Writers: Satoshi Kon and Keiko Nabumoto
Director: Satoshi Kon
Studio: Madhouse
First watched: 07/12/2024
Review contains ***SPOILERS*** for Tokyo Godfathers
Ratings:
This film is so so lovely and despite the bleak and depressing subject matter of the story, leaves you feeling warm, comforted and hopeful. It was also a nice surprise that it's a Christmas film and it can definitely be strong shout for an unconventional festive favourite. Strangely, however, I would say that despite how much I loved the film, I didn't actually like it. Although it really does fill you up with all these warm fuzzy feelings, it doesn't actually have the hard story substance to support it. It kinda gives you these emotional climaxes with a bit of back-filled story context and real-world relatability but all of these moments are practically completely divorced from the main story. Even the main story itself is relatively shallow, with opportunities to reflect and ponder profound questions but it's not all that well constructed. So ultimately, it's all icing no cake but I won't pretend I've never eaten spoonfulls of icing by itself.
The characters are probably the best example of this all-fluff-no-fibre phenomenon. The 3 main characters of the story are all so incredibly interesting and joyfully unpredictable. This creates a really great dynamic that drives a lot of the film and the enigma surrounding each character's history and circumstances gets you really invested as a viewer. However all of this complexity and backstory is never adequately explained nor resolved. We get a glimpse of each of their past lives either through flashbacks or interactions with someone from their past but ultimately it's a passing conversation that gives a bit of context to where they are but very little else. None of the characters have a desire nor motivation and from what I can tell, their lives don't seem to have any kind of new direction following the events of the story. Also none of them face any repercussions for their past actions. Gin abandoned his daughter entirely and after (in)conveniently bumping into her, gets invited to her wedding. Miyuki also stabbed her father, who again she coincidentally bumps into but then we get no resolution nor reconciliation for their falling out. Everything is vague and quite pointless. The final member of the trio is Hana, who is also very interesting, however has the least story significance. She seems to act as both the comic relief for the film as well as the organiser and moral compass. Again, we get some really interesting back story for her but its fleeting and inconsequential.
Now of course, the point of the movie didn't go completely over my head. These characters each highlighted a host important issues in modern societies, like homelessness, poverty, alcoholism, gambling addiction, depression, the experiences of transgender women (both the fetishisation and the transphobic mistreatment), bereavement, family and all sorts of other things. And especially on the inclusion of a transgender woman as a main character, with a rich and meaningful backstory, the film was really pioneering and important for the people whose story it told, especially back in 2003!. So of course, I appreciate that greatly about the film and give it its props. But as I seem to say in every review, I think that truly good films highlight issues and convey themes or messages as part of an overall strong plot.
So moving onto the plot then. It's definitely fun. It's an out and out mystery story from the very start, with the gang trying to find out who this abandoned baby's parents are and why they would abandon the poor thing. The insane and hilarious jumps from place to place as we go on the journey to answer these questions is really entertaining and always holds your attention. Each different scene is completely different from the last, which makes for visual interest just as much as story intrigue. Now I won't say that it's completely disjointed, because the main thread of the story holds up quite well. However there are just too many other elements that are so coincidental they just become silly; like bumping into mobsters that Gin's had run-ins with before, the gang being stood right outside a store that an ambulance crashes straight into or Hana and Miyuki literally walking past Sachiko as she's about to jump off a bridge. It all makes for a very unsatisfying story, especially since it sets up a mystery and clue hunt, so for everything to be so serendipitous feels very unfulfilling.
The storytelling is pretty strong. The film does a really great job of setting a tone and creating lots of different feelings. As you'd expect from Satoshi Kon, it also makes great use of the animation medium to exaggerate the expressions and actions on screen, as well as creating beautiful and imaginative imagery. I wouldn't say that the film does anything revolutionary with its framing or staging but overall it was definitely a positive.
Lastly then, the animation. As mentioned, there's a lot of great expression work throughout the film, however I did think it fell flat in some areas. First and foremost was the inconsistency of a lot of the drawings. Sometimes the facial features or even body propoprtions of the characters would just look completely different from shot to shot, to the extent that it did actually detract from the viewing experience a few times. For some reason it was really noticeable on Miyuki's face, which occasionally just seemed to be wrong, anatomically. Similarly, I don't think the animators or animation supervisor got the right balance of when to have fewer, simpler lines for long-distance shots and when to have detail for close-ups. Another area I found lacking but obviously undertand is just an industry standard was of course, the mouth-only speech animation. Won't hold that against them too much, though. Bigger picture, however, the animation is really good, really fluid interesting, underpinned by brilliant character and background art. So still a really well animated movie despite some flaws.
It sounds like I haven't got too much praise for Tokyo Godfathers but I do really think it's such a sweet and wonderful film. I can definitely see a lot of people watching this film today and absolutely loving it too! I just sadly can't give it an substantive score much higher than 'above average'.
