Written by 丨 Gao Rong
Editor 丨Li Yixuan
Typography 丨Li Yixuan
In November, the first snow fell in Beijing.
In the boundless white, winter, crush, youth, letters, borrowing cards and the face of Kashiwara Takashi behind the curtain... All the memories of "Love Letters" came to mind.
The love of youth was not motivated by reason, nor was it entirely motivated by physical desires. It is a paradoxical state that the French philosopher Deleuze called affect.
What is emotion? It does not resort to words, it is an order born out of chaos. It can be said that it is desired in the soul but out of reach in the body. It is a mysterious emotion that is in the zero realm, where the spirit and flesh are separated.
The film begins with a close-up of Hiroko lying in the snow. That day was the death day of her boyfriend Fujii, and she lay in the snow, holding her breath, trying to see the world from his point of view, and what she saw was the endless snow. While sorting out Fujii's belongings, she pulled out a commemorative book of her boyfriend's graduation in junior high school, found her boyfriend's former address, and secretly wrote down that although the address was invalid, she still sent the first "love letter" according to the address, which was very simple: "How are you?" I'm fine!"
Perhaps, this is just an emotional catharsis that she can't forget her boyfriend. However, when she once again soothed that lonely face, she also connected the life veins of two strange women.
Hiroko and Shu, two people who live in the "present" and live in the "past", begin to share the same man in the form of "letters". Two girls with the same faces piece together two periods of a boy's life. The young Fujii and the adult Fujii gradually discover that the middle blank is full of unforgettable crush and untraceable youth. This love story, after saying that it has been broken, has already begun, and the end has already begun at the beginning.
More beautiful because of regret, it is also the so-called "material mourning".
Crush
Secret Love
"Love Letters" is about a crush.
That's the feeling Fujii had for the girl of the same name when he was a teenager. He loved trees for a long time, but he never really opened his mouth until fate made the two miss.
Still, Fujii is not without expectations for love. At the Games, the injured man dragged his plastered leg in front of the same running line as the others. The tree that noticed could not help but look at him—after all, the patient standing on the track and field was like a clear flag waving in the wind, printed with a short and powerful slogan: Look at me. Yes, he is eccentric, indifferent, and unkind, but like all adolescent boys, he likes to attract the attention of the girl with a crush in this high-profile way.
In addition to stubbornness and clumsiness, he also has the tenderness of "privately owning" the tree: 87 loan cards with the name of "Fujii Tree", privately hiding English test papers that do not belong to him, paper bags that are cumbersomely placed on the girl's head, sketches of girls behind the loan cards...
Fujii's crush, in the winter of Otaru, spontaneously combusts into a once-in-a-lifetime firework. The belated sketch of the little portrait is the most beautiful love letter he left for the tree, which makes the tree cry and helpless when he recalls his youth. Like the title of a borrowed book, "Remembrance is Like a Water Age", the tree watches every second that the memory turns to ashes.
Memorial
Commemorate
"Love Letters" is about sacrifices.
Paying tribute to the deceased, the lost youth, the lost hazy love.
Japanese people believe that in the beautiful things, there is always a smell of resentment and death. In their traditional culture, there is an allusion that "the cherry blossoms in spring are graceful and colorful, but there are always bones buried under their roots".
In almost all of Iwai's films, he tries to peel back the veil of death from different angles. Although "Love Letter" is as beautiful as a prose poem, it also hides the smell of death everywhere. Fujii's memorial ceremony, the tree's cold, the death of the tree's father, the dragonfly that froze to death in the ice and snow, the relocation of the old house, the rescue in the wind and snow, etc., a series of symbols that convey the message of death, throughout the film.
The two heroines with the same face are shrouded in such an atmosphere.
Hiroko has clearly started with Akiba, but she has never been able to get out of the shadow of Fujii's death.
At the beginning of the film, she participates in the memorial scene, the snow falls, and she and Fujii's family and friends stand in front of the tombstone, and everyone's faces are equally painful. However, the next second the camera turns, and the drunken relative vents at her in the car, she is embarrassed and confused, and does not know how to respond - it turns out that the only person who is still immersed in grief and unable to leave seems to be Hiroko.
Such a Hiroko took a chance and sent a letter to Fujii, and after receiving the reply, she knew that it could not be him, but she was unprecedentedly angry because Akiba had tried to test the other party without permission and destroyed her fantasies. After learning that the other party is a girl with the same name and surname as Fujii, Hiroko once again confirmed the commemorative book, and she persistently asked Fujii's mother whether the two were very similar, and after getting a response, she couldn't help but choke up.
"Hiroko, are you eating this middle school student's vinegar?"
“...... yes. Strange? ”
"Strange."
"It's weird."
Even Fujii's mother was surprised by the fact that Hiroko would still shed tears for her son years later.
