I am making a habit of liking films like this. I fondly recall ignoring the pitiful attempts at action in Jean Delannoy's Macao, l'enfer du jeu (1942) and revelling in the unusual intergenerational love scenes between Mireille Balin and Erich von Stroheim. 2009 saw other unloved unfocused occidental-oriental concoctions, such as Ming-liang's Visage (also at Cannes with this movie), and Tran Anh Hung's I Come With The Rain, both of which I adore. Whilst many look for perfection in films I am looking to fall in love with a movie. In real life when you fall in love with someone you surrender to their flaws because you see something sympathetic about them, you admire their courage in making themselves vulnerable to you. This movie makes no pretence of perfect love, Ryu and David are like the frequently pictured learner drivers at the test centre, stuttering along hesitantly. Love is very difficult, men and women are so different, so painfully ignorant of each others' ways, show me perfect lovers, I'll show you folie à deux.
Yes, as with Delannoy, the action here, or attempts at it, are fairly risible, but they are also besides the point, Map Of The Sounds of Tokyo is about two unhappy people finding oblivion in a sexy hotel room modelled on a metro carriage. In my opinion it is a story worth knowing. My final comment is that there has been talk here that Sergi López was not up to a romantic lead in this movie, also that the film is not realistic as regards Tokyo. One point of contemporary earthy realism that those commentators miss is that Western men punch above their weight in Tokyo due to their relative lack of timidity.
Do not punish this movie for failing to keep up the pretence of genre, embrace it.
