Customer Reviews

Tony Takitani

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This film, minimalist in the best possible sense, is a lyrical study of isolation and loss. Tony Takitani (Issei Ogata) grows up the loner kid of a jazz-playing, loner father. Like his father, Tony masters an art, drawing, and eventually becomes very successful. Early in his adulthood Tony has a few failed romances but never considers marriage until, in middle age, he meets a woman fifteen years his junior, the sight of whom for the first time adds an unshakable pain to his profound solitude.

A long sequence of aged Japanese photographs acts as a prelude to the film, telling in a few minutes the story of Tony's father. This section of plot takes up a much greater portion of Haruki Murakami's original short story, and Jun Ichikawa made a wise decision in reducing it, though utmost respect for the source material is in evidence throughout the film.

And then Tony's story itself begins, and if you are going to fall for this film, you do it then. From start to finish, really, the film is an episodic accumulation of small, deeply-touching scenes tied together by very simple yet evocative piano music and the enchanting voice of a narrator (Hidetoshi Nishijima) whose warm, thoughtful delivery makes one think of some poet of a bygone era.

Tony's courtship of Eiko and his subsequent troubles draw us closer and closer to this sad, beautiful soul until his loneliness finally becomes absolute. Ichikawa solidifies these intense layers of feeling with wonderfully basic techniques: stirring skylines and skyscapes used as backdrops; lovely, tangible environments; and discrete, minimalist camera angles--key conversations shot from behind the characters, over the shoulder, for instance. As a side note, the one film to which I can compare "Tony Takitani" is Laurent Cantet's "L'emploi du temps" (France, 2001), which has a similarly touching minimalism married to the intense inner lives of characters.

I was fortunate enough to see "Tony Takitani" at the 2005 Seattle International Film Festival, and of the films I have seen at the festival over the past decade, this ranks among my favorite three--the others being the 1996 Israeli film "Clara Hakedosha" ("Saint Clara") and 1999's "A la medianoche y media" ("At Midnight and a Half") from South America. I cannot imagine a better feature film to first bring the brilliant writing of Haruki Murakami to the big screen.

Note: Murakami's "Tony Takitani" was first published in English in the April 15, 2002 issue of The New Yorker.

In the film "Tony Takitani," director Jun Ichikawa gives the viewer a sense of isolation and loneliness that one does not find with too many other directors. I have not read the short story that the film is based on, but one does not need to. With a third person narrative, and a minimal use of the actors' interaction, the film makes you feel very lonely. Which I am sure is exactly what the director was aiming for. The cinematography is beautiful, and at the same time, compliments the film, as Ichikawa's use of the camera gives you a feeling of the same loneliness that the protagonist, Tony Takitani (Issey Ogata) is going through. In fact, Tony Takitani wears his loneliness on his face. And every shot of him in the film is permeated with a sense of loneliness. You can sense it, and feel it.

I really liked the beginning of the film, where we see Tony Takitani's father, (also portrayed by Ogata) lying in a prison cell. The war has just come to an end, and the isolation of being imprisoned, alone and without the contact of others, is a great introduction to the film. As it is this films opening scene that gives the viewer a prelude to what the films main protagonist feels: A sense of isolation and loneliness. The third person narrative also works well by incorporating a dialogue between the viewer and the film, where we are further removed from the films protagonist--as we sense his self-isolation from those around him. This in turn, gives the film an even greater sense of loneliness: The very sense of isolation and being cut off from others that Tony Takitani himself feels.

The film is slow paced, and is only 75 minutes long. Tony Takitani is an illustrator who has always been alone. However, he meets a woman who will change his life. And although Tony is alone most of the time, it is due to his wife that he must now travel and go out to dinner. Not to mention the shopping with her. The films narrator even relates how they have gone to Europe, where she has purchased some of her clothes. So in one sense, although we are not privy to this, we know that Tony has gone places. His wife Eiko (Rie Miyazawa) is a compulsive shopper who desires the the best in fashion. But, as in life, there will be moments of tragedy. The film while slow and quiet, was worth the purchase to me. Sometimes these kind of films are needed. However, it will not appeal to some viewers, therefore, I recommend you rent it first, as it is not a film for everyone. [Stars: 3.5]

He was lonely; she was beautiful; and, for a while, it really, really worked.
The story is flawed. (But who am I to pass such judgment? This movie will be remembered.)
It will be remembered (aside from the remarkable cinematography) because the viewer feels the loneliness, the temporary joy, and the loss central to this movie.

Tony Takitani's name was indeed that: Tony Takitani.

