Tony Takitani

Tony Takitani makes technical drawings. Machines, engines and complicated parts, drawn without error; he is good at his work and sees nobody. His mother died soon after he was born and his father was a jazz musician always on the road. Tony grew up alone and did not treat loneliness as a problem. Then he sees a woman. Eiko's clothes look beautiful to him. They marry. She has a habit: she buys clothes, buys them constantly, and the wardrobes overflow. Tony says something. Then something happens and a room in the house is left full of clothes. Jun Ichikawa directs. Issey Ogata plays Tony and Rie Miyazawa plays Eiko; Hidetoshi Nishijima is in the cast. It is a Japanese production. The source is Haruki Murakami's story. The form rests on a narrator; a voice reads the story and the characters at times take over a sentence and finish it. The camera moves almost always sideways; the scenes pass from left to right and that movement sets the rhythm. The music is by Ryuichi Sakamoto and the piano runs through it. The matter it treats is emptiness; the film shows loss not as an event but as a room. The actors play more than one part; the same face returns in different people. The film is short; it runs about seventy five minutes. Its limit is form; the narrative is distant, there is little event, and the viewer is not invited into feeling. Who it is for: viewers who like Murakami adaptations and quiet Japanese cinema. Who it is not for: it is cold, slow, and the ending leaves a gap.