What great timing for the release of Tokyo Sonata! In the midst of a major recession I hear of someone I know losing a job way too often. It received the Un Certain Regard Jury Award in Cannes last year before anyone knew how bad the economy was going to get. In today’s climate, it is right on the money.
The film opens with Ryumhei Sasaki getting laid off from his middle management job as the company is moving to a cheaper labor market in China. He cannot bring himself to tell his wife about this development, so he goes off each day to the park or library or to stand in line at the employment office where he learns there is no longer a need for his skill set. The lie of omission begins the unraveling of the family. His elder son Takashi wants to join the American military. The younger son Kenji wants to learn the piano. Ryuhmei’s wife Megumi is the anchor of the family – holding all the parts together as they try to fly off in different directions. In time, the lies and secrets will nearly destroy the family.
The concept of shame is central to the story. In school, Kenji is studying honorific grammar with which one honors the person addressed. But as important as honor is in that society, its reverse, shame, is just as important. Ryuhmei is shamed by the loss of his job. He is shamed to be offered jobs he views as beneath him. In time he finds himself taking a job that has him doing things that might be seen as degrading. The same is true of others in the film. Ryuhmei’s friend is also out of work and has also not told his wife. They go together to the park or to the soup kitchen line. He has his cell phone set to ring a few times a day so that he looks like he is working. We may not see shame the same way as Japanese culture does, but it is still a powerful reaction in our lives. We often go to great lengths to hide the sense of shame we might feel in Ryuhmei’s situation, but there is the shame nonetheless.
Hypocrisy is also clearly depicted in the film. When it is discovered that Kenji used his lunch money to pay for clandestine piano lessons, Ryuhmei is not only upset that his authority has been flouted; he is angry that Kenji has done it in an underhanded manner. Ryuhmei seems unaware of the irony of punishing his son for doing essentially what Ryuhmei has been doing for so long.
The whole scenario of lies and secrets may start out as a way to avoid shame, but eventually it only causes even more shame – to the point that the very existence of the family comes into question. Rather than relying on the strength that a family can provide, the Sasaki’s each tries to go it alone. Such a strategy nullifies the very concept of family life and values.
The New Testament world was also centered in honor and shame. Yet Christianity grew not by emphasizing the honor, but through a focus on shame – the cross. Paul emphasized that the center of his Gospel was something the whole world saw as a shameful manner of death. Much of the New Testament is an invitation to those who live in shame to know that Christ’s true glory is known only by way of the cross.
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