" What kind of life do you want to live " I have finished reading.
124 minutes long, but it seems to have experienced Hayao Miyazaki's life. After reading
, I couldn't hide my excitement and couldn't calm down for a long time.
On the one hand, I also doubted what I was watching. The whole movie was like a strange long dream on a summer afternoon.
On the other hand, it seems that he understands Hayao Miyazaki.
This is a work that was completed amidst the old man’s endless “retirement”, and the old man was even “prepared to die before it was completed.” However, in the end, the film was not only successfully completed, but also won an Oscar statuette, and was also a hit at the box office in Japan and North America.
The first-day box office in the Mainland reached an astonishing 99.28 million, surpassing the first-day box office of almost all Hollywood blockbusters this year.
How many directors can make movie fans linger for 11 years? Hayao Miyazaki is certainly one of them.
Because as long as Hayao Miyazaki is around, our childhood will not disappear.
But let me remind you, "How Do You Want to Live" is not an easy movie to digest.
Some people say that it is Hayao Miyazaki's version of "Alice in Wonderland", and many people say that they see the shadow of " Spirited Away ", " Howl's Moving Castle ", "The Wind Rises" and other works. .
But I think this is actually a life-long monologue of an 83-year-old man.
He wrote the words he wanted to leave to the children in his works -
Even if this world is rugged and tortuous, it is still worth your while.
1: What is your impression?
After watching "What kind of life do you want to live", if you ask me what my most direct impression is, I will use two words to describe it, surprise! Why is
unexpected?
I am surprised, not because Hayao Miyazaki, who is in his eighties, has once again used his strongest painting skills to create an unparalleled audio-visual feast for us.
It’s not because maybe the old man is getting older and is no longer anxious to start a fast-paced story. After 45 minutes of a 2-hour movie, the real protagonist begins to venture into a different world, which is Hayao Miyazaki’s fantasy world full of fantasy. .
I was surprised, not because of how explosive the visual effects of the movie were, how thick the tones were, and how wonderful the original paintings were.
is not just because Miyazaki Hayao spent three years painting the storyboard. Dozens of painters participated together and insisted on hand-drawing with pencils to create a magnificent fantasy picture.
It's not because Hayao Miyazaki shed tears when he heard it for the first time. The movie theme song "Globe" composed by Kenshi Yonezu is so touching.
It's not because those strange worlds, hellish fire fields, forests, lakes and skies are still so Ghibli.
And those occasional scary passages are enough to scare children all over the theater.
It’s not even because through the film, you can feel Hayao Miyazaki’s thoughts on life and death, good and evil, youth and aging, war and peace.
I was surprised because Hayao Miyazaki, who has always been the best at telling stories, actually gave up telling a complete story. In other words, Hayao Miyazaki, who is in his 80s, finally became completely willful.
completely gives up thinking about audience, story, plot, pacing, genre, all those things.
made a Hayao Miyazaki movie that you have never seen before.
To be honest, before watching the movie, I didn’t believe that this was Hayao Miyazaki’s last movie.
But after watching it, I want to say solemnly: It is certain that this is indeed Hayao Miyazaki's last movie.
2: About the plot
Because the film is too stream-of-consciousness, even viewers who have watched it may not fully understand it, so I have to spoil it and give you a little explanation.
First of all, you have to understand that if you make an analogy, this movie is similar to Kurosawa Akira's "梦" or Spielberg's "梦之家". It is a completely personalized film by Hayao Miyazaki. The movie incorporates his childhood memories, as well as his pain and profound thoughts on life.
At first everyone thought it was adapted from the 1937 Japanese book of the same name by Genzaburo Yoshino, but in fact the film only used the book as a prop for the male protagonist in the movie.
The film is truly full of symbols of Hayao Miyazaki's life. As Toshio Suzuki said, "This can be said to be the director's own childhood confession." The background of the movie
is set during World War II. The protagonist Masato living in Tokyo lost his mother Hisako in an air raid fire. After that, his father married his mother's sister Natsuko.
Zhenzhen moved out of Tokyo with his father and lived in the grand mansion of his mother's family before her death. Of course, this was also Natsuko's home.
And Natsuko has changed from Masato's aunt to stepmother. Although she loves Masato very much, both parties are at a loss.
The appearance of a group of helpers and grandmothers also made the real person feel a bit strange. What was even stranger was that since arriving here, a heron has always been peeping and harassing him. On the first day
entered school, he got into a fight with his classmates.
On the way home, he picked up a stone and hit himself on the head with blood, so that he could hide at home and not go out.
During this period, Zhenren accidentally discovered an abandoned tower building. It is said that this was built by Zhenren's great uncle before, and many strange things happened in it.
