On Screen

Do Japanese directors experience that Spielbergian thirst for
critical acclaim as they mature in their careers? Kiyoshi Kurosawa is
probably best known in America for directing the original Pulse,
and he’s pretty much stuck to horror films over the course of his
career. Tokyo Sonata, his latest effort, feels as though
Kurosawa has set aside scary movies to decorate his mantel with an
award or two—only instead of Schindler’s List, he’s
produced the Japanese American Beauty.

Meet the Sasakis: Ryuhei (Teruyuki Kagawa), a downsized salaryman,
spends his unemployed days wandering aimlessly around Tokyo, a ghost
dressed in a suit and tie (he can’t bring himself to tell his family
that he’s got no job). His wife, Megumi (Kyoko Koizumi), chafes at the
constraints of a housewifely existence in a home with older children.
One son, Takashi, has signed up for the U.S. Army to fight in Iraq. The
other son, Kenji, wants to play piano all the time. The movie
progresses at a pleasant clip, as each member of the family falls apart
in his or her own way. Ryuhei applies for unemployment and faces
humiliation with very little grace; Kenji diverts his lunch money into
secret piano lessons and spends all his time up in his room, silently
playing piano on a broken keyboard he salvaged from the trash. Kurosawa
brings his beautiful cinematography and note-perfect horror-film pacing
to Tokyo Sonata, and each story is incredibly engrossing until
things reach their climax.

Of course every member of the family has a melodramatic breakdown at
exactly the same time, in over-the-top scenarios that unintentionally
mock the careful construction of the film up to that point. In
particular, one scene where Ryuhei staggers down a street and literally
can’t go three steps without collapsing into a pile of trash—he
falls into four separate piles before finally writhing around,
dramatically, in the garbage for a while—resembles an outtake
from a Naked Gun film intended to parody this kind of scene.
After all the freak-outs are done, though, the film settles back into
its quiet desperation quite nicely, and it builds to a sublime
emotional climax. Rarely does a derailed movie so completely and
assuredly get back on track and repair itself.