With these words Murakami began his sole bit of fictional writing in the year 1990 and although 1990 might have been a bit dry for Murakami in the realm of fiction, he also produced much travel writing, translations, and was busy editing his complete works, the one story he produced was a gem. A rare third person piece by a writer who normally writes in the first person, "Tony Takitani" within its scant twenty pages in the original Japanese is a broad sweeping work that not only tells the story of the protagonist Tony Takitani, but the one of his father, Takitani Shozaburo, as well.

As stated above Tony Takitani is an important story for a number of reasons. First it displays Murakami's incorporation of the third person narrative which goes beyond some of the limitations of first person narratives and second it also displays Murakami's continued research into Japan's wartime past which was first displayed in his third novel A Wild Sheep Chase and would come to full culmination with the release of the massive, three volume The Wind-up Bird Chronicle. However, the true power of this story, like his other works, is the interpersonal relationships experienced by the protagonist.

Murakami's protagonists are normally nameless; usually we only know them by the personal pronoun Boku, white collar workers who do not go out of their way to make an impact on society. They enjoy beer, sex, baseball, and the company of their friends, but they are normally a bit cut off from society and oftentimes prefer an isolated existence over interactions with others. Tony Takitani, however, is the epitome of the Murakami protagonist. Ignored by his jazz musician father and ostracized from society because of his Westernized name, he brought memories of the Occupation period to the fore when he told others his name and he was often called a half breed by his classmates, Tony Takitani bore into himself and dedicated his life to art, especially drawing extraordinarily detailed pictures of machines and plants. During the late 1960s his artwork was scoffed at by his classmates because they were considered cold and lacked political ideology, but Tony Takitani ignored their criticisms and went on to become a successful commercial illustrator.

Seemingly content, Tony Takitani's shell is completely shattered when he meets Konuma Eiko, she only has a name in the movie, fifteen years Tony Takitani's junior, Eiko's presence fills the illustrator's emptiness and makes him realize how truly lonely he was. Not wanting to go on without Eiko in his life, Tony confesses his love to her on their fifth date, but he learns that she has a long time boyfriend, and she tells him to give her some time to think about it. Tony Takitani grants her wish, but on their next meeting he informs her that he cannot go on without her and the two eventually marry.

With his loneliness extinguished, Tony Takitani for the first three months of his marriage is fearful that he is going to lose his young wife and be alone once more. However, she stays with him and they fill up the emptiness that resides within each other. Yet, there is one problem. Tony Takitani's wife is a clotheshorse to the extreme, buying countless pieces of big brand name clothing. Tony Takitani is not concerned about the money, what he is concerned about is the obsessive way in which his wife shops. Because she loves her husband deeply, Eiko one day goes to return a couple of pieces of clothing...

One of the most common criticisms one hears about a movie based on a fictional work is how the film pales in comparison to the fictional piece. Maybe it is because of the brevity of the original short story, but, in my opinion, Ichikawa Jun has perfectly distilled the short story into film keeping the original piece's deep sense of melancholy intact. Filmed in grainy, dark colors and scored by the incomparable Sakamoto Ryuichi, Tony Takitani does don't release its viewer from the gray, ennui filled world of the title protagonist. With little dialogue between the characters and with a narrator telling most of the story, with the characters often finishing his sentences, Tony Takitani truly feels like a visual short story.

I maybe biased because I am a huge fan of Murakami Haruki, but I believe that Tony Takitani is truly a beautiful film that is able to effectively display the fictional world of an author who has impacted many readers in Japan and abroad on celluloid. Check it out if you get the chance.

A wonderfully quiet, almost meditative, look at a man's life and that of his father. Film is complemented by a gentle piano score from Ryuichi Sakamoto and totally original photographic compositions from cinematographer Taishi Hirokawa.

Film opens with a somewhat long montage (with stills and narration) of Tony's early years with his father. Left alone most of the time Tony develops a passion for drawing which leads to his career as an illustrator. It is only as a middle-aged man that he meets the perfect woman, though her one 'fatal' flaw is an addiction to shopping which provides a good deal of humor to the somewhat sad, isolated story of Tony's life.

Can't say more without spoiling the plot, but if you treasure personal films without explosions, car chases, and profanity then this is your movie for the summer!

Director Jun Ichikawa demonstrates a uniquely idiosyncratic filmmaking style somewhat reminiscent of Yasujiro Ozu's work in his constant use of lengthy medium shots shot at waist level, as well as a certain narrative sensibility that focuses on elliptical episodes to unfold a story in a subtly uneventful manner. Unlike Ozu, however, Ichikawa verges somewhat toward contrivance in unspooling his tale, one that feels more like a paean to Alfred Hitchcock's "Vertigo". However, the Freudian subtext and Baroque melodrama of that classic have been submerged in favor of glacial pacing and implied emotionalism.

