Tony Takitani (2004)

Directed by: Jun Ichikawa | 76 minutes | drama | Actors: Issei Ogata, Rie Miyazawa, Shinohara Takahumi, Hidetoshi Nishijima

Tony owes his Western first name to his father Shozaburo (double role of Issei Ogata), who thinks that in this way he has prepared his son well for a society that will mainly focus on America after the Second World War. But Tony’s deviant first name only causes this already withdrawn boy to become completely isolated from his peers and grow up as a loner.

His father travels almost constantly as a jazz musician and when Tony is twelve years old, he sends away the woman who came to cook for him every day and did the housework for him, saying that from now on he will do everything himself. Henceforth he lives in almost total silence and solitude, interrupted only by a visit from his father every two years.

Tony’s adult life as a technical illustrator hardly differs from his quiet childhood. He is still lonely and alone, but one day when he meets Kunoma Eiko who he believes is made to wear beautiful clothes, he falls in love. She confesses that she spends almost all her money on expensive clothes and once married, it appears that she has not exaggerated. The closets are bulging and one of the rooms is already furnished as a king-size wardrobe when Tony, after some hesitation, asks her if she could buy less clothes. She tries to do this out of love for Tony, but she cannot escape her destiny to buy and wear haute coutoure.

‘Tony Takitani’ is literally and figuratively the film adaptation of a book by Haruki Murakami. The scenes follow each other in such a way that you open a new page, so to speak, and then you ‘read’ the events through the fixed camera angle. The omniscient narrator and the remarkable, but very intriguing still pace of the film also suggest a book. And just like a good book, it’s a shame to rush through the story in pursuit of plot unraveling and revealing ending. Calmly letting everything sink in and empathizing with the characters means that the strange beauty will not let you go.

The atmosphere is dreamy, almost surreal, but the loneliness that is omnipresent, despite that unreal light-hearted, fairytale-like atmosphere, is very heavy on the stomach. As a Japanese prisoner of war, Father Shozaburo spent years in a Chinese prison, while his fellow prisoners were executed one by one. Back in Japan, his wife dies after Tony’s birth and he flees into a traveling life as a jazz musician. He loves his son, but because of his traumatic experiences, he doesn’t know how to behave like a father. Pity for so much bad luck and withheld sadness is inescapable because of the equanimity of the narration.

His son inherited that inability for interpersonal contact and, like his father, only a woman can break through that saddening loneliness, but as Kunoma Eiko is destined to wear beautiful clothes, Tony cannot escape his sad fate and remains unwillingly. and thank a loner. Your throat tightens and you would give Tony a glimmer of hope for warmth and love in this intriguing, unusual film that excels in its idiosyncratic way of storytelling both in form and content, but of course you know that’s not possible.