In Tokyo Sonata, a troubled father loses his "administrator" position at a company, and begins to pretend that he is still going to work every day, to save the shame of telling his wife and children. A somewhat "traditional" drama emphasizing cultural, societal, and emotional rituals in contemporary Japan, Tokyo Sonata still builds an interesting boil under the surface, before (in this humble writer's opinion) it veers wobbly off-course in its final act. I enjoyed the film for what it was, and was moved at certain points, but was left with a distinct feeling of isolation from most of the film's protagonists (and despite my love for Koji Yakusho, I even wondered about his character's purpose during the actor's brief appearance in this film).
The Wrestler deals with similar issues of isolation and contemporary societal melancholy, but in middle-class American society. Mickey Rourke's searing performance as Randy "The Rod" Roberts is so devastatingly heavy-hearted -- both psychologically and, err... medically -- that I found the film physically hard to watch. Randy tries to connect with a local stripper, and re-connect with his estranged daughter, but is pretty unsuccessful at either. As he is living out his "has been" days physically and emotionally separated from the famous professional wrestling life he once knew, Randy struggles to reconcile who he wants to be with the nature of what he was born to do. Bruce Springsteen's closing credits song makes the message clear -- we all hear of, or experience stories such as this, but rarely do we understand them in the simple manner in which we should. The Wrestler is the story of us all.
Seen at a recent festival screening, Moon is an altogether different kind of narrative, futuristically and dramatically separated from all that we know in contemporary media and society, yet relying on the same dislocated sense of isolation that human beings can all feel, especially when they are physically isolated from loved ones, and more importantly a daily existence that they know well. At times stark in atmosphere and emotion, often concentrating merely on the whirring sound of the robotic computer as it moves its levers to "communicate" in response to its commander's wishes, Moon nonetheless finds a very interesting balance between chaotic emotional trauma and the silence and ghostliness of space. I couldn't determine which I found more fascinating -- Sam Rockwell's expertly tuned performance as the station's lone "presence," or his character's desolate, repetitive trips outside across the surface of the moon, during which he investigates technical problems which in fact facilitate some of the movie's greatest mysteries. Directed by David Bowie's son, Duncan Jones (in his feature debut), Moon is a structurally and generically distinct cinematic object; while numerous nods to past archetypal film narratives are apparent, they are (re)arranged and brought forth in such interesting and offbeat ways that one anticipates there could be an equally rich follow-up story conceived and filmed. Indeed, the concluding moments of the movie had this normally cynical scholar wishing for a sequel more than any recent blockbuster I've seen.
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