Sonatina (film)
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Sonatina |
| Original title | ソ ナ チ ネ |
| Country of production | Japan |
| original language | Japanese |
| Publishing year | 1993 |
| length | 94 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 18/16 (abridged DVD) |
| Rod | |
| Director | Takeshi Kitano |
| script | Takeshi Kitano |
| production | Masayuki Mori |
| music | Joe Hisaishi |
| camera | Katsumi Yanagishima |
| cut | Takeshi Kitano |
| occupation | |
| |
Sonatine ( Japanese ソ ナ チ ネ Sonachine ) is a 1993 yakuza film by Japanese director Takeshi Kitano .
action
The merciless Murakawa is tired of his life. He is successful as a yakuza , but it is precisely this that gives his job a sad monotony , which is why he is considering quitting. But there still needs to be an external reason to change one's stuck and routine life.
His boss, the patriarchal leader of the organization, has no idea of these ideas. On the contrary, he wants to get rid of Murakawa because he is too successful. To do this, he sends him to Okinawa as the leader of a group of sometimes pathetic comrades-in-arms, where he is supposed to mediate a supposed gang war. It quickly turns out, however, that neither of the two gangs has asked for outside help, and the first attacks on Murakawa's troops and the allied clan quickly follow. Murakawa becomes suspicious and flees with Ryoji and three other relatives to a remote beach house to await further developments in Okinawa. The group passes the time on the beach with childlike games, including Murakawa, who is driven by the death wish .
One night Murakawa rescues young Miyuki from being raped . She joins the group and begins a light romance with the older Yakuza. But Murakawa's group continues to decimate on the beach. Murakawa makes a decision at this point and tries to kidnap the right hand of his boss, Takahashi, with Uechi, the new head of the friendly clan, in order to finally clarify the situation. During the kidnapping, however, there is an exchange of fire, which Uechi and another member of the honorable society fall victim to.
Murakawa squeezes the requested information from Takahashi and learns that his yakuza boss, in consultation with a rival clan, is planning to take over the territory of the friendly Nakamatsu clan and at the same time wants to get rid of his devoted and successful Murakawa, who has been granted to him in the meantime had become successful. Murakawa swears bloody revenge on his traitors and the murderers of his men and says goodbye to Miyuki, who wants to wait for him.
In the evening he storms a large gathering of various yakuza bosses and kills the gangsters with an M16 rifle. Previously, his last loyal assistant had turned off the electricity in the building. The next day, Murakawa is seen in a blue vehicle that suddenly comes to a standstill. A few moments later he executes himself with suicidal intent while his love Miyuki waits in vain for him. ( Still lifes from the idyllic beach are appended after the end credits .)
background
Takeshi shot the film in 1992 without any script. So the actors never knew what would happen next to their characters. There was also a lot of trouble with the producer, who didn't think Takeshi Kitano had any chances as a director. Accordingly, Takeshi shot the film on a minimal budget. Originally, a number of great actors were supposed to play, all of which he had to cut over time.
Sonatine was the first film to receive international recognition. It ran in Cannes in the “ Un Certain Regard ” category and received unanimously positive reviews, but this was not well received in Japan.
However, in 1994 Joe Hisaishi was honored with the Award of the Japanese Academy for best film music.
About the title of the film: When learning to play the piano, in Takeshi Kitano's words, the sonatina can be played when the mastery has not yet been achieved, but at the end of a first learning stage, when you have mastered the basics and can look for a topic yourself.
At that time, clear traits of depression in the filmmaker were already evident. In some places Murakawa clearly reflects Takeshi's inner workings from back then. Like Murakawa, Takeshi was bored. He was successful as a comedian, was voted the most popular character on Japanese television several times. However, nobody wanted to see his films, which he had made with a lot of heart and soul, or he was not taken seriously as an actor, since everyone only knew Takeshi, the comedian. Like Murakawa, Takeshi toyed with the idea of getting out, but he never implemented this idea. Instead, he carried on his job carelessly but successfully.
Miyuki also represents an important person. Miyuki translates as "happiness" (his wife in Hana-Bi is also called Miyuki). The woman at his side, his wife, means a lot to him, although he is reluctant to show it, and is reluctant to talk about it in interviews and very rarely. However, in the end this love cannot keep him alive either, and he runs to his death. Takeshi himself has never completely ruled out that the accident of August 2, 1994 could also have been a suicide attempt.
Reviews
“A gangster film , conceived as an insidious genre parody that plays virtuously with the expectations of the audience. The fact that it is told from the perspective of a crook speaks of the pessimistic worldview of the director himself. "
“It sometimes seems like the characters discovered a hidden camera on the wall and they don't mind. [...] Strange, because the viewer is not slowly led into this cold world from outside , it is already there, in the first picture, it was there before. […] This film does not explain its characters , it brings them to life by releasing them from any 'purpose'. "
“'Sonatine' is clear, economical and clean in the dialogues [...] And in [..Kitano's] willingness to let the characters float around in real time, doing nothing between activities, he forces us to look them in the eye look and try to fathom them. "
“Kitano stages the violently induced death, the murder, as a minor matter. [...] For Murakawa - as for everyone else - death, violent death, is so certain that destruction and self-destruction are inevitable from the start [...] "
"[...] maybe just a documentary about [..] how Takeshi and his loyal troop fool around on the beach and film themselves. I've seen Sonatina more than twenty times now [...] "
Web links
- Sonatine in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Sonatina by Rotten Tomatoes (English)
- Fan page, lots of information about the film "Sonatine"
- Patrick Z. McGavin: Breaks In The Action in Chicago Reader (English)
- Kitano Takeshi's Sonatine (1993) ( Memento from December 25, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) in Senses of Cinema (2000) with further links (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ SONATINE ( Memento of November 21, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Sonatina. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed December 11, 2016 .
- ^ Sonatine ( Memento of March 27, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
- ^ Roger Ebert : Sonatina. April 17, 1998, accessed March 5, 2008 .
- ↑ Ulrich Behrens: Brutality as a way of life. In: Follow Me Now. Retrieved March 19, 2008 .
- ↑ Christoph Huber: Sonatina. In: http://www.filmzentrale.com . December 6, 2000, accessed March 19, 2008 .