Tokyo Sonata

A film of remarkable breadth and integrity. Familial facades shatter, characters embrace their demons (all themes from Kurosawa's previous films) and as a result learn to accept themselves - so it's really a horror gendai-geki, although it is thankfully laced with black humor, appropriate melodrama, and some brilliant performances. Whether or not you accept the third act (I do), if your cinematic pulse doesn't race during 'Claire de lune', you probably don't have a soul.

Kiyoshi Kurosawa + Yasujiro Ozu = Tokyo Sonata

This domestic drama is a change for horror director Kurosawa, but it has his trademarks: spiritual bleakness, gritty Tokyo locations, long shots, concentration on architecture as a metaphor for alienation. I like the structure of the last act: Kurosawa's man and wife each experience a sensational event that could easily lead to melodrama. But here, the melodrama never occurs, and at the end--when the characters come together as family--the effect of these events on the two is left up to us.

Begins as a sensitively imagined Ozu-esque family drama. Then veers off into left field. The pressures on the family all come to a head during one night of hell, and each of the characters suffers a terrifying loss of identity. The final scene is beautiful and unexpected, making it a film about the the totally unexplained eruption of beauty into drab, ordinary life. Surprising and moving.

"Tôkyô sonata" is a grim movie, but is at times undeniably beautiful as Kurosawa weaves a bleak tale of a family in decline. The performances are supurb, the musical score hauntingly effective, and the final scene, if slighly improbable, is absolutely beautiful. The only fault I can really find in this movie are the slighly odd plot devices Kurosawa uses in the last third. They feel a little convoluted and push the movie slightly off-kilter. Even so, highly recommended.

Interesting look at the strains and deceptions of the modern family. For most of the film I was enjoying watching events unfold but didn't feel like it hung together very well. Then came the absolutely glorious finale, a deeply affecting scene that really brought everything home for me and transformed it from something good to something special. The performances are all very good, the cinematography effective without too much flash, and the script is dotted with welcome moments of humor.

Looks at internal fears and horror rather than the typical ghouls and guys with knives of horror genre flicks - but with many of the same eerie atmospheric devices. Centres around the layers of pretension and lies that become social norms in Japan. The atmosphere and tension created in the family was brilliant, but some of the plot turns were a bit bizarre and unnecessary. The sentimentality at the end was also a little out of kilter with the rest of the film.

Known for creepy neo-horror flicks, director Kurosawa (not that Kurosawa) effectively portrays the horror of a disintegrating family in the wake of a global recession that translates to any culture, with just enough well-timed humor to keep it from being morose.

Words cannot describe my love for this movie.

I just wanted them to be happy...so bad. The mom stole my heart

This one didn't grab me like I hoped, but I could see it was a decent film.

Japanese filmmakers have a knack for telling stories about characters falling victim to their society. It's disappointing that they always tend to be so formulaic, perhaps symbolic of the culture they portray in which citizens are cogs of the corporate machine. While telling entirely different stories, Tokyo Sonata reminded me much of Nobody Knows; moreover, Kyoko Koizumi's character was surprisingly reminiscent of another housewife role of hers, in Toshiaki Toyoda's Hanging Garden.

weak ending

This movie is a comedy

Tokyo Sonata is the story of an ordinary family that disintegrates when recession exposes the secrets they have for eachother. Despite the humor the film is spiced with, it gradually made me feel more and more blue, pulling me into its darkness, until during the last stages, hope is rekindled in a beautiful and serene, yet bare fashion. While the film is not flawless, Kurosawa successfully managed to get me touched by his film, helped by the superb performance of its lead actors.

A promising build-up is shattered by a sequence of increasingly unconvincing scenes culminating in a final, film-destroying absurdity. There should be a law prohibiting the cinematic use of "Claire de lune". Any filmmaker contravening such a law is likely being lazy, and one doing so who also claims Ozu as their favourite director is behaving in a manner that is simply inexcusable. Eureka using an image from the final scene as the cover of the DVD/Blu-Ray packaging is also inexcusable stupidity.

At first glance, it doesn't seem like a Kiyoshi Kurosawa film. It bears a superficial similarity to Laurent Cantet's Time Out in its plot set-up. As it progresses though, a type of horror does creep in (though one laced with black humor), and in its final stretches it seems as if everyone has gone insane.

A gorgeous little gem that almost pulls off a remarkable achievement. The subtle drama, the identifiable characters and their turmoils, the splendid portrayals by the leads, and an astonishing turn for a popular J-Horror director. Tokyo Sonata is not to be missed at an cost. Period.

Star Rating: ★★★1/2

Some of the events in the third act feel pretty unmotivated and random, which gives short shrift to the carefully constructed familial drama and sense of realism of the first 2/3. Even still, there are a handful of moments that ring with a special kind of resonance.

This is a decent look at suburban style middle class Japanese life and all the emotional and economic pitfalls they go through. The main flaws with this film is that the writing tried to juggle too many topics onto one plate and tried to use one too many absurd twists in the story. Overall the movie is well acted but could have been so much better with focused writing but it's still very well directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa.

Really well made, a solid film.

A quiet film that explores the family structure on an individual level as well as a collective. It is able to convey how a family can want to drift away at any moment but is still able to stick together and find something that can hold them together, after a bit of a rebirth.

Tidy.

It begins, and goes for the most part, as a depressive, slow family drama. Don't really know how to explain the last third. Probably Kurosawa hates the idea of conventional ending. In the last third a few strange sub-plots gets introduced and the movie switches a few gears up. Until all the silent emotional tension gathered to the point explodes in metaphors and music.

A little depressing, seeing a family slowly falling apart. It's a slow movie, but the second half is very effective. The song at the end, Claire de Lune; it never fails taking my breath away.

28. ist. film fest. & filmin cikis noktasi ile geldigi nokta arasinda bir denge yok. ama yine de hikaye kendi icinde seyirciye yer aciyor ve izleyene hos vakit gecirtebiliyor. alt metine dikkat edilmeli.

"Another of Kiyoshi Kurosawa's chilling portraits of micro and macro alienation, a family drama as chillingly controlled and despondent as the horror films that gained him international recognition." - Nick Schager

This in a very subtle and enjoyable way raises questions and issues related to Japanese family life without being presumptious or trying to give any answers. I really enjoyed it, and I was surprised at how it managed to spice it up with so much fitting humor. The piano scene is beautiful and brings a feeling of tranquility.

Tokyo Sonata is the story of an ordinary family that disintegrates when recession exposes the secrets they have for eachother. Despite the humor the film is spiced with, it gradually made me feel more and more blue, pulling me into its darkness, until during the last stages, hope is rekindled in a beautiful and serene, yet bare fashion. While the film is not flawless, Kurosawa successfully managed to get me touched by his film, helped by the superb performance of its lead actors.

A thoughtful examination of the breakdown of society at all levels. One of the best ending scenes ever.

Glad I'm not anyone in this film. Seems happiness is only granted when all that can go wrong does.

The set up for this story was quite good, and while the first couple of acts might be a bit too drawn out, the overall thrust of the film in these sections--illustrating the dehumanizing effects of isolation from one another--was quite good. The final act includes lots of strange, out of left field movie occurrences, seemingly to show just how far out these characters have gone. This felt too pat and easy to me, even if the exquisite final scene brought it all together beautifully.

Alternate title: *Japanese Beauty*, as the film follows similar terrain and approach as *American Beauty*. If you really liked the latter (and films like Ice Storm), you'll probably like this, too.

Excellent. Note the prescient wind.