A lonely artist meets a new woman with a curious obsession in this superb film version of a Haruki Murakami short story. Tony Takitani (Issey Ogata) is a reclusive figure. Focussed solely on his work he has little time for relationships, and only meets his jazz musician father once every two or three years. He falls for Eiko (Rie Miyazawa), a young woman who comes to work at the same design company, and the two are married. He soon discovers Eiko has a penchant for designer clothes, unable to resist the temptation to buy new outfits. Their house is soon full of fashionable brand clothes. While Tony is satisfied to spend money on his wife, he believes this obsession may be getting out of hand. When his wife passes, followed shortly by his father, he finds himself once more contemplating the loneliness that has defined his life.
Haruki Murakami excels at the quotidian profundity that permeates this story. Jun Ichikawa manages to capture the sense of reading one of his stories through creative direction and a beautiful score by Ryuichi Sakamoto. “Tony Takitani” is unconventional in its approach to story telling, cutting between short scenes and still images, utilising narration which the characters sometimes continue as if they themselves are aware that they are acting in a drama. These artistic techniques, intended to alienate us to an extent from the action, allow us to focus on the thematic depth of the material. Watching it feels like walking through an art gallery, with each frame evoking an emotion, as if we are looking through a small window into Tony’s world. Those familiar with Murakami’s work will recognize the mix of everyday minutiae and apparently insignificant background details, such as how Tony got his name, with the contemplation of universal experiences such as loneliness, mortality, and grief. Issey Ogata and Rie Miyazawa excel in their roles, with Miyazawa playing both Eiko and Hisako, a woman Tony intends to employ following his wife’s death to help him deal with the loss. Their work is somewhere between acting and modelling, with them often having to express their characters’ inner thoughts wordlessly. Sakamoto’s score, with a melancholic refrain that seems to haunt the protagonist, and a metronomic tone that marks the unceasing passage of time, provides a beautiful accompaniment to the evocative visuals.
“Tony Takitani” will not appeal to everybody due to the collage-like approach to the narrative. The whole film creates the sense that we are distant from the action, unable to fully connect with the characters. However, this artistic approach is perfect for the story the film-makers are trying to tell. We do get a glimpse of Tony’s life and experiences, but many of the symbolic elements are left unresolved, giving the sense of a dream that we partly forget on waking. Eiko’s wardrobe becomes a metaphor for that missing part of ourselves we are constantly attempting to fill with meaning; Tony’s willingness to forget the dead, perhaps in an attempt to ignore his own mortality, speaks to our anxieties as humans over our inevitable fate; and the pain of both loneliness and human connection is brought to the fore in his relationships with his father, Eiko and Hisako. “Tony Takitani” is a curious film that faithfully recreates the experience of a Murakami story and rewards engagement with its touching themes.
