Tony Takitani

When technical illustrator Tony Takitani asks his wife to resist her all-consuming obsession for designer clothes, the consequences are tragic.

AMG Plot: A man who has lived a life of emotional isolation discovers the dark side of falling in love in this drama from Japanese filmmaker Jun Ichikawa. Tony Takitani (Issey Ogata) is the son of a Japanese musician with a passion for jazz who spent most of World War II in Shanghai, and was later sentenced to a stretch in prison following the war. Tony was named in honor of an American serviceman who befriended his father, but his name also earned him the suspicion of his classmates, and he had few close friends as a child, a situation aggravated by the death of his mother. While Tony displayed great technical skill as an artist, his work lacked feeling, and he ended up pursuing a successful career as a technical illustrator. One day, Tony meets Eiko Konuma (Rie Miyazawa), a beautiful woman working with one of his clients, and he is immediately entranced. Feeling as if he's found his soul mate, Tony becomes fully inspired for the first time in his life, and soon asks Eiko for her hand in marriage. Eiko accepts, but before long Tony discovers she has a financially ruinous fondness for expensive designer clothes. When Tony asks Eiko to cut back on her shopping sprees, it triggers a series of events which show Eiko isn't all Tony imagined her to be, and throws his new satisfaction with life into turmoil. Tony Takitani received its North American premiere at the 2004 Vancouver Film Festival, and was also screened as part of the World Cinema series at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival. — Mark Deming