Shaking Tokyo

This was my first experience watching a film of this nature. Right from the get-go, the pace of the visual narrative is incredibly slow and calculated- in that it emphasizes upon the utter mundanity of the hikikomori’s life, while simultaneously placing particular emphasis on various pertinent elements that ornament the film. For instance, the camera pans to a wall of the house, which is brimful with pizza boxes, arranged in an articulate manner, and stacked one on top of another. This symbol, which is perhaps the most notable of the entire film, is employed as to denote two powerful messages-

1) It shows how orderly his life is, down to the smallest detail. The boxes impart the notion that he has feelings of insufferable trepidation at the mere prospect of a change in his life. This is why he has to have control over everything in his surroundings, and by constructing his house in this manner, he creates an artificial feeling of security and comfort, which thereby foster feelings of power and control for him. Since these are things that he felt he never had while in the proximity of city life and people, he finds meaning in his isolation and learns to thrive in it, whereas it would drive others to a state of complete catatonia.

2) It tells us, in a direct manner, the extent of his isolation. By seeing these boxes, a viewer is flooded with an overwhelming sense that he has spent years upon years alone. What’s more, since someone has to deliver the pizzas, they are allotted with the importance of symbolizing his sole contact with the outside world, of which he is so afraid. Therefore, the pizza boxes are indicative of the fact that his life is like a science experiment- incredibly fragile, where factors must be calculated and introduced in an incredibly careful manner, like adding a solution to a petri dish. Once there is an earthquake, however, the entirety of the experiment is squandered, and he must throw it away to create something new.

I especially enjoyed the scene where he left his house for the first time. Despite being such an ordinary thing, the degree of his detachment from society makes it so that it is the hardest fathomable thing he can bring himself to do. He appears incredibly fearful and self-questioning, and weighs his decision very heavily when considering whether or not to pursue the delivery woman he is entranced by. Moreover, I think that the most impressive element of this film is the fact that the director filmed it in a seemingly-desolate Tokyo. This city in the movie, which is usually boisterous, and which can never realistically convey an appearance of emptiness, further conveys the detriment that isolation can induce on people. It highlights the distance between the character and the rest of the world, while likewise being an impressive feat of editing in itself, as this is a scene that will never be seen in real life.