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The japanese are great
Jan. 4th, 2006 11:50 pmMust See:
Tony Takitani -- which mom informed me she read about in a yoga newsletter; the film is based on a short story by Haruki Murakami (fav. author in case you're... new) for why she brought this up to me.
After checking amazon and reading the synopsis, I feel I must purchase it once it comes out. this review pretty much sealed it (reposted for intrigue):
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.
It's too bad I didn't read the short story that was in The New Yorker (I may google to see if it was reposted anywhere; I still have a bookmarked out of print Murakami story to read actually, now that I think about it. it's here for reference's sake).. in fact, I hadn't considered checking the site till some short stories were linked on lhb this past week... this one was tops: Pregnancy Diary by Yoko Ogawa
..and I wouldn't have considered it would be seeing as I have no connection to pregnancy.. I almost skipped over it, but the way it was told kept me reading. I even began nodding my head near the morning sickness bit.. perhaps since, though I've never been pregnant (obviously), I have had such an odd reaction towards smelling food at times.. it'd make me have serious panic attacks trying to escape it to prevent intense nausea. for some reason, the past 5 months or so, my nausea has left me. sometimes things change just like that and we never know if it's for the good till the end. that's what I got from this story.
This post is purely japanese related it seems.. I do have quite a thing for the japanese. I even got nostalgic for anime since I haven't been buying it for the past couple years.. I bought a love hina movie recently. I have yet to watch it, but yes, I do think I shall by the weekend when I seem to watch all my movies.
Tony Takitani -- which mom informed me she read about in a yoga newsletter; the film is based on a short story by Haruki Murakami (fav. author in case you're... new) for why she brought this up to me.
After checking amazon and reading the synopsis, I feel I must purchase it once it comes out. this review pretty much sealed it (reposted for intrigue):
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.
It's too bad I didn't read the short story that was in The New Yorker (I may google to see if it was reposted anywhere; I still have a bookmarked out of print Murakami story to read actually, now that I think about it. it's here for reference's sake).. in fact, I hadn't considered checking the site till some short stories were linked on lhb this past week... this one was tops: Pregnancy Diary by Yoko Ogawa
..and I wouldn't have considered it would be seeing as I have no connection to pregnancy.. I almost skipped over it, but the way it was told kept me reading. I even began nodding my head near the morning sickness bit.. perhaps since, though I've never been pregnant (obviously), I have had such an odd reaction towards smelling food at times.. it'd make me have serious panic attacks trying to escape it to prevent intense nausea. for some reason, the past 5 months or so, my nausea has left me. sometimes things change just like that and we never know if it's for the good till the end. that's what I got from this story.
This post is purely japanese related it seems.. I do have quite a thing for the japanese. I even got nostalgic for anime since I haven't been buying it for the past couple years.. I bought a love hina movie recently. I have yet to watch it, but yes, I do think I shall by the weekend when I seem to watch all my movies.
