Tony Takitani

This film, minimalist in the best possible sense, is a lyrical study of isolation and loss. Tony Takitani (Issei Ogata) grows up the loner kid of a jazz-playing, loner father. Like his father, Tony masters an art, drawing, and eventually becomes very successful. Early in his adulthood Tony has a few failed romances but never considers marriage until, in middle age, he meets a woman fifteen years his junior, the sight of whom for the first time adds an unshakable pain to his profound solitude.

A long sequence of aged Japanese photographs acts as a prelude to the film, telling in a few minutes the story of Tony's father. This section of plot takes up a much greater portion of Haruki Murakami's original short story, and Jun Ichikawa made a wise decision in reducing it, though utmost respect for the source material is in evidence throughout the film.

And then Tony's story itself begins, and if you are going to fall for this film, you do it then. From start to finish, really, the film is an episodic accumulation of small, deeply-touching scenes tied together by very simple yet evocative piano music and the enchanting voice of a narrator (Hidetoshi Nishijima) whose warm, thoughtful delivery makes one think of some poet of a bygone era.

Tony's courtship of Eiko and his subsequent troubles draw us closer and closer to this sad, beautiful soul until his loneliness finally becomes absolute. Ichikawa solidifies these intense layers of feeling with wonderfully basic techniques: stirring skylines and skyscapes used as backdrops; lovely, tangible environments; and discrete, minimalist camera angles--key conversations shot from behind the characters, over the shoulder, for instance. As a side note, the one film to which I can compare "Tony Takitani" is Laurent Cantet's "L'emploi du temps" (France, 2001), which has a similarly touching minimalism married to the intense inner lives of characters.

I was fortunate enough to see "Tony Takitani" at the 2005 Seattle International Film Festival, and of the films I have seen at the festival over the past decade, this ranks among my favorite three--the others being the 1996 Israeli film "Clara Hakedosha" ("Saint Clara") and 1999's "A la medianoche y media" ("At Midnight and a Half") from South America. I cannot imagine a better feature film to first bring the brilliant writing of Haruki Murakami to the big screen.

Note: Murakami's "Tony Takitani" was first published in English in the April 15, 2002 issue of The New Yorker.

Every frame is like a painting. The film is like an art gallery, we walk through each scene with slow-tracking transitions while Sakamoto Ryuichi's hauntingly beautiful piano score plays. The faint colors of Tokyo has never been so breath-taking.

After watching, I felt alone, cold and inspired. Strictly for audiences who are open to new things, because this is likely the first movie you'll see of this kind. Don't expect a complicated storyline, this is an observant piece of cinema focusing on the study of characters. It moves slow but is never boring. Be patient and just enjoy what is shown to you on the screen.

This is how you really tell a great story visually. Mr Ichikawa Jun should be the man to adapt all of Murakami's stories.

All of us have felt loneliness at one time or another. Probably not to the extent that Tony (Issei Ogata) felt. His father made sure he would be lonely by giving him an unusual name which prevented acceptance from the beginning.

After years of loneliness, he takes a beautiful wife (Rie Miyazawa). He is no longer lonely, but becomes fearful that he will experience loneliness again.

The beautiful piano music that plays throughout and the minimal sets remind us that loneliness is ever present. The film moves slowly, just as loneliness might move.

Tony is fairly happy after marriage, but another problem crops up. His wife is obsessed with clothes. We are talking Imelda Marcos obsessed. She is addicted to buying and it consumes her to the point that she cannot stop without withdrawal.

Her obsession causes her death and Tony is alone again. He struggles through the loneliness in strange fashion. We have moved from the action of his married life, back to the minimalism.

Jun Ichikawa did a magnificent job of using voice-over and music and set to create the perfect mood and a perfect retelling of Haruki Murakami's novel.

"Tony Takitani" is the first full length adaptation of a Haruki Murakami tale (the IMDb message board provides a link to an English translation of the story) and it beautifully translates his ethereal prose themes to visuals.

There's his characteristic isolated man, mysterious women who come and go and recur, American jazz and obsessions that all link to Japan's post-war experiences and the prisons we make for ourselves.

The film begins like a narrated slide show as we see biographical images of "Tony" as a child and his father. Gradually, the stills move for longer periods to learn more about each man and focus on "Tony" as a young man who has gravitated to free-lance mechanistic illustration as a perfect professional emotionless counterpart to his internal condition. The characters occasionally take up the narration in almost the only dialog we hear.

The second half of the film explores the nature of loneliness and love. The younger woman he falls in love with literally comes with baggage, as each have a fear of emptiness that they assuage through their own means.

While how she wore her clothes attracted him in the first place, the world is divided between those who are pack rat collectors and those who are not - a division "Tony" thinks he can cross and suppress, only to have those feelings reappear with resonances, with a bit of a spooky reference to Hitchcock's "Vertigo" trying to morph into "Here Comes Mr. Jordan" with almost an O. Henry twist. While most viewers will think the woman's clothes shopping is a fetish (and the montage of her luxuriating in shoe after shoe is humorous), I thought this film was the best since "Ghost World" to make an effort to capture the sensual, addictive feelings of a collector of objects and not as outsiders for an Errol Morris documentary.

As it visually relates her fear of emptiness to the father's and the son's claustrophobic lives, the film lyrically shows how not only is love not enough and how asking one you love to give up something they love destroys love, but the objects themselves will now carry different and unexpected emotions for whomever comes into contact with them.

While Ryuichi Sakamoto's gentle score reinforces this meditation on loneliness, I thought we should have heard more of the father's jazz.

This is a slow, deliberate film on the subject of loss (and loneliness) The first few minutes don't exactly imbue you with confidence, and strike very much as a "pseuds" corner speciality.

The filmmaker and the droll narrator however save you and produce a gentle portrait of a man who lives through loneliness.

There are woman involved too, but the cast is sparse.

I have read other users mention melancholy in their reviews. I disagree with this. This is a film simply shot and with a gentle simple piano score attached to it. There are no vibrant colours but it is just as visually enchanting as the "The thin red line" even for it greyness.

It is the strength of the characters that however keep you engaged.

Watch this.