Review of Tokyo Sonata (2008) by Rodney C — 22 Mar 2010

In a departure from his usual Japanese horror leanings, former-Pulse director Kiyoshi Kurosawa's latest offering is instead a powerful family drama more in league with the work of South Korean directors like Im Sang-soo.

The most recognisable of these similarities can be found in the plot's exploration into the failings of masculinity in a world where economic primacy finds itself undergoing a state of flux. In only the first few frames, Kurosawa quickly introduces the looming economic threat of China (Japan's arch enemy) and how, like Wal-Mart in the USA, it's seductive proposals of increased labor for lower wages are slowly forcing the middle-classes of the first world into unemployment.

This prospect would be depressing enough if it weren't for the director's desire to emerse every frame in grey, emotionless urban sprawl. The mood generated by this style makes the usually quaint Tokyo suburbs seem lonely and alienating. A strange irony considering the director's other insistance in showing audiences the grim commonality of the employment deficiate. Left-wing political groups often protest that governments always maintain a cache of unemployed in order to maintain social control but when that cache encompasses the majority of a societies population, it paints a very telling picture.

Beyond the unemployment problem is the issue of the male role in society and the its often tumultous transitions, with each of the three major male characters expressing a different side of this ever-shifting phenomena; the father (provider) who having been laid off, attends his new blu-collar job in a business suit so his wife doesn't know; the eldest boy (protector) who quits collage to join the army without.