The maid’s grandma said that an alien meteorite fell here, forming a strange tower-shaped stone building. At that time, out of curiosity, great uncle got into the stone tower and couldn’t stop, so he built another one outside the stone tower. Tower, great-uncle then mysteriously disappeared and disappeared from the world.
When the real mother Hisako was still a girl, she also entered the tower and disappeared for a year. She suddenly reappeared a year later, dressed exactly the same as a year ago.
During this period, the real person heard the heron speak human language, saying that the real person's mother was still alive and she wanted to take him to see her.
Just when he was about to shoot the annoying heron, he accidentally discovered a book left by his mother, which was "What kind of life do you want to live".
At the same time, the pregnant Natsuko mysteriously disappeared and walked towards the abandoned tower.
Zhenren decided to enter the tower and rescue Natsuko.
Then the story seems to return to the passage of "Spirited Away", with souls, parrots, and other worlds appearing, including a mysterious girl who controls fire, a golden arch with the words "Those who learn from me will die", and 13 powerful blocks. stone.
Those character scenes that appeared in Miyazaki Hayao's previous works such as " Porco Rosso ", " Princess Mononoke ", "Howl's Moving Castle", etc., appear like a dream.
The real person successively saw the young age of his deceased mother, the mysterious great uncle, the sleeping Natsuko, and the secret kingdom composed of parrots in different worlds.
The further the movie goes, the more fantastical it becomes, and the more Miyazaki's original painting skills are brought to the extreme.
The story includes waves breaking on the sea, parrots murdering people, fire girls rescuing people, and the boy's choice: to stay, put 13 geometric stones into a tower, and repair the different world created by his great uncle, or to leave.
In the end, the real person did not take over the other world, and the other world collapsed and disappeared at the end of the film.
Zhenren, Huomei, and Natsuko all escaped to the time and space gate and returned to the real world.
At this time, Huomei finally revealed her identity. She was actually the real mother Hisako who disappeared into another world that year. But if she returns to the real world one year after her disappearance, what awaits her will still be in the real world. The fate of dying in the air raid fire.
Compared with past Hayao Miyazaki movies, the story of "How Do You Want to Live" is undoubtedly sadder.
Toshio Suzuki explained that the prototype of his great uncle was Isao Takahata, the director of "Grave of the Fireflies" who was also a teacher and friend of Hayao Miyazaki. During the production of the
film, Isao Takahata passed away due to illness. Hayao Miyazaki, who had always been moody and angry throughout his life, cried several times during his memorial speech. He said that he thought this guy could live to be 95 years old, which made him feel I don't have much time left.
In the movie, Hayao Miyazaki finally completed his farewell to Isao Takahata.
Before returning to the real world, the real person looked back for the last time and wrote such a sad but charming farewell. The infinitely meaningful ending of
has also become the farewell that Miyazaki Hayao left us with in his last movie.
3: Regarding the controversy
The movie will certainly polarize its reputation.
Some people think, "Miyazaki is still the same Hayao Miyazaki. The older I get, the more Miyazaki's movies make me cry."
Many people also said they couldn't understand. Among those who can't understand
, there are some who say "I can't understand but I'm shocked".
However, some people angrily expressed doubts about the over-the-top narrative techniques, believing that Hayao Miyazaki abandoned the popular narratives of the past and that the emotions of the film were greater than the plot.
believes that even if it wins an Oscar, this film can still be said to be the Waterloo of Hayao Miyazaki's career as an animation master. I think Hayao Miyazaki has already thought of the reason why the reputation of
movie is so polarized.
, including his old partner Toshio Suzuki, also thought of it. He didn't even expect that the film would make money back, so he just regarded it as a gift to his old friend to let him have a boyish mania.
But the controversial aspects of the film are precisely the most interesting aspects of the film.
Hayao Miyazaki really did not tell a popular story, because if we talk about Hayao Miyazaki's movies in the past, most of them were popular youth adventure movies, or popular juvenile comedies like " My Neighbor Totoro ".
So this last movie in his life is made up of several movies. The first scene of
is a slow-paced literary and artistic film. After entering a different world, it turns into a bizarre and fantasy road movie. In the end, it returns to a literary and artistic film that thinks about life.
The narrative full of stream of consciousness will inevitably make it difficult for the audience to follow, and coupled with many speculative metaphors, the audience will be even more overwhelmed.
After the test screening, Hayao Miyazaki said to the audience after watching the film, "Were you confused after watching the film? There are some parts that I myself did not fully understand."
I think this is exactly what Hayao Miyazaki intended. The film extends his thoughts about life and death, and about how to live a life. Even at Miyazaki's age, he has not really understood it, but he lived to be over 80 years old. I still can’t understand, this is life.
