Murakami meets Ichikawa: Between Light and Air

Guided by the restrained and unassuming music of Sakamoto Ryuichi, which falls on the ears like leaves dropping on the sidewalk one by one, Ichikawa Jun's Tony Takitani presents an individual's insular world based upon the short story of the same title written by Murakami Haruki. The film begins like a photodocumentary, mixing sepia-toned still images and a narration recounting how Tony Takitani (Issey Ogata), the son of Takitani Shozaburo, got his name. The sparseness of the sets, décor and dialogue and the camera's almost brooding pace hit the spectator from the very first sequence: the camera pans closely and slowly across what looks like a slab of grey-tinged stone, only to reveal it as a sand sculpture, fashioned by the hand of Tony Takitani. Thus, we are introduced to his life of detail through his drawings from grade school to his job as an illustrator of machines. Left to his own devices while his father toured as a jazz musician, Tony eased into a life of solitude and order, earning good money with his drawings. His routine, however, changes when he meets Eiko (Miyazawa Rie), one of his clients.

After a courtship, Tony considers marriage for the first time in his life and eventually weds Eiko. A model housewife, the narrator specifies, but with one condition: shopping for beautifully tailored clothes and shoes to her heart's content. Floating between the muted and neutral colours of the characters' faces, the streets and objects and shadows of the interior sets, the film details Eiko's increasing wardrobe provided by Tony's money, leading them to convert a room into a closet for the clothes and shoes. Dialogue that would normally express the development of a relationship between a man and a woman is absent in Tony Takitani, which obviously allows for ambiguity and creates an atmosphere that hovers between fantasy and realism (surely an odd statement regarding a film based on a literary work, but perhaps not necessarily so if the work in question is by Murakami). What's more, most of the film is narrated by an omniscient voice, expressing the characters' thoughts regardless of time and space -- that is, past or present -- as if the events that are happening were already determined. This sense of the predetermined is further underlined by the narration interspersed with close-ups of a character who intones a line or two of the narration itself, as if at that particular moment, s/he became the narrator.

The film is divided into two acts, the second act comprised by Tony's life after his wife's death. To help the healing process, he puts out an advertisement for a personal secretary whose measurements match those of his deceased wife. Among the candidates, Tony selects the one who most resembles Eiko, who is, in fact, portrayed by the same actress, Miyazawa Rie. Doubling up on roles occurs also for Issey Ogata, who portrays not only Tony but his father, Shozaburo, as well. This strategy -- perhaps not the best word to describe Ichikawa's intentions -- continues the insularity of the narrative and the film's position between light and air, dream and reality, spirit and body -- slightly recalling Hitchcock's Vertigo or inversely, Bunuel's That Obscure Object of Desire (i.e., having two different actresses play the same role) and making Tony Takitani different in its look from Ichiwaka's previous work.

Ichikawa, known also, if not more so as a director of television commercials in Japan, balances his TV output with feature films. The latter has provoked comparisons to Ozu Yasujiro, an influence that Ichikawa does not deny. In Tony Takitani, the comparison is felt in its economy of shot composition and low camera placement, although the resulting visual aesthetic is quite different from that of Ozu. The panning of the camera from left to right of a scene in the background while glossing over an object in the foreground that divides the frame into two as the camera moves from left to right operates as fluid transitions, dissolving from one scene to the next and defying Ozu's ban on pans and dissolves. In fact, the camera pans are so constant and consistent in the film as to become a visual trope, which lends a calm dignity to the simple narrative of Tony's life.

The simplicity of the narrative is matched by the film's brevity, clocking in at 75 minutes, which, given the film's deliberate pace, is perhaps an appropriate length. If anything, Ichikawa's ambitious but subtle visual adaptation of Tony Takitani presents a different branch of current Japanese filmmaking, a far cry from say, the excitement and immediacy of the violence, music-video-aesthetic and action expounded upon by the likes of Miike Takashi, Iwai Shunji and Ishii Sogo.
 

For the film's production history, cast/crew bios and other information, visit
http://www.tonytakitani.com

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