Tokyo Sonata

In Japan, the unemployment rate reached an historic high of 5.60 in July 2009. Today, over 30% of the work force is still compelled to take casual labor, with more than 5,000 casual workers living in internet cafés because they cannot pay their rent. Statistics, however, do not tell the human story of unemployment. Japanese director Kiyoshi Kurosawa, known for horror movies such as Cure and Pulse, has dramatized the social and psychological effects of Japan's economic woes in Tokyo Sonata, winner of the Un Certain Regard Jury Prize at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival. Shot in the outskirts of Tokyo and backed by the haunting score of Kazumasa Hashimoto, Tokyo Sonata is a brilliant and disturbing film that grips us through outstanding performances and an unsettling social message.

Tokyo Sonata follows Ryuhei Sasaki (Teruyuki Kagawa), a 46-year-old administrator in a Tokyo health care equipment company who loses his job after his department is outsourced to China. Like Vincent in Cantet's 2001 film Time Out, being suddenly without a job is damaging to Ryuhei's pride and he withholds the information from his wife Megumi (Kyoko Koizumi) and their two boys, Takashi (Yu Koyanagi) and 12-year-old Kenji (Kai Inowaki). Struggling to save face and maintain his moral authority, Ryuhei leaves home each morning dressed in a business suit and tie, spending his day standing in long lines looking for work and joining homeless men and other unemployed seeking food at a soup kitchen.

Ryuhei's wife Megumi goes about her routine household chores without complaining and never questions her husband, even when he comes home each night looking increasingly despondent. It is obvious that the layoff has simply crystallized the underlying discontent in the Sasaki family and Kurosawa shows the family eating dinner together in a sterile environment with little or no communication. In an incident at school in Kenji's sixth grade class, Kurosawa also shows how the loss of moral authority can lead to sudden disintegration. After Kenji is admonished by the teacher for passing on another student's manga, the boy insensitively tells the entire class that he witnessed his teacher on the train reading porn, causing chaos in the classroom.

Ryuhei soon discovers that he is not alone. While eating in the park, he meets an old school friend, Kurosu (Kanji Tsuda), who is also unemployed and also has not told his wife. "The lifeboats are gone", he tells Ryuhei, "The water's up to our mouths." Kurosu is engaged in even a bigger deception, programming his cell phone to ring every five minutes to give the impression that he is receiving work-related calls. He later invites Ryuhei to his house for dinner so that he can introduce him to his wife as a co-worker. Ryuhei is interviewed for jobs but none of them are the type of work he is looking for. One prospective employer asks him what he can do and he impulsively answers that he can sing karaoke.

As the charade of pretending to go to work continues, Ryuhei takes his anger and frustration out on Kenji who has become fixated on taking piano lessons. When he learns that the boy has been spending his lunch money on piano lessons, Kenji is beaten and thrown down the stairs, requiring a trip to the hospital. The older son, Takashi, is also severely chastised and asked to leave the house when he tells his parents that he intends to join the U.S. military to fight in the Middle East. From this point, events seem to spiral out of control and, in a jarring twist that takes the film in a different direction, Megumi is held hostage by Dorobo, a home-invading robber (Koji Yakusho).

The burglar is almost a comic character who, while being driven around town by Megumi with a knife thrust in her face, admits that he's been a failure at everything he has done, even robbery. The frightening drive ends in a shack by the pitch-black sea where a suddenly contrite Dorobo asks Megumi if she is a goddess. It is here that she discovers what is available to her in life if she is freed from illusions and wonders aloud how she can start over. "Wouldn't it be wonderful", she asks, "if my whole life was a dream so far and suddenly I awaken?" When more disturbing things happen to the family, things seem as if they could not possibly get any worse. Yet in a coda of renewal, the calming music of Debussy tells us that if we open our heart to its enchanting melody, we can awaken to the serenity of knowing who we really are.

For a foreigner like me, Japan is a mystery, both wonderful, weird and hard to understand, especially since most of my information about the country is anecdotal or (worse?) coming from mangas. I've met people having the greatest respect for Japanese customs and people who completely badmouth the country.

