atmosphere. Recommended.
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