Tokyo Sonata

This movie is a social commentary on contemporary Japanese society. It deals with the following issues: the emptiness and loneliness of the nuclear family, for all members, including the loveless couple and the selfish and isolated children; the lack of hope in teenagers as they realise that Japanese society has nothing to offer them; the collapse of the traditional employment system and the subsequent demise of the salaryman and Japan’s reliance on the US for national security.

This movie deals with these issues quite sensitively, but loses some the plot two thirds of the way in. The significance of the wad of money found in the toilet by the protagonist, the car crash and the trip to the beach by the mother was lost on me. Especially considering that nothing actually changed as a result of these events. Or maybe they did. The final scene of the younger son playing the piano perhaps signified a new beginning for the family. The father had obviously embraced the idea of his son pursuing a career as a pianist, signalling a shift in his mindset about his son’s careers, and perhaps an acceptance of the fact that Japanese society has changed for good—something he has to come to terms with considering his apparent lack of employment options.

I think director Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s decision to cast Koizumi Kyoko as a full-time housewife was old-fashioned. Married women in Japan tend to go back to part-time work once their children are at school, especially if their husbands are not big earners, which Ryuhei clearly wasn’t. The full-time housewife is a thing of the past (and even so, a phenomenon that has always been limited to the middle-and upper-classes). If Koizumi Kyoko’s character depicted a more realistic married Tokyo woman, this would have enabled a better consideration of contemporary married couples, and pointedly, how the shifts in society have affected women.