'Sonatine' asks for greater meaning for gangsters

By Scott Foundas
Film Editor

In Takeshi Kitano's "Sonatine," the gangsters spend a lot of time relaxing -- playing sports on the beach, indulging in a late afternoon rain shower or just about anything but the kind of violent illegalities with which you might expect to find them involved. When the bloodshed does come, it is graphic, spasmodic and unexpected, which makes Kitano's delicate balance of serenity and carnage all the more remarkably unsettling.
"Sonatine" is one of only six films that Takeshi Kitano has written and directed (most of which he has also edited and starred in), but it is the first to receive a major American release (through Miramax and Quentin Tarantino). So far, his work is known to American audiences only through film festivals and the actor's appearances in the films "Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence" and "Johnny Mnemonic." It is doubtful, though, that Kitano will remain anonymous in the United States for very long.
In Japan, where he is known interchangeably as "Beat" Takeshi, Kitano is a celebrity of such epic proportions that his status as a cultural icon can not easily be related to any contemporary Western star. He is featured on six of the most popular weekly television shows in Japan, has published 53 books and writes monthly columns for six national magazines. In addition, he is an accomplished artist, whose own oil paintings are displayed in his film "Fireworks" (which, coincidentally, received a limited North American release just prior to that of "Sonatine").
In "Sonatine," he is Murakawa, an aging Yakuza underboss contemplating retirement and the virtues of being middle-aged. He has grown weary of the day-to-day power squabbles that provide the very lifeblood of others in his profession. Ironically, it is such a conflict between warring provincial factions of his own gang that forces Murakawa to travel into the Japanese countryside, at the behest of his boss, Katajima. As Murakawa puts together a mercenary force of over-eager young punks, he wonders whether or not it is his own final mission that he is presiding over.
Upon arriving in Okinawa, Murakawa and Co. quickly discover that their peacekeeping mission is a lot more complicated than they originally envisioned, and as they hole themselves up in a seaside cabin to regroup, "Sonatine" hits its contemplative stride, with Murakawa taking his entire existence as a thug-for-hire into account as he reaches something of a moral crossroads in his life. How long, "Sonatine" asks, can a paid killer go on killing without questioning the greater purpose of his being?
It is in this particular respect that Kitano's film most closely parallels Jean-Pierre Melville's classic "Le Samourai," which similarly investigated the icy detachment and strict professionalism of the criminal code, and the way in which the slightest glimmer of humanity, love or inexplicable kindness can throw an unrecoverable cog into the works of a slickly oiled mercenary machine. In both films, it is that single glimpse of a life filled with warmth and joy that sends our heroes on their final, inevitable quests for self-fulfillment. And, in both films, it is a woman who provides the window through which another type of life can be seen, here played by the beautiful Aya Kokumai as the young girl devoted to Murakawa,
Not much actually "happens" in "Sonatine" in terms of driving narrative action. Rather, Kitano's film is slow and meditative, like the tranquillity of Ozu interspersed with the blood-red ballet of Sam Peckinpah. Or, consider the film a cross between Renoir and John Woo or some equally contradictory and improbable pairing of styles. For "Sonatine" plods along quite aimlessly until, in a brilliant sequence, a peasant fisherman actually turns out to be a rival gang's hired gun, throwing death and disorder back into the lives of Murakawa's crew, all of whom have by that point found an inner peace amid their paradisical environs.
So, Murakawa is called once again back into action, and the film's finale is filled with a disturbing use of slow-motion, as bullet wounds explode onto human bodies with silence and shock. As Murakawa raids the hotel that provides his enemies with a base-camp, Kitano pulls his camera back to show us the poetic illumination of a darkened night street by the ceaseless fire of an arsenal of automatic weapons.
That's Kitano's m.o., and so those looking for something akin to a fast-paced Hong-Kong-style action thrill ride will either be sorely disappointed or find themselves strangely entranced by Kitano's riveting screen persona. Kitano possesses that rare ability among actors to hold the audience taut by sheer virtue of his personality. Kitano is so subtle and understated on screen that, at first, you wonder what all the fuss is about him. In "Sonatine," if you don't already know Kitano, you might not even figure out that his character is the central one until midway through the picture. By then, though, you realize how intense Kitano is, and how he can command your rapt attention with a single gaze or a crack of a smile.