Adapted from a short story by Haruki Murakami, "Tony Takitani" is a visual meditation on the pain of loneliness and the ways in which humans struggle to fill its void. Unfolding as a series of images punctuated with haunting voice-over narration and a mournful piano score, the film succeeds as pure poetry by evoking a deeply melancholic mood.
The camera moves quietly, steadily, from left to right slowly propelling us on a journey through the life of Tony Takitani, a solitary man whose life revolves around his work as a technical illustrator. His isolation is transformed when he meets Eiko, a vibrant younger women who floats into his life as if from another world. He is captivated by her clothes: "she wore her clothes naturally, as though enveloped by a special breeze" says the film's narrator. As he becomes more alive in her presence and begins to fall in love, we sense his growing dependency on her to fill an emptiness he had never before noticed. When Eiko confides to him that "clothes fill up what's missing inside of me" we recognize a similar dependency. They marry, begin to build a life together but tragedy ensues when Tony tries to address his wife's growing obsession with clothes.
"Loneliness is like a prison" says the film's narrator. In the end, it is an apt metaphor. The absurdity, which this film highlights so eloquently, is that these prisons are largely self-constructed. By denying our need for human connection, avoiding any possibility of pain as well as joy, we are no more than prisoners isolated in our cells.
No comments:
Post a Comment