Takeshi Kitano’s ‘Sonatine’ and the sheer imperative of a holiday
While Japan‘s Takeshi Kitano might be best known to the West for Takeshi’s Castle and Kinji Fukasaku’s 2000 action thriller Battle Royale, his talents extend across an excellent back catalogue as a filmmaker. Alongside the likes of Violet Cop and Hana-bi, his 1993 yakuza flick Sonatine stands out as a mark of his highest quality.
Sonatine is rightfully considered a masterwork of Japanese cinema, and it’s imbued with the patient and minimalist quality that Kitano has shown throughout many of his works. There’s an unflinching existential theme that runs parallel to the film’s violence, creating an enigmatic narrative that confounds as much as viscerally scintillates, and the movie served as Kitano’s first significant directorial introduction to an international audience.
Kitano plays the lead role of Murakawa, an experienced member of the Tokyo yakuza who seems bored with his violent and repetitive way of life and all its loans, dealings, gangsters and beatings. Murakawa is sent to Okinawa by his boss to serve as the middleman in an ongoing dispute between two clans, but upon arrival, he finds that their altercation is relatively insignificant and subsequently begins to fear that he’s been sent out to the Japanese island to be assassinated.
After being ambushed in a bar in Okinawa, Murakawa and his men take refuge at the seaside and wait for the violence of the previous day to cease. This newfound tranquil location allows Murakawa to reflect on his mortality and way of life, and quiet moments of introspection enable the audience to join Kitano’s character in his philosophical musings. Kitano, the actor, employs his trademark deadpan, affectless style, while the director Kitano uses long takes where little seems to be occurring, leading to periods of stillness and, therefore, opportunity for reflection.
The sparseness of the second act of Sonatine serves as a holiday of sorts for its characters and shows audiences the importance of “getting away from it all”. The supposedly hardened gangster characters are finally allowed to lighten up a little, spending a handful of days at the beach playing games, drinking, smiling and laughing, as anyone ought to during a vacation, and it’s these moments that reveal to us the kind of experience that should be championed and sought out in our oft-difficult lives.
Still, there’s a depression that runs deep in Murakawa that he can never entirely escape from, and the Russian roulette motif that arises on a handful of occasions ultimately foreshadows the film’s tragic end. The games that the yakuza members play also seem to have a violent undertone, highlighting that even in play, they can never escape from their everyday lives – an admittedly saddening fact.
Like any holiday, though, Murakawa’s must eventually end, and the movie’s final act sees him reluctantly return to business, taking part in a bloody showdown in a hotel, which seems to be ordained to him by fate. But there’s a beauty to the film’s final moments that throws up the futility of violence against the stunning backdrop of the ocean and the natural world, which makes Murakawa’s self-imposed demise all the more harrowing.
Throughout the film, Murakawa seems to be locked in an inner battle with himself, and he longs to depart from his violent lifestyle, all the while knowing that he never truly can, and it’s the brief respite on the beach in the company of his devoted and loyal men that affords the yakuza boss the opportunity to consider the choices that have led him to that very same point in time.
Sonatine is a melancholy, sparse, and even depressing work. Still, it shows us the imperative nature of taking time away from the things that seem to cause us the most difficulty and grief to weigh them up, free from their very distraction. Under the masterly command of Kitano, the movie is an excellent piece of Japanese cinema, one that unflinchingly explores themes of violence, loneliness and depression while urging the need for a holiday all the same.
Check out the trailer for Sonatine below.
