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After the surreal grotesquerie of Satoshi Kon's Perfect
Blue (1997) and the intricate, multivalent narrative flourishes
of Millennium Actress (2001),
I'm a bit surprised by his third full-length anime. Tokyo Godfathers
is a yuletide tale with all the trimmings: a trinity of homeless
people, an infant foundling, the glittering lights of a snowy metropolis,
Tokyo-cum-Bethlehem.
Even as it evokes classic Christmas fare like Miracle
on 34th Street (1947) and It's a Wonderful Life (1946),
Tokyo Godfathers is loosely based on John Ford's Three
Godfathers (1948), whose pseudo-Christian plotline is also
the inspiration for Three Men and a Baby (1987). Despite
obvious differences in language and locale, the basic story arc
remains intact: adversity reigns until the child is found, fate
smiles, and love wins the day. In other words, high melodrama.
But Tokyo Godfathers is also full of surprises.
Laced with screwball comedy and high-speed action, the film encompasses
more complex themes than the usual sugar-coated "spirit of
Christmas." It opens on Christmas Eve, as the homeless trio
enjoys a modest celebration. Gin (voiced by Toru Emori) is a gruff,
middle-aged drunkard tortured by the loss of his family. Hana (Yoshiaki
Umegaki) is a gay former drag queen, still regal with a powerful
maternal instinct. Affectionately known as "Uncle Bag"
(for "bag lady"), she looks after Miyuki (Aya Okamoto),
a willful runaway teen.
While searching through a trash heap, they stumble
upon an abandoned baby, whom they name Kiyoko ("pure child")
and vow to reunite with her parents. Their quest results in an unbelievably
zany series of coincidences, through which each is forced to confront
past demons and reckon with the realities of love and forgiveness.
For a start, clues in Kiyoko's blankets direct them
to a nightclub in another part of the city. En route, they happen
upon a Yakuza trapped beneath his own car. They free him and discover
that he is the father-in-law of the owner of the very nightclub
they seek. And as if that's not coincidence enough, that club owner
turns out to be the loan shark who ruined Gin's life.
A Latin American assassin aiming for the Yakuza ends
up killing the club owner, and then takes Miyuki and Kiyoko hostage.
Conveniently, the assassin's wife, Maria is breast-feeding their
newborn son and is happy to provide succor to a hungry Kiyoko as
well. This violent-yet-generous nuclear family serves as a counterpoint
to the "artificial" family composed of Gin, Hana, and
Miyuki. The Latin Americans are a classic biological family, but
as immigrants, they are economically, culturally and racially alienated
from the society in which they live. Gin, Hana and Miyuki are separated
from their biological families, but are bonded together within the
wider social context of urban homelessness. The transplanted biological
family meets the native makeshift one; questioning the heterosexist
and biological definitions of family.
Through her conversation with Maria, who speaks only
Spanish, Miyuki comes to understand the events that have separated
her from her biological family in relation to the feelings she has
for her adopted one. Maria's Spanish utterances are untranslated,
an omission typically and egregiously reserved for babbling foreigners
in anime; but in this case, it communicates the cultural gap she
and Miyuki are bridging. The scene also sheds light on the underground
world of immigrants in a city known for its racial and cultural
homogeneity. In this connection between the native outcast and the
isolated immigrant, Tokyo Godfathers blurs racial, class,
and national lines, illustrating the possibility for understanding
beyond the limits of language and culture.
Meanwhile, Hana and Gin argue like any over-protective
mother and distant father: Hana is frantic to find the girls, while
Gin hopelessly schleps off to drown his sorrows in a bottle of wine.
Although there is no overt suggestion that Hana and Gin are lovers,
at one point, Miyuki asks Hana, "You're in love with him, aren't
you?" It's an idea that Hana furiously denies, but then later,
unable to locate Gin, she sighs only half-mockingly, "Where
is that man of mine?"
Through a series of events involving mistaken identity,
desperation and sheer coincidence, the threesome are eventually
reunited. Kon's weaving of storyline and circumstance is a virtuoso
display of narrative finesse (no loose ends here), but the serendipity
pushes hard at the limits of believability. Then again, Tokyo
Godfathers is a Christmas movie. Miracles are supposed to happen.
What makes most of these "miracles" bearable
is that they are balanced by moments of broad humor. In one brilliant
sequence, Gin has been savagely beaten by a youth gang, and lies
bleeding in a dark alleyway. As the camera closes in on his battered
face, we see a faint golden glow emerge off to the side. The camera
pulls back to reveal a radiant angel standing over him. But just
as the scene is about to devolve into utter cheesiness -- one imagines
choirs of seraphim welcoming Gin to the promised land -- the glow
fades, leaving behind a bitchy drag queen in angel costume. Heavenly
transcendence is an illusion; earthly salvation takes a humbler
form.
Tokyo Godfathers is also a brave and unusual
portrait of the city. Far from the candy-colored playground depicted
in films like Lost In Translation (2003), this Tokyo is
full of contradictions. Its sparkling surfaces and commercial glitz
are undermined by trash heaps, back alleys, and desolate parks populated
by those on the fringes of "civilized" life.
This portrait often treads dangerously close to reinforcing
the myth of the "noble poor," a stereotype that fetishizes
perseverance without examining the circumstances that necessitate
it. But the characters defy easy classification, and Kon employs
an exaggerated and humorous animation style -- bulging eyeballs,
outsized mouths, flailing limbs -- to prevent you from admiring
them overly much.
Tokyo Godfathers' Christmas story reinvigorates
the often hackneyed concepts of love and redemption. The story is
formulaic, and the circuit of coincidences on which it relies suggests
that everything has been predetermined by some higher power. But
by expanding its purview beyond the traditional confines of the
nuclear family, it transforms that wondrous fatefulness into a network
of good will rooted not in exclusion and transcendence, but in forgiveness
and acceptance.
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