“P” for a peaceful night with Tokyo Godfathers (2003)
Editor’s Note
I’ve been thinking of recommending a film for Christmas since Mustapiste started. I didn’t hesitate before putting “Tokyo Godfathers” on the calendar two months ago. However, I did hesitate last week whether it would be a good timing for posting it, after seeing the racist actions of the Finnish right wing politicians towards Asians, and some hatred behaviours towards Asian people happening in Helsinki.
But I think there is no better timing than Christmas for this film – a story that begins on the Christmas Eve. The encounters of strangers in the city weave together the story, and it tells what makes a place “home” to one. I feel very relatable – how I have moved to Helsinki and made it my home. I hope this film can be a consolation for the people in need. Happy watching!
A Christmas miracle happens when transgender woman Hana finds an abandoned newborn in a pile of trash, after having wished to give birth to a baby on that Christmas Eve. She names the baby “Kiyoko”, after the Japanese title of “Silent Night”, also meaning “pure child”.
Fellow vagrants – middle-aged alcoholic Gin and teenage runaway Miyuki are reluctant to keep the baby – how could three homeless people raise a baby in their “cardboard home” at the park? They finally agree to let Hana take care of the baby for one night and set off to find her parents on the following Christmas Day.
Alongside the main quest, is the journey for each of them to meet their past, the history that they try to flee from – the home and family that they have abandoned.
The baby “Kiyoko” is the visualisation of Christmas, as indicated by the dual meanings of her name. Also, the fact that she has been found abandoned works as another layer of metaphor – the three homeless people that have been abandoned by the society.
Some hidden biblical features can be found in the story when all the coincidences that the homeless trio have encountered led to their own paths of life, as if the baby “Kiyoko” is guiding them to reconcile with their past.
The “cardboard home” in the park, the dead ends of the streets, the queer club, even a yakuza wedding – these are the unfamiliar Tokyo, the shadow part of the city that Kon has portrayed in the film. “Kiyoko” is like the light casting into the shadow where the three live.
The film ends with a rendition of “Ode to Joy” from Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, with new Japanese lyrics that seem a bit gloomy. The ending is more like a relief rather than happiness to me – it’s not that kind of happy ending where the three reunite with their families and no longer live a homeless life. Rather, the film ends at the exact moment that the three are ready to go back to their normal lifestyle, which is homelessness. But some changes are happening at the same time which they are not aware of yet.
The shadow is still there, but there is light.
Tokyo Godfathers (2003) is Satoshi Kon’s third animated long film, following Perfect Blue (1997) and Millennium Actress (2001). Kon is famous for using animation to achieve the story-telling that is usually incapable to realise in film shooting. As in his previous two films, reality and dream are intertwined, which gives Kon’s film a hallucinatory story-telling style.
Based more in realism,Tokyo Godfathers is inspired by the 1948 American film Three Godfathers, which is a loose retelling of the biblical Three Wise Men in an American Western context. Kon has set the story in the Tokyo underworld, parts of which are unknown even to the residents of the city.
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