Review of Tokyo Sonata (2008) by Rock J — 02 Jun 2009

Probaby my favorite film out of the ones I've been watching the past few days, Tokyo Sonata got off to a great start and had a great finish but I couldn't help but wonder how amazing it would have been had some of the last third of the film not been so absurdly melodramatic. Don't get me wrong, one of the best things about the film is how beautifully and casually it handles the absurd of the day to day life of its characters, but something about what happens towards the end felt like an unnecessary exageration, something that took away from what was an otherwise splendid film.

I loved the pacing of the film, the way everything was set up, its esthetics. I was particularly fond of the way the scenes at the dinner table were always filmed from underneath the staircase so that the family would always be slightly obscured by some of its structure. The point of view is that of a detached, slightly amused observer, and all the frustration, helplessness and exasperation of the characters seems filtered through this vague tongue in cheek-ness of the observer. The ending of the film comes to appease, to enlighten or perhaps simply to show how futile some of the things we hold on to really are.

Overall, a thoroughly enjoyable experience, though not a sublimely flawless one as it could have been.