Toyko Sonata

This film was an award winner at last year’s Cannes Film Festival. For the first two thirds of the film I was entranced. The characters felt real and I could relate to the story even though there was a cultural divide.

We meet a middle class Japanese family living a typical good life. The father was an executive and when he came home he expected his dinner to be served to him. The wife was sweet, attentive and did all the chores in an uncomplaining way.

Things begin to break down when the father loses his job to downsizing. He is too proud to tell his family. Each morning he dresses in business attire and heads out with his portfolio and goes to the library or tries to find an appropriate job. He has lunch at a free handout place on the street. He finally resorts to taking a job cleaning washrooms and halls in a plaza. The work is demeaning and my heart broke for him.

At the same time trouble brews with the children. One son goes off to join the army. The other son chooses to spend his lunch money for piano lessons. His father had forbid him to take the lessons. The father becomes more agitated and abusive physically to the younger son.

Up to this point it was an excellent believable story very well executed.

The house is robbed and the thief takes the wife as a hostage. In my opinion the film falls from that point. The thief and the wife go off in a stolen car. She is apparently a hostage. I suppose the actions were a metaphor for her breaking away from the traditional family. It didn’t sit well with me because it wasn’t believable and destroyed the power of the first part of the film. At times it felt as if the later actions were a dream and I questioned if the wife was imagining it all.

The positive ending was just too easy. There was a lot of learning from every member of the family but I wish the later part of the film had been different.

I was glad I was with a friend because we couldn’t stop chatting about it and trying to make sense of all the action.