The title character with the staccato name is the only son of a renowned jazz trombonist. He grows up to become a lonely technical illustrator who obsesses over his work and remains content in his solitude. He finally meets Eiko, a beautiful, demure woman with an even greater obsession - an uncontrollable desire for designer clothes. Upon his insistence, they marry and live happily for a time, so much so that he realizes he can never live without her. True to Murphy's law, tragedy strikes, and the plot turns on what Tony does next to fill the void in his existence. Based on a short story by popular writer Haruki Murakami (who wrote the intriguingly surreal "Kafka on the Shore" released last year in the US), the 2005 movie effectively captures the author's highly stylized world, in particular, Tony's solitude in a series of lingering silences and mundane activities punctuated by acts of quirky behavior.

The beautifully muted cinematography is by Taishi Hirokawa, and it reminds me of Gordon Willis's work on Woody Allen's "Interiors". Similar to the Bergmaneque feeling of that film, Hirokawa achieves a consistent aesthetic that matches an art design that sees characters occupying clean white and grey spaces rendered with a soft graininess. Moreover, the camera moves gradually though pointedly from left to right as transitional devices to move the story's action forward as if following a horizontal timeline or looking though a series of slides. The technique is intriguing at first but eventually feels contrived, just like the literary conceit of having the characters finish the narrator's sentences (Hidetoshi Nishijima provides the penetrating voice narration throughout the story). There is also a meditative, Windham Hill-esque music score by the estimable Ryuichi Sakamoto, which aptly captures the evocative nature of the story structure.

The acting is unobtrusive to fit the mostly quiet atmosphere. In true Hitchcockian fashion, Ichikawa has his two leads play double roles - Issei Ogata plays Tony and his jazz musician father, and Rie Miyazawa plays Eiko and Hisako, the woman who responds to Tony's ad. Truthfully, neither makes that vivid an impression in either role, and that is part of the problem I have with the film, the lack of indelible characters to inhabit the hermetically sealed world that Ichikawa and Murakami have created. The paper-thin plot yields very little opportunity for emotional payoffs, and there is little that remains resonant after all is said and done. Even at a brief 75-minute running time, it feels like slow going and lingers with a vague sense of hopelessness. By the way, the DVD has no significant extras.

For everything I liked about "Tony Takitani", there is something about the film I disliked. In the end, I'm glad I saw the Japanese film on DVD, but if I had paid to see it at a theater, I wouldn't have been as happy. It takes the right type of person to appreciate this film and I don't know many of those people.

Tony Takitani (Issei Ogata), the son of a Jazz musician (also played by Ogata), grows up living a solitary life. From an early age, he learns to care for himself while his Dad is away, touring the far corners of the globe for months, years on end. Tony learns he has the ability to draw, but prefers to be very methodical and precise, so he becomes a mechanical illustrator. A darn good one at that, because he earns a good living. But as an adult, his life is empty; he sees his Dad every two or three years and has no one else in his life, focusing his attention on his work. One day, he meets a young woman, Konuma (Rie Miyazawa) and becomes enamored of her. Despite her objections, they fall in love and marry. But will Tony be happy after all?

Because Tony says little, the film is narrated, providing a sort of guiding poem to Tony's life, giving us occasional clues to his thoughts and feelings. As his world grows, with the addition of a wife, a housekeeper, others, they occasionally finish the narrator's sentences. This is an interesting idea, a partially successful, interesting idea. The narration paints a portrait of Tony's isolation, of his loneliness. Because he rarely speaks, we need a window into his world and the narrator provides that. Every time the narrator returns, we are reminded of this, giving us further evidence of the main character's life.

The narration helps to lend the film a fable quality. We hear "Tony began to cook his dinners for himself at an early age." for instance, as we watch scenes play out. Because someone is describing Tony's life, no matter the obtuse, somewhat poetic descriptions sometimes used, it makes us feel as though we are watching a picture book come to life. This, and the sad, rather unusual nature of his life, helps to make the film seem a little more unusual.

"Tony" has an interesting, visual style. A partially successful, interesting visual style. A majority of the scenes begin with the camera slowly moving across the horizon, from left to right. As the camera moves, we pick up a character and their actions until the camera moves beyond and picks up the next scene, moving from left to right. This technique helps the film seem more fluid, because the camera is always moving. Without this movement, "Tony" would feel very episodic. This camera work also creates a sort of visual poem complimenting the Japanese setting and time.

