The Sasakis is a Japanese nuclear family, salaryman Ryûhei (Kagawa), housewife Megumi (Koizumi), two sons: Takashi (Koyanagi) and Kenji (Inowaki), the narrative starts when Ryûhei's company is downsized and he is bluntly laid off, an all -round economical threat from China becomes the elephant in the room in Kiyoshi Kurosawa's magical realism drama TOKYO SONATA, it goes without saying, evocative of Yasujirô Ozu's pièce-de-résistance TOKYO STORY (1953).
The film opens with a pedestrian domestic scene taking its leaf out of Ozu's vast canon, Megumi closing the doors when wind blows, with the pillow shots and low angle, this ambivalent scene will later occur in the midstream which transforms a hitherto realistic drama of imminent tragedy into the somewhat surreal realm, where all three protagonists: Ryûhei, Megumi and Kenji, have to survive their extraordinary experiences respectively that finally brings harmony and hope back to the household, although Kurosawa's stock-in-trade aesthetic bleakness is something audience can not circumvent, granted, TOKYO SONATA's rosy finale is pretty uncharacteristic, culminated with Kenji's composed and elegant rendition of Debussy's “CLAIRE DE LUNE”, the third and most famous movement of SUITE BERGAMASQUE,it is a knockout that might confound Kurosawa's diehards (as the director is most distinctly acknowledged as a horror genre practitioner, yet this film manifestly attests he is indeed a magnificent generalist), a piano prodigy is born, but the whole process (roughly crossing a six-month span) seems too incredible to credit.
But that is exactly why Kurosawa's magical touch strikes home, after watching the household's slow but irrevocable tailspin into almost oblivion (a perilous hostage situation, hit by a barreling car and a rough treatment received in the police station), the about-face effectively boosts one's morale and tempers the bitter taste left by the overshadowing harshness, in a sense, it also ambiguously imparts a scenario of an “afterlife” where everything goes wonderfully well: Ryûhei is wont to his menial job as a janitor in an emporium, Megumi can live down with the fact that she might not get a second chance but remain as a full-time housewife, with Kenji has a brilliant future beckons, which might not be the case in the reality.
Apart from the cynosure of the vulnerable patriarchal dignity, which is being chipped away day by day from an unemployed Ryûhei, a predominant malady afflicting most of our societies, although it is mostly salient in Japan, Kurosawa's rapier-like sensibility also touches on the issue of US military army and their Middle East war deployment which inducts Takashi, who cannot secure a future in his homeland ailed by high jobless rate, and opts for a foreign outlet to which he has to drink the Kool-Aid, in a dream sequence, Megumi's trepidation lays bare the pervasive dread of the ethics as regards the warfare.
The core cast shows great gumption and resilience, Kagawa, a prolific character actor who is scarcely accorded a leading role, stoutly holds court with his pent-up frustration and exasperation; Koizumi, on the other hand, is phenomenally phlegmatic in dwelling in the dead -water marital bog, even when she opens her arms with no one to pull herself up, only goes apoplectic when Ryûhei really goes out of his way to stubbornly retain his wounded pride, and she literally radiates in the cathartic moment when she regains the strength of living irradiated by the golden ray of sunshine.
Constructing his compositions mostly in medium shots to establish remove from his characters, and eliciting a mesmerizing dichotomy of solemnity and absurdity by rounding out his yarn with a conceit of individualistic self-seriousness, Kiyoshi Kurosawa comports himself with both grace and perspicacity in TOKYO SONATA, a peculiar outlier among his impressive track record.
referential entries: Shinobu Yaguchi's SURVIVAL FAMILY (2016, 7.4/10); Hirokazu Koreeda's SHOPLIFTERS (2018, 8.4/10).
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