From this perspective, Tokyo Sonata is a bit of a gem, showing me how ordinary Japanese people live and think. There is the family, standard issue of father, mother and two children, and there are the roles: head of the family, respectful housewife, rebellious teenager and confused child. What do they do when the economic crisis and the traditional value system clash?

I thought the actors were good, the soundtrack as well (to be expected given the title), and the plot was slow but crisp. There must have been a lot of expectations on a guy directing movies when his last name is Kurosawa and not related to Akira, because the movie was overall an excellent film. However, given its two hour length and slow pace, I advice you look at it when in the mood for cinematography, not some easy entertainment. Also, it is a pretty sad drama in places, so be ready to empathize with some hard hit people.

Ryūhei a salary man loses his job, and is soon on the scrap heap of the unemployed, a very common and relevant case for so many in these times.

In this case the film documents what it means to be a working man or woman, a case of how a job can define a person. In the case of Ryūhei it's the struggle to maintain that sense of honour and pride that is so ingrained in Japanese culture, that when he is finally let go, he simply packs his belongings from work and walks out-not a word to his colleagues, and not a word to his family.

The next morning he leaves for 'work' donned in the usual work attire spending the day on the fringes of regular life-lining up for free food, sitting in public libraries, roaming the various employment offices for vacancies, then coming home earlier then usual to face the doom of subsequent family expenses (the son wants to take piano lessons, the wife wants a new car, the heater needs to be replaced).

Despite the downward spiral into despair for which this film descends into,there is a feeling of a more hopeful future.

Tokyo Sonata tells the story of a changing Japanese economy, social culture and employment culture and it effects on family. Here it is excellently told by Kiyoshi Kurosawa (surprisingly no relation to the great Akira Kurosawa).

Ryûhei Sasaki (Teruyuki Kagawa) is a 46-year-old career man living in an industrial area of Tokyo with his family. Early on he looses his job when his department is out sourced to China, and he tries to hire the fact from his wife and children. Ryûhei tries to act normal whilst he spends his day at an employment agency, and waiting in the park with other unemployed people for free food. He meets a former schoolfriend, Kurosu (Kanji Tsuda), who also lost his job and hides the fact from his family. Kurosu gives Ryûhei tips on how to keep the charade, but the stress becomes too great on both men. Ryûhei slowly becomes more bitter and authoritarian at home. Ryûhei's family also suffer their own problems. His youngest son Kenji (Inowaki Kai) has problems in school, coming into conflict with one of his teachers, but he discovers his love and talent for the piano. He secretly takes lessons and his teacher wants him to audition for a music school, but this goes again his father's wishes in a Billy Elliot type sub-plot. Ryûhei older son Takashi (Yû Koyanagi) is more distance from his father, do small jobs, but he plans joining the American military. But again, Ryûhei forbids it, despite Takashi being old enough to make his own decision.

Kiyoshi Kurosawa tells a low-key, but compelling story. He often uses wide shot, giving the audience the feeling like a bystander in these people's lives. Using wide shot forces allows the actors to put real power in their performances with long continuous shots and does not allow the audience to get distracted by continuous editing. Kurosawa is able keep the film going with a fast pace and compelling despite it's low key subject matter. Kurosawa also casted some superb actors who are all wondering in their performances in this film. This is also a film telling some interesting aspects of Japanese culture. The Japanese economy is changing: the notion that someone could have a job for life is disappearing, and that the Japanese economy is suffering the same issues as Anglo-Saxon style economies. The film also acts as a commentary about the Japanese family, where it is portrayed in an old-fashion way, the man runs the house and controls the money, but this system is changing, with the whole family rebelling, and with other Japanese people having a more enlightened view. The third theme is also shown through Takashi about a changing view of America in Japan. The Japanese have in the past had a hostile view to the American military presence in Japan, with incidents like the 1995 Okinawan rape incident, but a younger generation haven't had to suffer this, and the Japanese view of military action is also changing. This film will give you a lot to think about.

