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Director's Memo
Belonging to the same generation as Haruki Murakami, I have read his novels since his debut. I sympathize with the sense of loss and solitude deriving from his literature, a theme often characterized by our generation which experienced the enthusiasm and excitement of the late 60s and its inevitable end. This isolation is incorporated in a somewhat fable-like tone in Murakamis Tony Takitani a short novel published over a decade ago. Here, isolation carries a genetic quality, passed through generations and something that cant be undone alone.



Upon adapting the piece into a film, I realized that because of the particularities of the source material, reading the expressions of Murakamis characters was no easy task. Because of this I treated them in a symbolized manner, to express the fact that the character are very much "created". I also wanted the viewers to feel a familiarity with them, this is why I used both Issey Ogata and Miyazawa Rie in two roles.

Though I have made films based on books before, this time I knew that I wasnt going to be able to express the lucidity and mild temperature of the novel If I based the characters in a more traditional realistic way like my previous films. I used a narrator as a distancing tool and I thought that the low tone of his voice would suit the atmosphere. I also felt able to instinctively, express the parts of the original story while guarding it's original "serenity" and to not be bound by narrative.



The reasons why I was attracted to shots comprised of blank spaces like Edward Hoppers paintings, why I built a simple stage like a small theater to shoot the film, why I shot most of the scenes by slightly altering the angle of the stage and simply changing the interior, why I had very few people appear in the film by asking the leading actor and actress to play two roles each and why I decolorized the print to tone down the color are all based on my attempt to answer demands brought about by Murakamis literary world, which may be solid but is nonetheless floating, a few centimeters off realitys ground all the same. I have a feeling Tony Takitani has resulted in a film not only extremely different from my previous films, but also very strange in texture, which no one has experienced before.

JUN ICHIKAWA.

Japanese
Story
Tony Takitani had a solitary childhood. Being alone was normal since his mother died young and his father was always away with his jazz band. At school he studied art, but while his sketches are accurate and detailed they lack feeling. Used to being self-sufficient, Tony seems to find emotions illogical and immature.


After finding his true vocation as a technical illustrator, he becomes fascinated by Eiko, a client who in turn is fascinated by high end fashion. Eventually he marries her, and his life changes. He feels vibrantly alive and for the first time he understands and fears loneliness. But her obsession with designer clothes begins to worry him. When he asks her to
economize, the consequences are tragic.

Alone again, Tony sits in his wife's closet gazing at her treasured couture pieces, the whispering ghosts of her soul. Finally, Tony places an ad in the paper searching for a woman who is a perfect Size 7.

Japanese