At this year's Shanghai International Film Festival, Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda's first "foreign language film" "Truth" met with Chinese audiences.
Not long ago, it was Kore-eda's live broadcast debut on China's B station, which set off a small wave among movie fans, and at one time 160,000 people were online at the same time. In the live broadcast, it is Kore-eda's distinction between cinema and online movies and expectations for the former, which arouses the empathy of many fans; the admiration of "Assassin Nie Yinniang" and the answer to fans' questions are frankly and unique observations - just like his films that are "like the speed of walking". If you have seen Kore-eda's 17 films so far, you will find that he is not a director who only cares and only shows family affection, and his image style has not always been bland and warm. In the films before and after his film, which have very different image styles and emotions, if there is anything consistent, it is that he cares not only about the story, but also about the truth.
The Truth
Ask the truth about life
It is Kore-eda's 1995 film debut "Illusory Light", bold and sad, the image is dark, exudes a lonely and cold atmosphere, which is very different from the bright and warm image of the later period: in the film, Yumiko's husband suddenly commits suicide one night, she loves her husband deeply, and she lives happily after marriage, and remarries to a remote fishing village under the introduction of a neighbor, but the peaceful and harmonious life after remarriage cannot make up for her doubts about her ex-husband's sudden suicide. In "Next Stop, Kingdom of Heaven" (1998), the 36-year-old director continues to ask the truth about life and emotion through an imaginative story, which has the understanding of the precipitating emotions of giving in life: "After 50 years, I realized that I am part of the happiness of others. "The film's philosophical depth of life and emotion, life and memory, and the naturalness and calmness of the expression methods still impress the viewers." Ang Lee, who recommended the film to audiences at the Berlin Film Festival, commented on the film: "Very special, very quiet, very clean." ”
Distance (2001), a palme d'Or-nominated but rarely mentioned film, reflects the harm caused to the world and the family of the people by a terrorist incident that killed more than 100 people and poisoned more than 8,000 people through the memories and flashbacks of the parties, including the revelation of human fragility and loneliness, as well as the reminders and questions of those who have a close relationship with the perpetrators of crimes: while making themselves into the image of "victims", How much empathy do you have for the people who committed the crime? The husband in the film, who is completely unaware of his wife's abortion twice, and the wife who kicks him out of the house when he returns home to find his final redemption, all bear the author's wordless, interrogative gaze to some extent.
Beginning with Palme d'Or in 2004, when it won the Palme d'Or at Cannes, Kore-eda's images are no longer dim and experimental, and they begin to weave sorrow, pain and bravery into everyday clarity and texture. 12-year-old Ming, abandoned by his mother to remarry, took his younger siblings to survive in a rental house in an apartment building, and the youngest sister died unexpectedly. This is a real social event that happened in Tokyo. It is Kore-eda who condemns the misery created by selfish and irresponsible adults in society by showing the adults in the event as "children", while the four sisters and brothers of Ming, Kyoko, Shigeru, and Koyuki are like "adults". 2006's Hana No Samurai is Kore-eda's first attempt to challenge costume films, an idyllic samurai revenge story that expresses a denial of the spirit of "Bushido." "I think the reason why the cherry blossoms can wither peacefully is because I know that it will bloom again in the coming year; otherwise, it will not be willing to die." This cherished word of life, told by a crazy and silly character in the film, is nothing less than a double denial of the spirit of Bushido. The narrative of family warmth, opened by 2008's "Non-Stop Walking", which is followed by "The Diary of Sea Street" and "Deeper Than the Sea", which were launched in mid-2015, both depict the interaction between the frustrated protagonist and his family with almost no "story" family trivia, as well as the emotions felt in this interaction and the imprint left in each other's lives.
Family of Thieves
An exploration of form and style
Probably related to the healing effect of such works on modern people, these films have become the iconic works of Kore-eda in the minds of fans. In fact, during this period, he also expressed other themes, and made new explorations in form and style.
Miracles (2011), for example, expresses the hope of a new rail line through the hopes of children whose parents divorced have a "miracle". 2013's "Like a Father Like a Son", with a sense of reality and humanization, explores the relationship between blood and family affection, which makes people feel warm and full of feelings after reading it, and is a beautiful song of family affection and humanity. In the eyes of audiences who have watched the mystery novels of Japanese writers such as Keigo Higashino, the suspense of 2017's "Third Degree Suspect" is probably almost nothing, but Hiroshi Kusho's wonderful performance is worth the ticket price. The daring act of the audience's beloved idol star brilliantly interprets criminals who are "born" with criminal factors, adding a subtle depth of humanity to the film. "Thief Family", which won the Palme d'Or in 2018, returns to the analysis of blood and kinship, but the cruelty and "sense of abandonment" of the bottom life are hidden and wavering, which is in line with the general frustration caused by the widening gap between rich and poor and the isolation of social classes in Japan.
