Kiyoshi Kurosawa's family ethics drama cannot be reminiscent of the traditional Japanese family movies of Yasujiro Ozu. The contradictions of such movies are "private", and the final solution is mostly reconciled by the internal mechanism of the family. "Tokyo Sonata" is more of a western family drama like "American Beauty". The conflicts in the family are "public" and must be resolved by the intervention of external forces. The father's unemployment, the confusion of the mother's identity, the lack of ideals of the elder brother, and finally the outbreak of the conflict was unexpectedly due to the intervention of a robber. In Ozu's "Tokyo Story", the roles of outsiders are insignificant, they just drop by to "please ask for warmth", and the final resolution of the conflict is the dedication and sacrifice of the family members themselves. For Kurosawa, the nature of the family is no longer the "unit" that constitutes the society, but is subordinate to the object controlled and destroyed by the society. This is the result of the ebb and flow of social and family forces, and it is the inevitability of modernization. Society is high above everything and looks down on everything. The family is just a puppet of the society. The family depends on the society to survive. As everyone knows, the more you ask for, the more you lose.
In an ordinary Japanese middle-class family, the father is the backbone of the family and thus enjoys the supreme authority. In the film, the father's unemployment is undoubtedly a devastating blow to this authority, and the effort to maintain this authority becomes almost as powerless and ridiculous as Don Quixote fighting a windmill. But it turns out he can't do Don Quixote because the "authority" he believes in is secular, not idealistic. Being mundane means being manipulated by society, and being manipulated by society is a prelude to losing yourself. The first half of the film is centered on the father. The job center is high and low, wandering in the park, getting a free lunch, and trying to cover up at home. The film goes back and forth in these limited scenes. Boring and monotonous, just like the life of modern urbanites. As the film progresses, we find a family of four, all confined to a limited space. The mother is confined by the family, and the youngest son is confined by the school. The eldest son is the one who "awakened" first. Not returning home does not mean that he is not restricted. He is restricted by the society's rejection of idealism. The ideal of maintaining world peace seems childish and boring to those around us. But as a real modern Don Quixote, he made every effort to practice his ideals and participated in the US military's anti-terrorist war in Iraq. When he asked his parents to sign the documents of joining the army, he said: "It doesn't matter if you don't sign, there are special agents. Signatory institution." He has decided to rebel against the windmill of "patriarchy". The final awakening is also the same as Don Quixote's confession before his death. The youngest son was the second to escape. Music and piano became his means of getting rid of emptiness and repetitive life. But the pressure from my father and teachers is a stumbling block to realize my dream. The generation suppressed by "patriarchy" took the lead in raising the banner of resistance, while the "authority" carefully constructed by fathers and teachers was vulnerable under resistance, and finally only resorted to "violence" as a killer. (Father's beating and scolding, teacher's punishment) Just as Chairman Mao said, "All reactionaries are paper tigers." At the same time that Kurosawa made the authority go away, he gave the audience a cold reality: this kind of "authority" still changes its face to suppress people in other places. The younger son failed to help a classmate who ran away from home, but the classmate was captured and returned home. The younger son's final resistance in the face of the powerful "fatherhood" is nothing more than a mantis blocking a car and a mayfly shaking a tree. He was caught by the police for stealing and spent the night in the detention center. This place was undoubtedly influenced by Truffaut's "Four Hundred Blows". In "Four Hundred Blows", Antoine stole his father's typewriter and was locked in the detention center (there is also an obvious trace of "Four Hundred Blows" in the film, which will be discussed below. surface). The result was a tragedy, father, old
The robber is a character who is marginalized by society. Originally a locksmith, he became a robber after losing his job. The plot of the mother's reluctance to leave after being kidnapped by robbers seems to suggest that the root of Stockholm Syndrome lies in dissatisfaction with reality. And the robber is her strength to escape from the hypocritical life, and it is her reliance, such as the younger son's piano, the older son's joining the army. And the driver's license just obtained is undoubtedly an excellent footnote to her lost identity. "It can be used instead of an ID card," she said when answering her eldest son's question, "We don't have a car at home, why do we need a driver's license?" The development of the plot is highlighting the extended meaning contained in the details of the "driver's license". Driving a car stolen by a robber to the seaside (the seaside is where the last classic long shot of "The Four Hundred Blows" ended), they came to the end of the world, and there was nowhere else to go. She knew that running away from everything never meant starting over. She was just afraid to go back to her old life, the one surrounded by lies (husband concealed his unemployment, younger son took his meals as a piano fee, eldest son joined the army without discussing it with her, and only regarded her as a signing tool, she made No one eats the bagels). The way my father escaped from reality was the windfall he picked up while cleaning the toilet. Money is the most powerful tool for society to manipulate members of society. My father lost his "authority" because of losing money. When he got the opportunity to regain his "authority", he accidentally bumped into his wife when he was facing a moral decision, and his self-esteem is here. Disappeared in an instant. He began to run away desperately. All four began to flee, fleeing the place called "home". After a crazy night, the father throws the money into the lost and found box, showing that he has completely abandoned the fragile, empty "authority" (as opposed to the father's classmate who took the "authority" to the grave), and the mother refuses The sexual demands of the robbers showed that she still chose the family as her destination. After the younger son left the detention center, he chose to go home. The three sat together and ate with expressionless faces, as if nothing had ever happened. The essence of a sonata is not the excitement at the climax, but the moment when the climax ends and the end begins. At this moment, all the thoughts and emotions conveyed by this sonata will be released, just like this meal scene, an incomplete family (the eldest son joined the army in Iraq), three people with their own thoughts, things are different. The hope of redemption comes as promised with the morning light before dawn, which drives away lies and indifference, fear and hesitation. The film ends with the younger son's piano exam at the music school. The father continues to work as a cleaner, and the mother continues to manage the housework. The eldest son recognizes the essence of America's "war for freedom" and decides to stay in Iraq. In fact, it's that simple, and the same is true of life and movies.
"Tokyo Sonata" and "The Undertaker" are also about escaping and searching for a home. But only the former allows us to see redemption in escape and destination. Maybe we will give up pain and heaviness unconsciously, but redemption itself is painful and heavy!
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