Tokyo Sonata

Kurosawa Kiyoshi has earned a reputation as an innovative and genre-transcending horror movie director. His most recent production is a social drama about what many Japanese fear the most: the crumbling of established structures.
Tokyo Sonata starts with Mr. Sasaki losing his job when the company he has devoted his life to relocates to China, a low-cost country. Finding a new job seems hopeless but he cannot bring himself to tell his wife what has happened. The disgrace is terrible and Sasaki tries to regain his lost authority through threats and violence. A characteristic of his family is that everyone is playing a role and everyone also sees through each other, but the lack of communication makes confrontation difficult. This is an emphatic movie, however, in which every family member appears vulnerable and sensitive.
Like in many earlier Kurosawa movies (Cure, Pulse, Charisma), the warm and engaging character portraits are in stark contrast to the cinematic style. Image and sound are cool, pared down and distanced. Like his earlier productions, Tokyo Sonata also explores how topical issues are influencing the lives and relationships of individuals, and how emotional isolation is an important feature of our postmodern society. Even though the audience has to cope with surprising and original jumps in time, Tokyo Sonata is probably Kurosawa’s most accessible film so far, and the story is far easier to follow than in, for example, the labyrinthian Pulse.
Tokyo Sonata illustrates the short distance between being inside and outside of Japanese society – and also that they perhaps should not fear the great upheaval that will turn their lives upside-down. tsr