Tokyo Sonata

See my other film review published at DCist yesterday:

Out of Frame: Tokyo Sonata, July 17

Japanese director Kiyoshi Kurosawa sets the mood of Tokyo Sonata almost immediately, with a moody, quasi-Minimalist score (original music by Kazumasa Hashimoto) in the background of the dreary routine of the Sasaki household. The family's putative head, Ryûhei Sasaki, played as a distant, weary Japanese Everyman by Teruyuki Kagawa, loses his position as "Director of Administration," a job that is never explained but does not really need to be. His boss learns that the entire section can be outsourced to China much more cheaply, and within minutes Sasaki is on the street. His shame only worsens the disconnection from his children, a shaggy-haired older son, Takashi (Yû Koyanagi), who appears early in the morning and sleeps all day, and a smart, underachieving younger son, Kenji (Inowaki Kai), whom he forbids to study the piano. [Continue reading]