Despite these good plots this film is far from perfect. By the end of the second and the beginning of the third act the plot starts to fall apart with some unrealistic events, which ruins the film overall. However Tokyo Sonata is a worthy film, showing that Japanese cinema is one of the best in the world. It also shows that Japanese cinema is more then just anime and violence manga adaptions like Battle Royale, which is also very very good.

The film tells the story of Ryūhei who is laid off at the start of the movie, due to his company's employment of cheap labour from China. Afraid to tell his wife and family, in fear that he will no longer have the authority and respect that he deserves, he pretends he still has a job and goes to work every day as usual. The film deals with the fear of losing everything one has in life. It deals with themes of dishonesty, pride, anger, fear, anxiety, rejection, suicide, rebellion, starting over, lust and in my personal view, the human need to depend on a system of laws and norms.

In its early stages, the film often tries to depict redundancy in funny moments. I loved the character of Kurosu, who tries to hang on to what he has left by looking busy and setting his mobile phone alarm to ring to show people how busy he is. It reminds me of what I did in the early stages of my redundancy and how it gave me a massive sense of wellbeing. He even invites Ryūhei to dinner, by asking him to act like a colleague at work and discussing a fake business meeting at the dinner table, while his wife and daughter are there. At this dinner, we learn that all is not what it seems and Kurosu's wife knows that something is not right. There is an uncomfortable silence in this scene, which suggests to the viewer that the good manners and politeness that the scene encompasses are only acting as a veil to prevent us from seeing what redundancy has done to this family. It is not long before the film takes a darker, more depressing turn as Kuruso and his wife, commit suicide. In reality it is very sad and true that some people will not survive job loss and will be so ashamed of their position, that they will eventually take their own lives. I think the director is very right to place emphasis on this, as many films that have been made about redundancy in the past, have failed to do so.

Based on my experiences, the film accurately portrays the emotions a person will go through after loss of a job. If I have one criticism of the film it is that it fails to addresses the issue of materialism and spiritual emptiness that many modern day white collar, office jobs encompass. There is an old saying, which I am sure many of the readers are familiar with, which says "the bigger you are the harder you fall". We are all part of a hierarchal society, a 'dog eat dog' world, where we want to go higher up as fast as we possibly can. We want to live under the veil of a middle class, bourgeoisie lifestyle, wear the best suits, have the best hairstyles, drive the best cars, eat the best food and live in the biggest houses. The cost of this though is that there is no guarantee that the profession that you have chosen, despite the fact that you have dedicated your life to it, with love you back but rather will resent you and leave you with nothing. I think that one of the main reasons why Ryūhei struggles with unemployment is his lack of spiritualism and dependence on such a hierarchical role for so long, until he has been made redundant. He is unable to find work, because his skills as a Administrative Director are no longer required. Therefore when he is made redundant, we really get to see how insecure the guy really is, not just in his work life but also his family life. He is the sole money provider in the house but is very rarely there for his wife and kids. He wants to maintain authority in the house and is afraid to lose power, whether it is to his elder son, who despite his parents requests, joins the US military or the younger son, who wants to learn how to play the piano. In most of the film, the character shows very little attention to his wife and kids and is only seen eating with them in moments of uncomfortable silence. In one moment after returning to work, he even ignores his wife's request to take her to bed, despite her being the only person who is actually holding the family together. The film takes a much darker turn near to its closing stages, with the stories of the wife, husband and younger son being looked into more deeply. We learn that they are all want to 'start over' again by somehow erasing their lives, in the wife's case (who becomes ashamed after finding out her husband is working as a janitor) wishing that her life was a dream despite originally and despite giving perception of caring angelic mother, we learn even she is capable of prejudice against her own loved ones. Without giving too much of the ending away, I will say that the family does eventually come to terms with the changes that it has gone through and things do get better over time.

I liked Tokyo Sonata, because it is one of those rare films that deals with a serious issue that very few people will truly sympathise with, unless they have experienced the situation for themselves. It is a wakeup call collar professionals and people in power, because is sheds light on how meaningless their lives are likely to be when the veil of 'normality' is lifted from their lives.