Adrift
in Tokyo
by
Howard Schumann
After a burly debt collector named Fukuhara (Tomokazu
Miura) rams a sock down the throat of a college student while telling
him that he has to pay his debt of 840,000 yen in three days or else,
the last thing you expect from Satoshi Miki’s Adrift
in Tokyo is an offbeat and very funny comedy. Yet in this
2007 film now getting its first release, Miki manages to pull it off
and does so with considerable aplomb. A charming, at times surreal,
and often very touching film, Adrift in Tokyo provides the
viewer with a rare glimpse of some of the lovely back streets, shops,
and shrines of Tokyo that tourists never see, while creating characters
that are believable and have the capacity for growth.
Abandoned by
his natural parents when he was three years old, Fumiya Takemura (Jô
Odagiri) is now in his eighth year of school and presumably is studying
law, yet he seems to lack ambition and has no plans for the future.
We do not learn how he managed to amass a debt of almost $9,000 in U.S.
currency, but gambling is suspected, since student loans are not usually
collected with the sock in mouth method. Surprisingly, a restrained
Fukuhara, who is holding Fumiya’s ID and driver’s license
as collateral, returns a few days later with a proposition. He will
give the young man one million yen if he will walk with him across Tokyo
to the Kasumigaseki district of Tokyo.
Being told that
the walk could take a few days or even a month, Fumiya does not know
what to think about the offer, but not having a great many other options,
he shows up the next day at the appointed place to begin their walk.
Later he learns that the debt collector is planning to turn himself
in to the police for the death of his wife (which he claims was accidental)
and is choosing Kasumigaseki because their police station is the best.
As they begin their walk, they also begin talking and sharing their
past, and both are revealed to be surprisingly sensitive and vulnerable.
Meeting some bizarre characters along the way, Fukuhara revisits some
of the places he visited with his wife in better days: a Shinto shrine,
a favorite desert café, and a bus ride on Sunday night which
he calls “the loneliest bus ride in the world.”
Fumiya also
begins to share his thoughts and feelings, especially his loneliness
in not sharing typical family outings such as going to the zoo or riding
on a roller coaster. The two visit the site of his family home which
is now a vacant lot and Fumiya recalls incidents from his school days,
like his first kiss, trying to pass off an ordinary polo shirt as a
designer gift, and being paid a “fee” by a married woman
for an affair that never quite came off. One of the funniest subplots
involves three fellow workers of Fukuhara’s wife and their half
hearted attempt to find out why she has been absent from work. When
they go to her house to see what has happened to her, they are caught
in the middle of a film shoot and are recruited to join the cast as
extras.
The final act
introduces more odd characters such as Fukuhara’s friend Makiko
(Kyôko Koizumi) and her very strange niece Fufumi (Yuriko Yoshitaka)
who is addicted to mayonnaise. Fukuhara pretends that Fumiya is his
son, and the warmth of the family provides a sharp contrast to Fumiya’s
life of isolation. Adrift in Tokyo is about small things –
sharing, making connections with the world around us, simply walking
and talking. Enhanced by the music of Maurice Ravel, especially the
haunting Pavane pour une Enfant défunte, the film shows
both characters growing in ways that did not seem possible at the beginning
of the film. Fumiya begins to express more emotion, and Fukuhara, in
an understated way, provides emotional strength for the younger man,
reminding us that happiness can often lie in moments of simple pleasure.
©2009 Howard Schumann
CineScene
