We are pretty much used to remakes of Japanese or Korean films that are produced in the United States or Europe. Sometimes, however, the phenomenon of remakes also works the other way around. This is the case of the film ‘Tokyo Taxi’ directed by veteran Japanese director Yôji Yamada, which is a remake of the Franco-Belgian film ‘Une belle course’ (titled ‘Driving Madeleine’ in the international distribution). I have not seen the original, so I cannot make any comparison, and perhaps this is even better, because I am thus able to judge what I have seen for its own qualities and flaws. Yôji Yamada is 94 years old and has 94 films in his filmography, 8 of which were made in the last 10 years! “Tokyo Taxi” is a film about old age and about a character who knows that he is at the end of his life, but judging by the quality of his cinematography, I would say that Yôji Yamada is a director who still has a lot to say and says it well. If nature helps him, this will not be his last film.
Kôji Usami is a self-employed taxi driver. He and his wife work hard to provide for their teenage daughter, who has won admission to a prestigious but expensive music school through her musical talent. When a colleague asks him to take his place on a long journey transporting an elderly woman to a seaside retirement home, he accepts the job and the chance to earn more than the usual. It will be the occasion of a meeting with Ms. Sumire Takano, a woman whose personal biography spans 85 years of Japanese history, from the tragedy of war, through love stories and personal tragedies, to the final journey they travel together in Tokyo and Yokohama, in search of memories and of what survived landmarks in the ever-changing landscape of Japan. Kôji and Sumire will get to know each other and, during the trip of a day, will form a bond that transcends generations.
‘Tokyo Taxi’ is a beautiful road movie, in space and time. Geographically, the film takes us through the touristic Tokyo with its suspended highways and with some of its famous landmarks, but also through seemingly banal places, but loaded with meaning for the old lady who visits perhaps for the last time the places where she lived her life. Historically, it is also an opportunity for Sumire to share her biography marked by turbulent history and some of the major problems of her country during the period she had gone through: the war and the destruction caused by the bombings, a difficult economic period and the rebirth called the ‘Japanese miracle’ that took place with progress but also with cultural shocks, the Korean immigrants and their repatriation to North Korea at the end of the Korean War, domestic violence and the inferior status of women in Japanese society. Chieko Baishô is 85 years old and has 64 years of career on the screens, ‘Tokyo Taxi‘ being the 177th title in her filmography. Her role is formidable and she manages to create the portrait of Sumire with precision and sensitivity. Takuya Kimura, the actor who plays the driver, is, from what I’ve read, an older collaborator of director Yôji Yamada and this role is very different from those played in other films. The action flows fluidly and even if the story is a bit predictable (I whispered to my wife what the ending would be about half an hour before the end of the movie and I wasn’t wrong) it is emotional and brings closer to us both the Japan of today and that of the last 80 years.