Hiroko finally let go of her obsession with Fujii, and her life-and-death love, enmity, and hatred turned into heavy snow, and her thin body ran to the vast snow, shouting at the distant mountains: "How are you?" I'm fine!"
Voices echoed through the valley, and it was not any Fujii tree who responded to her, but herself. This is the simplest dialogue between people, only six words, but it is all-encompassing. She could no longer suppress her face and wept bitterly, and the heaviness, sadness, resentment, and incomprehension that had always been there were gradually dissipated, and the shadow of death that weighed on her finally disappeared like a fleeting heat on her lips.
This too-long mourning, in such a question-and-answer, quietly completed.
The story of the tree is much more obscure.
Compared with the restrained and implicit Bozi, the tree is undoubtedly a more vibrant and energetic existence. On her first appearance, she is plagued by a cold, but still sucks her nose in the face of an annoying postman, closing the door almost forcefully. No one could have predicted that she, who had the same face and completely different personality as Hiroko, could not forget the death of a person.
When it was decided to go to the hospital, the tree fell asleep leaning back in his seat. In her sleep, she vaguely heard the nurse calling the name of "Fujii Tree", and it was at this time that the end of the corridor was suddenly illuminated, and an unsupervised hospital bed came from the corner.
As the sick car drew closer, the tree finally saw the man lying on the hospital bed—his father, who was being rescued. She watched as the hospital bed passed by her, but she couldn't move. Everything in front of her began to twist and deform, the corridor was infinitely stretched, she ran up, heading in the direction of her father, and the camera followed behind her and shook violently, showing her wavering heart. When Shu pushed open the door of the rescue room, she recalled the farewell to Fujii and the first time she learned of the teenager with the same name and surname at the beginning of middle school.
Those of us who don't yet know the whole story may realize after watching the whole film what this montage is alluding to: the tree has never forgotten its youth, but the people she sees in her dreams have passed away.
However, the brother-in-law of the dead father forgets the death day of the eldest brother, the tree skates briskly on the snow on the day of his father's funeral, and Fujii smiles brightly when he sees Fujii who has come to return the book... Shunji Iwai's description of death ends to the point, leaving only a faint dull pain in his memory.
Reconciliation with death is especially important for the living. The father and lover who have passed away are not completely destroyed, but they are immortalized in life like dragonfly specimens.
Backlit
Back Light
"Love Letters" also has its own aesthetic.
In terms of light use, Shunji Iwai has his own unique philosophy. Highlight, backlit shooting, which other photographers see as suicidal behavior, has become his signature film style. This technique is reflected in works such as "Love Letters" and "All About Lily Week".
From the perspective of photography, the so-called backlight photography is a technique different from normal photography, and the final product it depicts is not recognizable by the human eye under normal circumstances. In general, the most obvious sign of backlit photography is the silhouette, because often the background exposure level is higher than the foreground, the background is normally exposed, and the foreground without light will be pitch black. Normal naked eye observation is invisible to this phenomenon, because the human eye will automatically adjust to ensure that the brightness information of the gaze area is complete.
Shunji Iwai uses a backlit technique that extends from this to uniformly increase exposure so that the face of the character can be seen clearly, while allowing the silhouette of the character to melt in a slightly overexposed background. This is close to the effect of naked eye observation, and it is a situation that is widely present in life.
Generally, movies will put a lot of effort into film lighting, through 4 to 5 angles of light, to create a very correct character image in the art, but also lost the authenticity. The backlight can be a good main light source, while diluting the background factors, highlighting the presence of actors, and the authenticity is greatly enhanced.
Unpretentious and embodying a simple sense of beauty, this tendency is common in Iwai's films.
At the same time, backlighting is a very restrained means, which is very suitable for expressing the mood of the protagonist in the film - Fujii's deep and introverted personality, and finally did not confess; the hazy good feelings of the tree did not go away; Hiroko's repressed emotional sustenance...
All the places in "Love Letters" where windows, doors, etc. can be transparent, without exception, present a fantastic light effect, which is caused by too much highlight, and the characters are blurred as a result, and the silhouette is looming and becoming no longer real.
One of the most classic images is of Fujii leaning against the window reading a book, the white curtains next to him dancing with the wind, and the boy looming by the curtains. The tree inadvertently raised its head and stared at the silent teenager, and the hazy emotions spread out darkly.
Shunji Iwai's aesthetics are also accomplished through this.
When people think back on this movie years later, it may be difficult to remember the death that is too heavy, but most of them can always remember the side face of Kashiwara Takashi when he bowed his head, as if he remembered the most moving picture of youth and forgot the pain after that.
If no one is with you tonight, open Love Letters.
Recall the memories of youth that were carefully plucked and dried one by one, and regain the flowers of the night that were irrigated by crush, jerkiness, and wolf. Let's follow the faint melody of "Frozen Summer" again and recall the craziest love that has been secretly attacked.