"Sonatine" is as Playful as It is Heartbreaking

For a large portion of its run-time the gangster film Sonatine treats itself more like a sincerely goofy, playful comedy than a gangster drama. The simple task of negotiating a truce between small time criminal outfits goes awry and Murakawa (Takeshi Kitano -- who also wrote, directed and edited) and his surviving outfit are forced to go into hiding at a beach house. Here they play practical jokes, and care-freely mess around. And yet it's also a truly melancholy and sad film. Sonatine is interested in playing against gangster expectations; these aren't tough, masculine yakuza. They are just a bunch of guys who fell into this lifestyle, and the gangster life ultimately forces them to pay a price (Watch as people keep repeatedly discussing retiring, weary of the whole enterprise -- poignant even as it's ironic). Kitano underlines the film with a dry deadpan style (compositionally but not texturally, where it is often hauntingly beautiful). The big moments of action almost feel matter of fact and the characters treat them as business as usual (they can't afford to see it any other way). The time at the beach house is reprieve for them where they can be their true selves away from all the posturing and business, and that makes it all the more heartbreaking even as it is really funny.

Grade: A-