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Review
by Kozo: |
As
the story goes, Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami
ventured into a Maui thrift shop many years ago and,
for the lump sum of one dollar, he purchased a secondhand
T-shirt with the name "Tony Takitani" emblazoned
across the chest. While the real life Tony Takitani
created the promotional tee as a part of his failed
campaign for a state Senate seat, the famous author
instead found inspiration in the name. In an interview
with The Daily Yomiuiri, Murakami said, "Every
time I put on the T-shirt, I felt like this Tony Takitani
was begging me to write a story about him." And
eventually, that's exactly what Murakami did. American
readers would see the English translation of "Tony
Takitani" published in the pages of the New Yorker
in 2002, and now some three years later, they are
getting a chance to view Jun Ichikawa's inspired 2004
film adaptation thanks to a North American theatrical
release.
Veteran actor Issei
Ogata (Yi Yi) takes on dual roles as the title
character and his jazz musician father, Shozaburo.
The initial section of the film charts Tony Takitani's
lonely childhood: his mother died not long after he
was born, and his father's jazz pursuits often kept
him away from home. It seems Tony was named in honor
of an American military friend of Shozaburo's with
the intention that the more Western-sounding moniker
would be an asset due to the United States' increasing
influence in Japan. But instead, the name marks him
as suspicious, even strange, and only further disconnects
him from his classmates. As he grows older, Tony becomes
interested in art and does quite well, although his
work is often criticized for its lack of emotional
content. He's technically superior, but something
is definitely lacking.
Rie Miyazawa (The
Twilight Samurai, Peony Pavillion) soon
enters the film, portraying Eiko, a beautiful woman
with a smart sense of style and a secret obsession.
Eventually, the two get married, and Tony finally
recognizes what his life has been missing all these
years. Soon, he begins to fear what would happen if
he ever lost his beloved Eiko. And that's when things
start to take a turn for the worse. As their marriage
progresses, Eiko's obsession with purchasing designer
clothes on a daily basis begins to trouble Tony. He
raises the issue tactfully, and she promises to amend
her shopaholic ways, but finds that going cold turkey
isn't as easy as she'd hoped. It's then that the film
takes a tragic turn, as Tony is left alone with nothing
but a roomful of designer clothing. These tangible
"ghosts" haunt him, constantly reminding
him of his wife's troubling absence.
To adjust to his new
life, Tony places an ad searching for an assistant,
but with one caveat: she must be a certain size. In
desperate need of money, a young woman named Hisako
(also played by Rie Miyazawa) answers the call for
this high-paying job. However, she soon learns that
Tony wants her to wear his wife's old clothes as if
it were a work uniform - he swears he has nothing
sexual in mind; he simply wants to come to terms with
his wife's departure. Will Hisako take the job despite
Tony's strange demands? And will Tony be able to survive
the grieving process? Those questions are answered
by story's end, albeit not in any way that could be
considered even remotely conventional or predictable.
In terms of tone, style,
and execution, Tony Takitani is most assuredly
an "art film" in the broadest sense of the
term. While a fan may laud the movie for its languid
pace, elliptic style, and ambiguous ending, it's easy
to see how a detractor could easily turn these compliments
into ample fodder for complaints. For some, the film
will be too slow, too vague, and perhaps too boring
for a recommendation. Yet for those who are willing
to dial back their preconceived notions of what a
film should be, Tony Takitani will be a memorable,
if not enjoyable, cinematic experience. Director Jun
Ichikawa gives the audience a lot to digest, and thus,
it's the kind of movie that's likely to benefit from
a second or even a third viewing.
The two actors are impressive
in their respective roles. In fact, they are so good
that theatergoers unfamiliar with both Ogata and Miyazawa
might not pick up on the fact that each actor is playing
two different characters. As the anchor of the film,
Issei Ogata does well in portraying Murakami's decent,
yet supremely reticent protagonist. The only misstep
seems to be the director's insistence that the fifty-something
Ogata portray Tony (complete with a long-haired wig)
during the "college years" segment early
on. While brief, the sequence is somewhat laughable
considering Ogata obvious age amidst the much younger
actors. Rie Miyazawa is a welcome presence in the
film. Each time she appears onscreen (as either character),
she livens up the proceedings considerably, much in
the way her character Eiko positively affects Tony
Takitani.
In replicating Murakami's
style for the big screen, Jun Ichikawa experiments
with several offbeat techniques. To mimic the Murakami
short story, Ichikawa employs some low key narration
by Hidetomi Nishijima that creates a sense of distance
from the events as they occur, giving the film an
almost fable-like quality. Yet even as this "distance"
exists, at certain key moments, this voice-over intertwines
with the dialogue of the actual characters, as they
recite the narrator's words as if it were their own,
and he speaks their lines as well. This breakdown
of perspective is a quirky move that gives the film
some personality, but admittedly, for some, it will
seem like little more than an interesting gimmick.
Another obvious touch
by the director is Ichikawa's decision to have the
camera constantly pan to the right in many scenes,
particularly the ones detailing Tony's formative years.
In this way, characters will slowly emerge out of
the right side of the frame only to disappear as the
camera scans past them into the "wall,"
which then allows the director to cut to the next
scene as if it were shot in the next room. However,
it is by no means a literal room next door because
it usually contains the same characters, but the events
are occurring at some later date. In some cases, this
continual camera movement works because it creates
a certain kind of tension in what we are seeing. It
is almost as if we are overhearing a conversation
or being exposed to just a snippet of someone's life.
The sense of anticipation grows because the moment
seems fleeting-we know exactly when the scene will
be over, thus, what we "need to know" from
the movie is contained in that one pass of the camera.
This technique also creates the illusion of momentum
and progress, which sometimes helps the film's pacing.
Tony Takitani is only 75 minutes long, but
at times, its leisurely-paced attitude toward its
narrative often makes the film seem longer than it
is. But even as the framing of the film helps offset
pacing issues, there's a downside to this stylistic
choice. As the movie wears on, Ichikawa's usage of
this technique becomes much more obvious, and the
audience soon becomes more aware of what the camera
is doing than what it is revealing. In this way, Ichikawa
runs the risk of reducing this stylistic choice to
little more than a curious novelty. But if anything,
these quirks give Tony Takitani the sense that
it was crafted - and not by some work-for-hire director,
but an actual filmmaker with his own unique creative
vision and stylistic hallmarks. So from that perspective,
the pros definitely outweigh the cons.
But the film isn't all
about technique and style, there's a real movie to
be seen here. And while certainly compelling, it should
be said that Tony Takitani is by no means the
feel good movie of the year. This is a picture preoccupied
with feelings of detachment, isolation, and loneliness.
And thus, it may leave some viewers cold. Tony
Takitani celebrates love, yet in the tradition
of almost every Wong Kar-Wai movie ever made, love
is shown also to be something that can be debilitating,
even destructive, especially when one is separated
from the object of his or her affection. The metaphor
of Eiko's clothes as ghosts evokes a discussion of
the power of memory. Ghosts, like certain painful
memories, seem to haunt us for the longest time. But
as the movie explores, what happens when we finally
exorcise those ghosts for good? Will we feel better
or somehow worse? So haunting is Tony Takitani,
that once you've seen it, the memory of it will stay
with you, whether you like it or not. (Calvin McMillin, 2005)
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