Tokyo Sonata is yet another of Kiyoshi Kurosawa's chilling portraits of micro and macro alienation, a family drama as chillingly controlled and despondent as the horror films that gained him international recognition. In Tokyo, office worker Ryuhei Sasaki (Teruyuki Kagawa) is downsized and chooses to keep it a secret from his family (à la Laurent Cantet's Time Out), making him part of the legion of specter-ish businessmen who roam the city during daytime, pretending to answer work calls while surreptitiously getting lunch at a free food cart. Ryuhei is humiliated by his loss of stature, though he continues futilely attempting to exert authority over wayward teen son Taka (Yu Koyanagi) and younger kid Kenji (Inowaki Kai), the latter of whom rebels against not only his father by surreptitiously taking piano lessons but also his porn-reading school teacher. Domestic conflict occurs out in the open in front of his mother Megumi (Kyoko Koizumi), who patiently suffers her husband's severe parental conduct. Concealment, however, is the order of the day, with Kurosawa's characters determined to bottle up emotions and secrets even as they crave release and escape, their repressive tendencies subtly suggested by the sight of Ryuhei zipping up Kenji's backpack, and their fear of (and yearning for) liberating disruption conveyed by an opening image of Megumi longingly kneeling in front of an open door during a storm.  Nick Schager