When I first watched the movie, I was also puzzled.
However, the further I look back, the more I understand the story, and the more I look back, the more interesting it becomes.
Until the end of the movie, I felt a little unfinished.
At the end of the movie, the real family moved back to Tokyo.
Finally, the real person went out and closed the door.
I know, this is the end.
For so many years, Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata have all used their own ways to help us grown-up children avoid the cruelty of this adult world.
However, the story always has an end.
The old man put his life experience and insights into the last movie of his life, but it is not to tell the audience what kind of life they should live, but to complete a self-question and answer: What kind of life do you want to live?
4: About Hayao Miyazaki
Although the film is the most special Hayao Miyazaki movie, Hayao Miyazaki is still Hayao Miyazaki.
Especially after entering another world, it is simply a mashup of Hayao Miyazaki's past works.
For example, the tunnel where real people enter another world is like the soup house that Chihiro enters in "Spirited Away".
There is a tunnel before the real person enters the mysterious tower. The door of the tunnel is written in Latin, which translates to the meaning of "Gate of Hell" in "Dante's Divine Comedy".
Great-uncle's residence also has two floors of cloister arches. Every time you step through a door, something incredible happens.
is like the door in Howl's Moving Castle.
Of course, in every Miyazaki Hayao work, the mother-in-law is basically indispensable.
Only this time, the handsome female captain that the protagonist, Masato, met after entering another world, was the young Kiriko, the maid grandmother who had fallen into another world with Masato before.
There is also the bala bala wala where Kiriko helps with fishing and eats enough to ascend to heaven. It is obviously a reference to the tree elf in "Princess Mononoke".
I have to say that Ghibli is really a company that is serious about producing content. If it were Disney, derivatives of Wow, Wow, would have been flying all over the sky.
In short, the film is really full of traces of Miyazaki Hayao's movies.
There is also the scene where the bright moonlight appears at night, the full Wow wow wow inflated balloon rises to the sky, and is reincarnated into an adult. That kind of ethereal beauty cannot be matched by Hayao Miyazaki.
During the Wala Wala's ascension and reincarnation, she was attacked and eaten by a sudden swarm of pelicans. The scene in which Kiriko was forced to light some Wala Wala and repel the pelicans was also reminiscent of the battle scene in "Princess Mononoke".
At the end of the movie, the collapse of the tower pays tribute to the disintegration of " Castle in the Sky ".
I think this is also Hayao Miyazaki, using this movie to say a long farewell to the audience.
He also knew that this time, he would not come back.
Hayao Miyazaki's style of painting can be imitated, but the rich imagination, surging emotional intensity and deep reflection in the film can never be replicated. No one within Ghibli can replace it, nor in the entire Japanese animation industry.
includes this "What kind of life do you want to live", even though the ending is so sad, it can still give people hope in the midst of sadness.
At a time when the film market is becoming more industrialized and stylized, there are few such true artists who remain true to their original aspirations.
What kind of life do you want to live?
The answer has been written in Hayao Miyazaki's decades of persistence.
After Hayao Miyazaki, there is no more Hayao Miyazaki.
5: Regarding metaphors and themes
"What kind of life do you want to live" certainly contains Hayao Miyazaki's philosophy of life.
Hayao Miyazaki is like weaving some puzzles with movies. If you solve the puzzles, you will understand Hayao Miyazaki's life.
For example, Hayao Miyazaki's consistent theme of movies is anti-war.
The autocratic dictatorship, the self-destructive Parrot King, and the mechanically indifferent Parrot Army all reflect the "anti-war" attitude towards life advocated by Hayao Miyazaki.
There is also friendship.
In the film, the "guide" heron symbolizes Toshio Suzuki,
the "tower owner" uncle symbolizes Hayao Miyazaki's "life mentor" Isao Takahata in his animation career, and the sassy fog symbolizes cooperation with Hayao Miyazaki. Michiyo Yasuda, color designer for many years.
The only thing I wonder is why Hayao Miyazaki didn't pay tribute to his old partner, Joe Hisaishi in the film.
even, there is death.
What does a creator think about at the end of his life? How did he face death? In fact, in the second half of the movie, everything is shown in strange ways.
For example, the thirteen mysterious building blocks obviously represented the thirteen classic works in the director's career, but in the end the world built by the building blocks suddenly collapsed, just like Hayao Miyazaki's prediction of Ghibli's future destiny.
Hayao Miyazaki also reflected on good and evil.
In the film, great-uncle Zeng worked hard to create a dreamy other world using meteorites, but in the end this other world collapsed.
Because a perfect utopian world will not exist.
But it is precisely because people can see evil that they can understand what is good. Only with regret can there be beauty.
