Tokyo Sonata

There are no ghosts in the family drama Tokyo Sonata, no senseless violence (though, typical of a Kurosawa film, diere are characters driven to suicide), but the spare, emptied-out cityscapes and sterile interiors clearly belong to the director. When the administrative job of father Ryuhei (Teruyuki...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inFilm comment Vol. 45; no. 2; pp. 70 - 71
Main Author YUE, GENEVIEVE
Format Book Review
LanguageEnglish
Published New York The Film Society of Lincoln Center 01.03.2009
Film at Lincoln Center, Inc
Subjects
Motion picture directors & producers
screenings
Los Angeles California
New York
Iraq
United States > US
China
Japan
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Summary:There are no ghosts in the family drama Tokyo Sonata, no senseless violence (though, typical of a Kurosawa film, diere are characters driven to suicide), but the spare, emptied-out cityscapes and sterile interiors clearly belong to the director. When the administrative job of father Ryuhei (Teruyuki Kagawa) is outsourced to China, and the country's lingering American presence induces his son Takashi (Yu Koyanagi) to join the U.S. military and perhaps end up serving in Iraq, it's symptomatic of how Japan has no choice but to contend widi the new globalized world order, which is sapping the nation and leaving unemployed salarymen congregating in city parks and malls teeming with Iisdess shoppers.
ISSN:0015-119X