Tôkyô Sonata (***1/2)

Just like the main character in Laurent Cantet’s Time Out, middle-aged Mr. Sasaki (Teruyuki Kagawa) loses his job but doesn’t tell his family, continuing to put on a suit in the morning as he heads to a job center and a free-food line. But where the French film mostly sticks with its main character, this is much more of a family story. At home, Sasaki barely communicates with his wife and seems mostly a disciplinarian to his two sons, a stern figure even as he is meek with others. The other members of the family have different dreams and desires—the younger boy wants to play the piano—but the father seems lost.

Mr. Sasaki has the mentality of a salaryman in an age where downsizing has come even to Japan, and in subtle ways director Kiyoshi Kurosawa draws a parallel between the character and the country. Just as Mr. Sasaki must painfully re-evaluate his life, Japan has had to re-evaluate its place among nations, including participation in military missions. This is more of a subtext than a theme, but worth noting. In fact, the movie as a whole is quiet and contemplative—until the last third or so. Then there is a surprising and strange turn of events that comes out of left field, but makes the movie more compelling, and even serenely beautiful, than it seemed like it would be. A performance of Debussy’s “Claire de Lune” makes a lovely coda.

IMDB link

viewed 5/7/09 at Ritz Bourse

Vitus (***3/4)

Like Searching for Bobby Fischer, Little Man Tate, and Shine, this is movie about a child prodigy. Fictional Vitus plays the piano, like the real-life subject of Shine, but doesn’t suffer a nervous breakdown. He plays chess, like the subject of Searching, but he’s more of an all-around genius. He has a doting mother, like Fred Tate, but also a doting father, and a loving grandfather who seems to be the only one whose affection transcends Vitus’s gifts. The Swiss import has something in common with all of these movies, but seems different nonetheless. Searching for Bobby Fischer was most concerned with how hard to push a gifted child, and that’s part of the story here. The parents here are good people, but they can’t help but see their son as an extension of themselves, and so they would like to shape his talents. When it seems as though he may not turn out to be as special as they thought, there is a palpable sense of loss. Having a son who is merely intelligent no longer seems like enough.

Little Man Tate focused primarily on the contrast between the intellectual and the emotional. There’s some of that here too. Vitus’s arrogance alienates him from others his own age. At the same time, he’s naive enough at age 12 to hope to woo a college-age girl. Yet even though he makes mistakes like that, he’s also able to have an insight into the adult world that most children lack, leading to a couple of surprising plot turns. Intelligence, like money (which intelligence can be turned into), gives you a kind of power. Already, Vitus has realized that, and the second half of the movie is more about his own desires rather than how his parents feel about him. In this the movie is somewhat distinguished from the others I’ve mentioned (excepting Shine, a full-fledged biography). It’s a warmer movie as well. On the whole, the movie views genius as a more of a gift than a problem, certainly compared to Shine or the forthcoming Joshua. If anything is lacking in the movie, it’s probably a consideration of the moral aspects of this gift.

Teo Gheorghiu, a real-life piano prodigy, plays Vitus. Also of note is Bruno Ganz, who played Adolf Hitler in Downfall, as the much more appealing grandfather. This movie only played one week here in Philadelphia, but it would make an excellent rental. When it ended, I was sorry that I wouldn’t get to see what Vitus would do as an adult.

IMDB link

reviewed 8/5/07