Why do families crumble into nothingness? Is it because of a failed marriage? Or is it because of vices? In Tokyo Sonata, it is because of the agony of unemployment.

In Japan, societies are very patriarchal. Women take care of the house and the men are the authoritative voices of the family, even if all they do is loaf around and supposedly go to their office. Most men in Japan are usually a ‘salaryman’. A salaryman is a term used in Japan to refer to any white collar employee working in a company who shows overriding loyalty and commitment to the corporation he works in. The father in Tokyo Sonata too is a salaryman. The wife, a house maker, like most women in Japan takes care of the house and puts her families wellbeing over herself. The plot of the movie is very non linear. It takes quite a few twists and turns just like Kurosawa’s most films (no relation to ‘the’ Kurosawa) but also like most of his films all those divergences connect in the end to make a beautiful ‘sonata’.

The film is nothing like Kurosawa. Kurosawa is known for his eerie psychological thriller masterpieces such as ‘Cure’ and ‘Pulse’. To throw in a heartfelt ‘musical composition’ of a family drama was very unexpected.

There is one particular scene in the film that stood out to me the most. When the father (Ryuhei Sasaki), is leaving “for the office”, he sees men and women, dressed up in their suits, walking to their offices like braindead pieces of machine, that have no life. He gets a glimpse of what his life has been and always will be. He realises there is no way out, and after a long gaze at the line of robots, he decides to join them.

Kurosawa creates an atmosphere where every little detail shown in the film is so real, that you start to experience everything in real time. The film takes you in, slaps you a thousand times to tell you that life isn’t easy, but at the end it takes you in its bosom and while cradling you with its love, it says, “Life isn’t easy, but you’ve got what it takes”.

A masterfully made piece of art, that pulls on your strings of emotion as if you were an instrument. Kurosawa takes his baton, sets the tempo, unifies his performers and shapes the sound of his ensemble like it was his last day on earth.