Author: Bryan Loomis
There’s a moment about halfway through Tokyo Sonata where it lost me, and then it got me back again. There’s a time jump to earlier in the day where previously the movie had been entirely linear, and then a new plot thread appears seemingly out of nowhere. I don’t love everything about the choice; the brief scene shown later in the day doesn’t add enough to necessitate breaking the flow of the movie in that way. But still, it’s the type of risk that I like seeing filmmakers take with their narratives, and adds a unique stamp on the arthouse family drama that the movie otherwise pretty neatly settles into. By the end, the inversion of form that occurs in the back half of the movie nestles nicely into the themes developed in the first half.
On the first half - it’s definitely rooted in the Ozu-esque shōshimin-eiga style that serves as a critique or reflection on Japanese culture. But Japanese culture has changed quite a bit since Ozu was making films, as have our understandings of gender and parenthood. The most insightful thing Tokyo Sonata did for me was show how authoritative masculine attitudes are rooted in insecurity. The worse Ryuhei feels about his unemployment, the worse he treats Megumi and Kenji, becoming very concerned about respect and his authority being undermined. The tendency to hide unpleasant truths also comes under harsh scrutiny. There’s a particular irony when Ryuhei chastises Kenji for lying while his own secrets are far more damaging to the family.
The second half widens our perspectives further, isolating the characters of Ryuhei, Megumi, and Kenji and having them each deal with conundrums or crises over the course of an evening. Megumi had been more of a side character in the first half but gets her share of the spotlight here, and her storyline is the best of the three. Giving her a perspective and a voice is the right choice to further develop the themes of the movie, as it allows us to consider the effects of Ryuhei’s actions in a more nuanced way. Kenji’s storyline here is a bit more filler, most of his development has been done in the first half but we get just a bit more nuance. Ryuhei’s storyline adds some new philosophical questions to the mix, and has just enough ambiguity to leave us pondering.
I’m not sure that where all the characters end up by the end makes sense in terms of their motivations and journeys, but that ending sequence is so beautiful that I’m willing to go along for the ride. This is an expertly composed drama that takes inspiration from the shōshimin-eiga style but then moves into new and unique territory, all in service of its themes and characters.
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