Japanese Literature through Film

Tony Takitani

Tony Takitani is a Japanese movie of 2004 based on a short story written by Haruki Murukami. The author uses this title after reading a yellow T-shirt written Tony Takitani house D. Murukami thus decides to write the life story of Tony Takitani (Murakami, 2006).

The story presents Tony Takitani’s background; the way his parents met and how he was brought up. From this, it is shown that his father was very promiscuous and at some places, this brought problems to him. The author’s description of Tony’s father seems unrealistic especially the manner in which Tony’s father sleeps with every woman he meets. The story says that the father’s band and his promiscuity made him a sensation in Shangai. It is also shown that he had connections with affluent people. In addition, it is shown that he was jailed at some time. This is unsatisfying since one cannot expect a fugitive to be well connected in a foreign country. His connections should have assisted him not to be jailed. The way he arises to become a military officer is also unsatisfying since his character traits are not satisfactory. It is also unrealistic that he forgets to name his son and instead later adapts a name given by his senior military officer.

Tony Takitani grows to become an artist and illustrator. It is shown that his work exhibited talent though at times some people challenged it. It is unrealistic when the story shows that Tony had no feelings for his work and yet it was of high quality. In the story, it is shown that some people regarded the artwork as being more real than the real objects (Murakami, 2006). This is unrealistic since a piece of art cannot be more real than the object itself.

Takitani’s life is that of loneliness and he is comfortable with it. He dates several women and has neither feeling nor idea of marrying them. However, he meets a woman, dates her, falls in love with her and finally marries her. It is unsatisfying when Tony marries whereas he is expected not to marry since he is depicted as having no feelings and he is satisfied with loneliness. It is also shown that the woman he marries is fond of clothes and this astonishes him. When she dies, the clothes are many and Tony wants to hire an assistant who could wear the clothes (Murakami, 2006). Nevertheless, he changes his mind and sells the clothes. He realizes that he is to spend his life alone. It is unsatisfying that Tony wants another woman to wear his wife’s clothes; this will remind him of his deceased wife and make him sorrowful most of the time. Therefore, there are many contradictions in Murakami’s Tony Takitani, which make some aspects of the story unrealistic and unsatisfying.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reference:

Murakami H. Tony Takitani. Los Angeles, CA: Cloverfield Press, 2006. Retrieved on 23^rd November, 2009 from http://magna.cs.ucla.edu/~hxwang/newyorker/blog/files/tonytakitani.html