Kore-eda's "Truth", which was filmed in 2019, is the "French version" of the family problem that he is keen to explore: a strong and selfish mother, a mother-daughter who does not understand and hurt each other, but with the help of cultural differences, it is Kore-eda's generosity that shows another possibility of women's existence: strong, self- and full of control over life.
The "real feeling" of the characters
On September 15, 2018, Kiki Shirin, who had worked with Kore-eda on six films in 10 years and was known as the "National Grandmother of Japan," died of illness. After learning of her cancer in 2005, Kiki Shirin spoke publicly about death many times, saying, "If a person dies, he will become the dust of the universe, at least a beautiful and glowing dust." That' is my last desire. "Its tenacious and indomitable vitality is the same as its role in the film. It is kore-eda's characters in the film, most of whom have this sense of integration of the actor's sense of life and the vitality of the character - such as the role of the frustrated son and father played by Abe Hiroshi in "Walking Non-stop" and "Deeper than the Sea"; Masaharu Fukuyama's appearance as a tough and helpless elite in "Like Father Like Son" and "The Third Suspect"; Masa nakagawa also plays the image of an ordinary man who is not motivated but loves his family in "Like Father Like Son", "Sea Street Diary", and "Thief Family" The image of the silent youth played by Inura Shin in "Next Stop, Heaven", "Distance", "Air Doll", etc.; these characters can easily resonate with modern people of different classes and backgrounds.
"Non-Stop Walking"
The female figures in his films are also representative: "Grandma" and "Grandma" (several roles played by Kiki Shirin) who have rich life wisdom and love for the next generation; independent women who are full of love and have no needs of themselves (the eldest sister in "Sea Street Diary"), housewives who "climb high" elite classes but maintain independent and equal judgment (Nono Miya Midori in "Father Like Son")," strong and patient, mature and sensible girls who survive in broken families ("Sea Street Diary"). Asano Suzu)... These figures are more brilliant in the film than the males. In Kore-eda's view, people are more important than stories, which is why his films are often not shocking, but they can always touch people's hearts and evoke resonance.
The moving thing about these characters is that they are representatives of all sentient beings, real characters in life. Impressing the audience through the "real feeling" of the characters is a creative method that appeals to "empathy". In his early works, Kore-eda adopted a dream-like, whisper-like expression, and conveyed the main theme of the film almost vaguely. In "Light of Illusion", the heroine's feelings about the death of her ex-husband are not really expressed until the end of the film, and what she says to her current husband, "You love her like that, how can you love me", expresses the difficulty and abundance of life's emotions; in "Next Stop, Heaven", Mr. Watanabe chooses the idle afternoon sitting in the park with his wife as his happiest memory, while the wife chooses the memory of sitting in the park with her fiancé who died in the war... Ang Lee said that when he first watched the film, he was shocked by the branches. Judging from the texture and atmosphere created by the film in a humble shooting environment, the director is indeed talented. The protagonist in the film is young, simple and sexy, which is just a symbol of the beauty of youth and the fragility of life.
Heaven and earth have feelings. It was Kore-eda who said that this was a sentence that his most respected director, Hou Hyo-hyun, often wrote on colored paper. Like Hou Hyo-hyun, Kore-eda believes that "works and feelings have long been contained in the world."
In his films, the audience can feel the wet cold of the winter sea breeze ("Phantom Light"), the quiet and dangerous atmosphere that lingers by the isolated lake ("Distance"), the animal-like scent of abandoned children who are alone in the summer ("Nobody Knows"), the beauty of butterflies flying on the slopes of summer ("Walking Non-Stop"), the coolness of raindrops falling on their fingertips ("Air Doll"), the thickness of volcanic ash falling into the home ("Miracle"), the different heat and moisture when eating fried dumplings and Wagyu hot pot ("Walking Non-Stop"), the coolness of raindrops falling on their fingertips ("Air Doll"), the heavy feeling of volcanic ash falling into the home ("Miracle"), the different heat and moisture when eating fried dumplings and Wagyu hot pot ("Wagyu Hot Pot"). Like a Father Like a Son"), the air flowing in a large, old house by the mountain ("Sea Street Diary"), the feeling of bathing at my mother's house without pajamas ("Deeper Than the Sea"), the cola cake in spring and the cold noodles in summer ("Thief Family") ... These are moments with "spirituality"; after the end of the film, they often merge with the audience's own life.
This kind of softness and belief that heaven and earth have feelings and all things have feelings makes Kore-eda, although he is a director with profound thoughts, everything in his works always seems so uneventful. He doesn't want the audience to learn anything from his films, but he wants them to be able to see their lives with a new eye after watching the movies.
What exactly this new vision is, Kore-eda actually does not care - "it is precisely outside the so-called theme that there is the richness of the film."