Today, I went to see the film 2004 film Tony Tatakani, directed by Jun Ichikawa. If you’ve seen it, you’ll probably know why I’m blogging about it. If you haven’t, then a brief summary is that Tony Takitani has been for the most part living a life of solitude as a technical illustrator but then he meets the beautiful Eiko and is drawn to her because she wears her clothes so well:
"I’ve never met anyone who inhabits her clothes with such obvious relish as you do."
They get married and all is harmonious apart from the fact Eiko spends way too much money on designer clothes, admitting it is an obsession, she feels the need to fill a void in her life by shopping and constantly having new things. This has fatal consequences in the end and Tony once again needs to fill that void by finding another woman to wear his wife’s room of designer clothes.
Wonderfully shot, this film is more about isolation and the human condition of loneliness than fashion per se but it does make you look at clothes beyond the material products of a consumer-based society and why do women like Eiko have such strong emotional attachments to the art of dressing. You can buy the DVD on here or see it in cinema now if you’re in the UK (we’re so slow to get foreign movies!!!).
yes, ‘tony takitani’ is an amazing film in all its silence!
while it does take ages in germany to see … let’s say ‘marie antoinette’ (due next january), at least we get french and asian movies relatively quick it seems …
i’d really like to watch that film, would be good if it’s available in London, I hate waiting for tings to arrive in the post