Unfortunately, the combination of the narration and the slow camera sweeping across every scene serve to make the film seem long. At roughly seventy-five minutes, "Tony" barely qualifies as a feature length movie. Yet, because of these two techniques, it feels as though we are watching an epic length film without any of the `epic'.

The performances are universally one note but even this sort of fits, no matter how annoying it might be. Because the camera is always moving, it rarely lingers on a scene for long. Essentially, we are watching a series of narrated tableaus illustrating the man's life. Interesting, but not entirely successful either. It would seem unnatural if any character showed a lot of emotion because we are only watching them for a brief period. But staying true to the filmmaker's ideas has created a very unnatural, slow paced film.

A watchable, but nonetheless unnatural and slow paced film.

"Deliberate" is the word that first springs to mind. Every single action in "Toni Takitani," every movement of the camera, every homage, is deliberate. There are no mistakes here, no improvisations, and no wasted moments. A short film, only 75 minutes, director Ichikawa Jun has made sure that he has absolute control over every second of screen time, and so he tells his tale of loneliness.

Adapted from a short story by Murakami Haruki (The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle: A Novel), Toni Takitani is a lonely man who doesn't realize he is lonely. Brought up by a distant father, he learned from a young age to live an isolated life, like a monk is a distant hermitage. He is self-contained. Until one day, a quiet young girl, fifteen years his junior, comes into his life and fills the emptiness he never knew was there. For the first time in his life, he knows happiness, as well as the fear of that happiness being taken away.

This story is old school Japanese storytelling. One can see echoes here from Soseki`s Kokoro and Kawabata's Snow Country. A quiet piece with almost no dialog, much of the story plays out in the unspoken, in the silence between notes. Director Ichikawa has intentionally blended modern camera work with Ozu's (Tokyo Story) classic "tatami-mat level camera" which was thought to capture the "Japanese eye." He also makes heavy use of the trope of the benshi, the narrator. When film first came to Japan, there were no translations or subtitles so a narrator would stand by the screen and interpret the film for the audience. Many older directors, such as Ozu and Kurosawa Akira, grew up on this style of film-watching and incorporated it into their own works.

The actors also do an outstanding job in "Toni Takitani". Ogata Issei (The Sun) takes on the dual-role of both Toni Takitani and his jazz-musician father Takitani Shozaburo. So complete was his transformation that I did not realize this was the same actor until the credits had rolled. Miyazawa Rie (The Twilight Samurai) is equally perfect in the dual roles of Konuma Eiko, Toni's clothes-obsessed wife, and Hisako, the girl he tries to hire to replace her.

"Toni Takitani" is the only Ichikawa Jun film to get a US release, to the best of my knowledge. He is definitely a director to watch out for, and I will be keeping an eye out for any future releases.

This is a stylish and spare film that does a fantastic job of bringing the Haruki Murakami short story to the screen. Ryuichi Sakamoto's equally spare piano-based soundtrack is equally evocative and well suited to help tell this melancholy tale of love and longing. I wasn't sure what to expect, but ending up loving this moving film.

Now to get Peter Jackson to shoot his version of Murakami's "Hard-Boiled Wonderland"!

***1/2

Tony Takitani is a shy, introverted middle aged man seemingly destined to live a life of loneliness - until, that is, he meets and falls in love with a sweet and beautiful woman with a strange and insatiable obsession for fashionable clothes. After a few months of wedded bliss, tragedy strikes the couple and Tony is once again plunged back into a life of melancholic loneliness and grief. The film, written and directed by Jun Ichikawa, is based on a short story by Haruki Murakami.

"Tony Takitani" is an odd little Japanese film that, in form as well as in content, sticks very closely to those short story roots. I would say that a good 60% of the tale is conveyed through voiceover narration rather than dialogue between the main characters. The drama is so stripped down, spare and simple that it is easy to miss the broader theme that permeates the film. For this is clearly a movie about the power of obsession (both on the part of Tony and on the part of his wife), but it is all done in so deliberately low-keyed a manner that the film - unlike so many others on the topic - never overstates its message. And the performances by Issei Ogata, Rie Miyazawa (in a dual role), and Yumi Endo are equally low-keyed, subtle and understated. The movie's extremely slow pace, far from alienating or boring us, actually pulls us into the strange, virtually wordless drama that is unfolding before us. Even though it runs a mere 75 minutes in length, "Tony Takitani" feels well-rounded and complete, as it casts a hypnotic spell over its audience. Give it a chance.