TOKYO SONATA
JAPAO 2008
KIYOSHI KUROSAWA
Watched on a flight from Paris to Madras on 16 fevrier 2009.
Avec Teruyuki Kagawa
Desperation. A senseof failure. Wanting to start all over. Authority vs truth. No one wants to face reality. Individuals hiding form reality. The society hiding from reality.Husband 46 fired fromhis job as an administrative manager, because of outsourcing of his job to China.
Ways of pretending: get dressed. Go to work. No work to go to.soup kitchen with many others pretending to go to work.
The humiliation of a strict society.
While at a job interview, can you demonstrate your talent, asks the recruiter. If you say so, do karaoke..
Humiliation.
Wife thinks of this friend of sasaki. Both his friend and his wife gas themselves to death, couldn’t takethe humiliation..
It is the humiliation at every turn in the society.
A child, asthmatic, tired of classes, classes, classes. A teacher of Japanese, forbids his students to read Manga, he himself reads erotic manga, in the train, solitude and loneliness everywhere.
A talented son, forbidden to play piano who would eventually save the family with his piano.
An older son, no place for him in the Japanese society, tries all things that are open to him, ends up in Iraq fighting with the insurgents. Bizarre!
A poignant portrayal of a society tat I admire very much. But what Japan has done, the egalitarianism of the society and the strife to succeed at any price and keeping up the face… is it where all the other asian societies are headed?
Like Singapour or malasie ?
Myanmar has one advantage, it is too poor to be proud. In France, I saw people so afraid of the future that they were not able to pay attention to the present.
When the societies are elitist, demanding-in one form or another, Japan in Asia and so totally different from Europe, other asian countries eager to follow the Japanese example.. why do they wish to emulate Japan? In the European countries with their ideas of individual freedom , there is a collective fear of another sort. Individual vs collective fear, the former in a collective society and the latter in an individual society.
Countries which are too poor, will remain healthy and happy…. With their TVs as their only access to this magical life of Japan, France or USA or Malasie or Singapour.. For what?
