Tokyo Sonata
A flim about the disintegration of a family unit and the various members as only Kiyoshi Kurosawa could make. Although it lacks the weirdness of many of his other films, and is a bit more conventional, it nevertheless has many of the same hallmarks. The conservative use of music, the cold, unfriendly camera work [which can turn even a crowded city scene into a lonely, surreal environment], the sudden shifts in tone, and the way genres are blended together. There's no mistaking whose mind Tokyo Sonata came from. What I think is most striking about Tokyo Sonata is that, although its a family drama, and features none of the sappy melodrama that you'll find in most movies of this kind. The emotions feel more genuine, the characters more like real people than characters, and the situations, though at times bizarre and almost out-of-place, feels as though they somehow belong in this world. Maybe that's going a bit too far, but KK's movies have a way about them that make them feel so unlike most movies out there. It's kind of hard to explain really, but it's there in all of his movies. It's also the sort of thing that will probably turn a lot of people off to him. But not me.
