FOREWORD:
A recent national survey discovered that one quarter of all adults experience painful loneliness at least every two weeks; the incidence of loneliness among youth is even higher. This feeling is even common in marriages and other intimate relationships. Still, people afflicted with this malaise feel bad about themselves, assuming it means they are lacking something crucial. Loneliness is actually a natural part of the human adventure. Some spiritual teachers believe that this painful experience has an important role to play in our personal development. Certainly, it does no good to run from loneliness; it is better to confront the feelings that arise with it.

    THE STORY:
Takitani Shozaburo is a jazz trombone player who spends most of World War II in Shanghai nightclubs. Afterwards he is briefly imprisoned and then returns to Japan where he marries a relative and has a son. His wife dies three days after giving birth, and Shozaburo decides to name his son Tony after an American Army major. Thanks to his name, the boy suffers the stigma of being an outsider. He grows up spending a lot of time alone while his father resumes his career.

Tony (Issey Ogata) eventually becomes a gifted artist. His best drawings are of machines, so he lands a job as a technical illustrator and carves out a profitable career for himself. But the cost of his success is that he reaches middle-age without ever finding time for women. This changes when he takes on Eiko Konuma (Miyazawa Rie) as a client. Tony is mesmerized by how well she wears her clothing and the effort she makes to look well, and he falls in love.

Although he is 15 years older than her, they marry. But there is an emptiness inside her that she tries to fill with extravagant shopping sprees for designer clothes. Tony, for his part, is bothered by fears about losing her and returning to a life of loneliness. Yet he can't help but wonder where her addiction to shopping will lead.

    DIRECTOR'S COMMENTS:
Writer and director Jun Ichikawa has based Tony Takitani on a 1995 short story by Haruki Murakami published in The New Yorker. He has fashioned an aesthetically appealing anatomy of loneliness and aloneness that is carried into our consciousness with the quiet voice of a narrator and the musical shadings of Academy Award winner Ryuichi Sakamoto. We were especially impressed with the silences in the story. This approach, which contrasts so starkly with the blatant loudness of so many Hollywood films, compels us to lean forward in our seats and to pay closer attention to the subtle sounds and actions on the screen. Speaking of his approach to this literary work, Ichikawa has stated:

"I have made films based on novels before, but I knew that I could not express the particular tenor of this one, which is both lucid and mild, by taking my usual naturalistic approach. Therefore, I used the narrator as a distancing tool. I also felt that the low tone of his voice would suit the atmosphere. Finally, the narrator allowed me to express parts of the narrative without damaging the serenity of the text or forcing the visual aspect of the movie to be too story-bound. In my efforts to evoke Murakami's world, which is solid, but also floating a few centimeters above reality, I found myself using various strategies. I composed shots with blank spaces, like the paintings of Edward Hopper. I built a simple theatre stage for the shoots and used the same stage for most of the movie, only altering the angles and dressing. I used very few actors and in fact, asked the leads to play two roles each. I decolorized the print to mute the shades. The result is extremely different from my previous films, with a very strange texture."

    BEFORE YOU SEE THE FILM:

  • Take some deep breaths. Consciously slow yourself down from your normal fast speed.
  • Try to recall the feelings that accompanied your last experience of loneliness.
  • Get set for a movie that relies heavily upon the voice-over of a narrator and relax into the sensation of having someone reading to you.
  • Pay special attention to the camera moving from left to right in a graceful and leisurely fashion. Figure out what this visual technique says to you about time.
  • Let the piano playing on the soundtrack speak to your subconscious; pretend it is another character in the film.
  • Prepare to think about the role of shopping in your life and the emotions that accompany such excursions.
  • Ask yourself if you are willing to change your attitudes toward loneliness and aloneness and see them as constructive forces in your life and in the lives of others you know.
  • Try on this observation before the film: "Loneliness and feelings of being unwanted is the most terrible poverty." (Mother Teresa)

    •     LONELINESS IN YOUR LIFE

    LONELINESS IS A SHORT COURSE IN PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT

    "Don't be afraid to be lonely. Loneliness teaches us what we lack — and what we don't. Loneliness is a short course in personal development," Joan D. Chittister has written in The Psalms: Meditations for Every Day of the Year.

  • When was the last time you experienced loneliness? What three major feelings came with this state of being? Do you blame yourself for being lonely or do you see this feeling as being connected with the alienation and rootlessness in today's society?

    • MAKE FRIENDS WITH YOUR LONELINESS

    In Joy, No Matter What, Carolyn Hobbs suggests: "Next time loneliness lands in your lap, create some open time to get to know it. Close your eyes, take some deep breaths, and ask your higher wisdom: 'What triggered my loneliness? How does it feel in my body? What past memories feed it? What stories does it trigger? What feelings come with it, or follow it?"

  • The next time loneliness comes upon you, try this spiritual practice. The idea is to stop making loneliness into a villain and to accept it as part of your life, similar to grief, sadness, and disappointment.

    • BEING ALONE CAN BE GOOD

    "Loneliness is the desire for someone; being alone is contentment," observed Tom Seeley.

  • There are times in our life when we cherish solitude or aloneness as a pathway to silence, meditation or true concentration on what lies in front of us. Recall some of your experiences of solitude and what aloneness meant to you.

    • LOVE & LONELINESS GO TOGETHER

    In his book The Road of the Heart's Desire, John S. Dunne quotes poet Wendell Berry: "Even love must pass through loneliness Wendell Berry says."

  • Although many people are convinced that marriage or a committed intimate relationship is a cure for loneliness, others maintain that even in this kind of close relationship there are periods of loneliness. How have you dealt with the appearance of this state of mind in love relationships?

    • SHOPPING AS A STAY AGAINST LONELINESS

    In Attention Shoppers!, Eve Eliot writes: "While shopping for the missing, underdeveloped or disowned parts of the self is a theme in many people's unconscious impulses to go shopping, the social side of shopping is also a significant motivator. Loneliness brings many people to the marketplace, shopping for company."

  • Some critics of consumerism claim that we go shopping to fill up the emptiness we feel inside. We have been brainwashed by advertisers to believe that the clothes and other items we purchase will make us feel good about ourselves and take away our negative feelings. How does this argument stack up to your reasons for shopping?

    • LONELINESS COMES FROM ABANDONING OURSELVES

    "The only real loneliness comes from abandoning ourselves, from not being who we are. Then we turn to another to fill us. When we operate in this fashion, no matter how many people are in our world, we feel abandoned and alone," wrutes Brenda Shoshanna in Zen and the Art of Falling in Love.

  • Recall a recent experience of loneliness. Was it connected to negative feelings about yourself? Do you tend to turn to others to wipe away emptiness? Does this strategy work?

    • CONNECTING WITH YOUR GLOW-IN-THE-DARK SELF

    "Loneliness is a phantom feeling. You're never alone once you've made a connection to your mysterious, multifaceted, diamond, glow-in-the-dark self," writes Gabrielle Roth in Connections.

  • What practices or rituals have you discovered which enable you to tap into the riches of your glow-in-the-dark self? Imagine your loneliness as a phantom feeling and rejoice in the flow of your mysterious self.

    • OTHER FILMS EXPLORING LONELINESS & ALONENESS:

  • Sue
  • The Personals
  • Central Station

    •     AFTERWORD:
    Loneliness is a natural human emotion, like sadness and grief. It has the potential for a positive impact on our lives. It can be a catalyst to greater creativity: it can sensitize us to the needs and yearnings of others. It can open us to the wonder of our essential self.