Tokyo Sonata (2008)

Recommended

Japan/The Netherlands

Feature Film

Original Title: トウキョウソナタ

Director: Kurosawa Kiyoshi

Writers: Kurosawa Kiyoshi, Max Mannix, Tanaka Sachiko

Cinematographer: Ashizawa Akiko

Composer: Hashimoto Kazumasa

Cast: Kagawa Teruyuki, Koizumi Kyōko, Koyanagi Yū, Kai Inowaki, Igawa Haruka, Tsuda Kanji, Kojima Kazuya, Yakusho Kōji

When his department is transferred to China, a household’s patriarch loses his job, the fact of which he contrives to conceal from them, continuing to leave the house each day as normal; as the days pass, family life (now built on lies) slowly but surely begins to disintegrate, in Kurosawa’s quietly enigmatic, thoughtfully unsettling, and brilliantly acted piece of social commentary. Iain.Stott