Going Up?

Before I begin my schpeel about my life in Japan, I would first like to introduce you all to a little story. I call it "Thirteen High School Girls and One Foreigner in an Elevator." That's right. Going up to my room after work I'm greeted by an elevator filled with high school girls (in uniform, no less) with just enough space for me. I take the plunge and before I know it I can hear the little whispers as I quickly become the center of all conversations. Of course, they had no idea that I spoke Japanese, so it was quite a shock for them when I got off at my floor and told them "Gaijin ga chotto shitsurei ne. Gaikokujin da." (Translated, *Rude Form* Foreigner is a little rude. You should say *Polite Form* Foreigner.)

Gave me a good chuckle. I love surprising the Japanese with my language skills. Always makes my day.

Today, what I really want to talk about is something that has been on my mind for about two weeks now. This little mental bookmark revolves around a movie I saw recently called "Tokyo Sonata." Without giving away too much of the plot I will just say that it revolves around a father/husband who gets laid off and proceeds to hide the fact from his family.

This is a good movie when it comes to warning society about the dangers of the world's ever crashing economy, but for me the movie is nothing more than a horror story meant to inspire fools to do what fools do best and act foolishly.

The movie pretty much takes the worst case scenario possible and gives it a lethal injection of Steroids. I'm talking about kidnapping, rape, theft, suicide, child abuse, etc. It is obvious that the movie is trying to make a point about the dangers of our current economic/business systems but I cannot support something that refuses to give reality even the slightest hint of an homage.

I truly appreciated the movie and its commentary until it truly did being to "jump the shark" after the home was ransacked and the wife kidnapped by a man who was also laid off. From that point on, I lost a lot of respect for the movie since it was obvious that the writer ran out of good ideas.

The last qualm I have with this movie is it's title and advertisement. It portrays itself as being mostly about the son learning the piano through all of the hardships, yet the subject vanishes 1/3 of the way into the film and only reappears at the end briefly for, what I will admit as, a heart wrenching song. I would have thought the piano would play a stronger role. Instead a good 1.5 hours of this 2 hour movie was focused on the mother and father.

If you wish to see a good Japanese movie that has a powerful, and true, commentary on society, I suggest you see "Departures." It may take a little bit of a learning curve to understand the subtleties, but it is a much stronger and accurate depiction of Japanese society as a whole.