Whether or not you would like “Tokyo Sonata” depends on (a) how much you like the picture house type of movie, (b) how curious are you on the modern Japanese culture, and (c) how much you can relate to the story. Ironically, I could not persuade my Japanese friend whom we met for a dinner to watch this Japanese show. Uh-oh. On paper, “Tokyo Sonata” has won 8 awards including Cannes Film Festival. What about on screen?
Behind closed doors, each family member is keeping a secret from one another. A younger son who doesn’t seem to fit in with his school and wishes to learn playing the piano instead, an older son who is tired of distributing pamphlets in the wee hours for a living and wishes to find meaning in life by doing something totally different, a father who is retrenched from his post as the director of administration and is finding it hard to come to terms with the reality, and a mother who is struggling with this dysfunctional family and is dreaming of a life of the otherwise.
It is a depressing movie to watch. I have not lived in Japan yet but I can imagine the long recession must have affected Japan, from what I have read. I feel for these characters. Each day is a struggle. Just how hard it is to live a lie every day – in the name of the tradition – and yet, each character exhibits his share of integrity in his own way.
“Tokyo Sonata” is a slow paced movie attending to the very detail of tradition and human interaction. I could almost imagine watching the entire movie as a sonata, with a very slow and lengthy middle section. But the last part of the movie is phenomenal. The story development of each character takes a dramatic turn and converges to a theme of – what I would perceive as – starting over.
Great acting, it is. And the ending bits well worth the 2 hours of waiting, to me.