Kiyoshi Kurosawa has etched out on screen a touching family drama in his latest film Tokyo Sonata. Ryuhei Sasaki (Teruyuki Kagawa), a chief administrator in a medical-supplies company before he is fired, finds it difficult to adapt to his unemployed status. With the gradual dissolution of social prestige, Sasaki's domestic authority is threatened as his elder son Takashi (Yu Koyanagi) joins the American army while his younger son Kenji (Kai Inowaki) wants piano lessons. His wife Megumi (Kyoko Koizumi) is alienated and unhappy and unable to negotiate her emotional needs. Sasaki embarks on an arduous and, at times, absurd trip along with his family in distinct trajectories in an effort to "start over."

The film is shot mostly under cold, grey skies and the dying sun; the frames are mostly bled of colour — echoing the bleakness of urban Japan. The train rumbles past the middle-class neighbourhood screaming life waits for none – Sasaki and his like are isolated in their misery. The long queues of the jobless and the free food line; the games of deceptions Sasaki plays with his old school friend Kurosu (Kanji Tsuda) – the abject moral delinquency is a cruel reminder of the suppressed crises. Kurosu's daughter Mika is party to the secret, as is his wife – a contrasting but foreboding analogy of Sasaki's own household.

The dissonance of the Sasaki household is resolved in Kenji's sonata, as he performs for a Junior High School audition. Kurosawa uses familiar cinematic techniques to create visuals as potent allegories – the red chalk "national boundary" in Takashi's room; the tangled web of electric cables and disorganized books and CDs mirroring Megumi's confusion and pathos. Kurosu says, "We’re like a slowly sinking ship….The lifeboats are gone, the water’s up to our mouths," recognizing the seeming ineluctability of their fate. The lone star, which appears momentarily above the sea at night, portends the ephemeral intangibility of Megumi's escapade and wishful thinking. The sand tracks of a car driven into the ocean at dawn denote the end of a trail, and Megumi, Sasaki and Kenji reunite at the dinner-table.

Kurosawa's Tokyo Sonata tracks the dichotomy of and the parallels between music and life – in their capacity to yield beauty and rhythm in the most unusual circumstances. It is also a less-than-simple tale of hope and reconciliation.

Manish Golder
© FIPRESCI 2008