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POST 2 - Oct 26, 2018

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I expected the “gangster” genre to be overwhelmed with violence, bloodshed and masculine confrontations of brawn. However, while Sonatine definitely revolved around the yakuza and is certainly a gangster film, the majority of the film was comprised of scenes of non-violence. Murakawa and his group, ousted to the slow-tempoed beaches of Okinawa, spent their days merely waiting for the action to begin, as I suspect most audience members were as well. Takeshi Kitano utilized contrast so greatly: he took the stereotypes of the gangster genre and juxtaposed it next to boredom and non-action in order to heighten the tension created by violence in gangster films. In short, Kitano pairs contrasting elements other to make each stand out against the other. And I think it’s genius.

Sonatine’s characters, exposition, dialogue, and scenes of action definitely offer themselves to the genre. These four elements are some of the most significant to a “gangster” film. The genre also relies on tension, with common themes of the genre being imminent danger, guns, and groups of strong men willing to give their lives to fight for territory, money, or pride. Yet, Kitano manages to create such high tension in a movie with a relative lack of violence. The scene when Ryoji attempted to set off a grenade in a building is a great example of this tension in non-action: with the slow pace of the movie syngergizes with the riskiness and damage potential of Ryoji’s actions lead to great tension in the audience in anticipation of the bloodshed, the repercussions. In this scene, there is no payoff: here Kitano creates the tension of a yakuza film though nothing happened. The same occurs when Ryoji and Ken attempt to shoot cans off of each other’s heads: the audience is on edge, waiting for the the other shoe to drop and blood to be shed, and Kitano sets the scene up to be the lynchpin for the beginning of death and gore, with guns and potential for danger imminent. However, instead, he continues the mundaneness by having the two entertain themselves incident-free. 

Kitano extends this pattern a number of times: the fireworks and gunshot shootout, Murakawa’s Russian roulette, the frisbee-shooting; Kitano repeatedly presents a scene as danger-laden and destructive, heightening the tension amongst audience members, who, aware of the film’s genre, lie in wait of the bloodshed to begin, before ending the scene death-free. This pattern makes the effect of actual violence on the viewers so much more shocking and gripping. Especially when the antagonizing yakuza group finally makes its appearance and begin the massacre that continues to killings on both sides and the culminate with the eventual suicide of Murakawa. The tension had built up so much in the previous non-action of the film, despite Sonatine’s being a gangster film, making the effectiveness of witnessing the true action on screen exponentially higher than if bodies had dropped dead consistently from beginning to end.

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