by Sam Juliano
Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s previous films could be characterized as dark, eerie and perverse, and blood and violence have often been part of the mix. In his film Bright Future, a family is massacred, and in his critically-praised The Cure corpses pile up, spurring an intense search for an elusive serial killer who leaves a similar mark on the throat of the victims. The director’s new film, Tokyo Sonata, is devoid of the ghastly happenings of the large body of his work, and it is marked by some dry humor, but it’s nonetheless an unsettling experience. The petrifying events of the earlier films are metaphorically ascribed to some of the deceits, accidents and criminal activity that decimates a family unit.
Kurosawa’s new film is set amidst economic turmoil, a turbulent time when there is regular outsourcing of supervisory posts to recently-graduated outsiders, many arriving from China. Ryuhei Sasaki is forced out as a result of this scenario, but he can’t tell his wife and two sons, and he proceeds the following day to feign his work schedule, but instead spends the day hanging out at a park, reading and negotiating handouts from a local soup kitchen. He eventually runs into an old -friend named Korosu, who is soon revealed as another jobless mountebank. Korosu brings Ryuhei to his home for dinner and announces him as a co-worker, but his ruse can only continue as long as his severance pay holds out. (more…)
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