Moreover, there is a gray area between good and evil, which is the helplessness of choosing to survive.
As the fallen pelican said, it’s not that they don’t want to fish, but their fate cannot be changed. In order to survive and reproduce, they have to eat wala wala.
I think that in the last journey of his life, Hayao Miyazaki also gained a more tolerant understanding of this complicated human world.
Complexity is the greatest weight in the name "life".
But at the end of the story, what Miyazaki wants to say is the main creative thread that runs through Miyazaki's life.
mother. In the
video, the real person has two mothers.
One is stepmother Natsuko.
Some viewers said that when Natsuko saw Masato coming to save him, she roared loudly and told him to leave, which proved that she hated Masato in her heart.
They got it all wrong.
Natsuko asked Masato to leave because after entering another world, she knew that it was a world of the dead and there was no return, so when she saw Masato coming to save him, she pretended to be angry and drove Masato away because she didn’t want Masato to die for her. Stay in another world.
The real person also knew at this moment that Xia Zi truly loved him, so he called out Xia Zi’s mother.
The other one is Hisako, the mother who transformed into Fire Beauty.
I think the parting scene between Huo Mei and Zhen Zhen is also the most touching part in the whole film.
The real person begged his mother to go to his time and space with him, but her mother refused.
The real person said to Hisako that if you go back to your original time and space, you will be burned to death in the future.
Kakuko said, I want to return to my own time and space to give birth to you in the future.
"Wouldn't it be great to be your mother?"
I think that no matter where the audience is, they will be moved by this scene, because maternal love is a common emotion of human beings.
Hisako finally hugged the real person and said, having you is the happiest thing in my life. Don’t forget that I am not afraid of fire.
In fact, this is also the most sad paragraph, because in the real world, Hisako was burned to death.
But Zhenren also figured out the meaning of life at that moment. His mother used actions to tell him how to live the life he wanted.
No matter how devastated the world is, no matter how twists and turns our destiny becomes.
People will eventually return to the chaotic real world, and bravely facing and accepting their own life is true heroism.
The most important thing is always: this is the life you want to live.
6: The film Farewell to
will undoubtedly become another box office dark horse. My prediction is that the film’s box office will reach at least 700 million, which means it will beat most of the Hollywood blockbusters.
Although many people do not fully understand the movie, some people think that the movie lacks Hayao Miyazaki's usual purity and childishness, but if you are a fan of Hayao Miyazaki, you will definitely be amused by the easter eggs and be fascinated by the contents. I was moved by the casual dialogue, especially the ending.
This is destined to be the most special Hayao Miyazaki movie. Before the release of the
film, Studio Ghibli implemented a "zero publicity" strategy, contrary to the industry's previous high-profile publicity methods.
According to rumors, even Hayao Miyazaki himself has doubts about the approach of his old partner Toshio Suzuki, and is worried that extreme publicity methods will destroy the "retirement work" that he has painstakingly produced for six years.
But it turns out that both Suzuki Toshio and Miyazaki themselves underestimated the charm of the film.
The film uses fantasy adventure to tell the story of character growth. Although the expression is obscure and the metaphors are complicated, it can always open up that wonderful different world if you chew it carefully.
I think this is a real all-age movie, which can be watched by men, women and children, because everyone has their own life adventure and their own different world.
Of course, whether the movie is good or not, you still have to watch it yourself.
After my movie ended, some people in the theater applauded, some shed tears, and many in the audience looked confused.
You don’t have to like this movie, but you don’t have to like this world and your own life.
The best thing is the ending of the film. Some people say that the protagonist is a real person, Hayao Miyazaki himself, while others say that his uncle is a projection of the director himself.
I think they are both Hayao Miyazaki, young and old, past and present, death and life.
The 13 unstable stones represent the old world that Hayao Miyazaki once created. The only descendant who did not inherit this utopia proves that Hayao Miyazaki understands that his era and the world will eventually pass.
But the boy who insisted on continuing was also Hayao Miyazaki.
Even if I live for more than eighty years, have experienced the ups and downs of the world, and even if the world is devastated, I still have to go back to that world.
This is the life Hayao Miyazaki wants to live.
Toshio Suzuki said: "The two of us will always be together until one of us dies.""
Stories always have an end, and the theme of the film is actually Hayao Miyazaki who has long said: "I want to tell children that this world is worth living for us. That's what I've always thought. "
" No matter how difficult and cruel the times are, we must live like a real person. ”
So, “You can’t escape and control your life.” "
So, goodbye, Hayao Miyazaki.
The fairy tales you haven't finished telling in this world will be left to the complex world of the future.
The world is worth living after all.
The question is just, do you want to live it? What kind of life.
