In the movie "Monster", a pair of good friends play games in an abandoned carriage. In this secret base, they don't have to accept the strange eyes of the outside world. (File photo)
It is rare for Kore-eda Hirokazu to direct a film that he did not write himself. Except for his film debut "" released in 1995, he has almost all written and directed in his nearly thirty-year film career until "Monster", which will be released in 2023. Still, "I didn't feel like the movie was written by someone else," Kore-eda said when filming began.
The screenwriter of "Monster" Yuji Sakamoto has been active in the front line of writing Japanese film and television dramas for many years. "Tokyo Love Story" and "Bouquet of Love" are all written by him. In fact, he is also good at social themes, and often expresses his concerns about social issues, such as school bullying and domestic violence, in his delicate presentation of daily life.
In the past, Kore-eda Hirokazu and Sakamoto Yuji each invariably created stories about neglect, delinquents and reorganized families. Whenever someone asks which screenwriter he would like to work with, Kore-eda's answer is always Yuji Sakamoto.
"Although we wrote these stories in different time periods, they all share common themes and resonances. Each of us tells them in our own way, like the air we breathe in, but what we breathe out is different. This time, we It harmonizes the breathing,” said Hirokazu Kore-eda.
"Monster" is about the family theme that Kore-eda is good at. It tells the story of a single mother who suspected that her child was being bullied at school. When she went to school, she was pointed out by the teacher that her child was bullying others. Both parties insisted on their own opinions. After the two boys disappeared, , the truth gradually emerged.
When he read the script for the first time, Kore-eda Hirokazu felt, "It seems to be a microcosm of the partisanship and divisions and divisions among people in the world today, and the epidemic has further expanded such divisions and divisions."
2023, "Monster" It won the Queer Palm Award for Feature Film at the 76th Cannes Film Festival, and in January 2024, it received 10 nominations at the Japan Film Academy Awards, including Best Film and Best Director. The French newspaper Libération commented that the film demonstrates Kore-eda's expertise in sketching portraits and delicate style in ordinary life, but its plot is drowned in an unnecessary confusing and misleading circuitous scene, leaving the theme to be revealed at the last moment. Finally presented.
Although there are some controversies, it is undeniable that this film inherits Kore-eda Hirokazu's previous style to a certain extent. His images are always intertwined with cruelty and tenderness. He often starts from the trivial daily life of the family. While presenting fragments of life, he extends his reach to insights into human nature, contemporary family relationships and social reality.
"I don't like plots where the protagonist overcomes his weaknesses, protects his family and saves the world. Instead, I really want to describe the beautiful moment when a slightly dirty world where heroes do not exist and only ordinary people live suddenly unfolds." Hirokazu Kore-eda once said in his novel This is what the book says.
However, hidden behind the image, he is usually restrained. "Although I have my own answers to many things in my heart, whether I watch a movie or make a movie, it's not for that answer. Movies can record the times, and I can do the same thing myself. I can be a witness because I don't record. It may be forgotten, but the answer is not given in the movie." Hirokazu Kore-eda said.
On May 18, 2023, France, at the 76th Cannes Film Festival, Hirokazu Kore-eda attended the press conference of the new film "Monster". (Visual China Map)
"I'm not talking about death, but how people feel loss"
Hirokazu Kore-eda is not shy about talking about family. In fact, many of his works are imprinted with his private experiences, such as his frustrated father, and A loving but imperfect mother. Discussions about family ties also appear repeatedly in his films. The hobbies, dreams, and habits of the previous generation will always be inherited by the next generation to some extent. "Whether you like it or not, you will inherit some of your parents' problems." ".
Kore-eda Hirokazu didn’t get along much with his father. His father was born and educated in Taiwan, China. After the war broke out, he was drafted into the army. After Japan's defeat, he was taken to Siberia to do labor camps before returning to Japan.His father became depressed due to his personal disappointment and the cold treatment from others. He not only changed jobs frequently, but also became addicted to gambling. When he was drunk every night, he would complain about the hard life in Siberia. Every time at this time, the young Hirokazu Kore-eda would always think: Oh, here we go again.
The burden of making a living fell on her mother, who ran a scrap metal recycling business and also worked in a cake shop. Hirokazu Kore-eda remembers that his mother would sometimes bring home cakes with imperfections as snacks for them. She had high expectations for Kore-eda Hirokazu and often bought him biographies of great people, hoping that he would become a civil servant and live a stable life.
After Kore-eda Hirokazu became a director, his mother would show his videotapes to the neighbors. In fact, Kore-eda's initial interest in images came from his mother. Before her marriage, she would always go to the movies every holiday. After her marriage, she would watch old black-and-white American movies played on Japanese TV at home, such as movies by Ingrid Bergman and Vivien Leigh. Inspired by what he saw and heard, Kore-eda Hirokazu became interested in movies.
"Some of this inheritance is visible to you, and some is invisible." Hirokazu Kore-eda said in an interview, "My father likes gambling very much. When I grow up, I don't want to become like him. .My mother loved movies, so I always wanted to believe that I got into the movie industry because of my mother’s influence. But then I found out that the reason why I chose to make movies was because I was also a gambler."
said with this At the same time, Kore-eda Hirokazu often thinks: Is blood relationship enough to support a family? In " Shoplifters ", Shibata Osamu's family is not related by blood, but they have established a strong emotional bond with each other during their long-term relationship. Blood is no longer the only link to maintain family relationships. “I like stories like this where some members of the family are missing, but there are still people trying to take over the role of the parents and rebuild the family bond,” he said.
In "Shoplifters", Shibata Osamu's family is not related by blood, but they have established a strong emotional bond with each other during their long-term relationship. (File map)
In addition to thinking about family relationships, Hirokazu Kore-eda’s movies also always talk about how family members face loss. In the past, people always said that the theme of his movies was death, such as the husband who committed suicide in "The Phantom Light" and the deceased sister in "No One Knows", but he didn't take it seriously.
"What I'm talking about is not death, but how people feel the loss after experiencing the death of someone around them, how to accept it and bury it, which is the so-called grief work." Hirokazu Kore-eda explained.
In reality, his father died in 2000. While vigiling for his father in the temple, Kore-eda Hirokazu opened the small window of the coffin and saw his father's mouth slightly open, so he rolled up a towel and put it under his chin. Unexpectedly, he accidentally touched the stubble on his chin. About his father Memories emerged, and he couldn't help but cry until dawn.
One night in the middle of the night, while offering incense to his deceased parents, Kore-eda Hirokazu found that the incense could not be inserted, so he had to pour out the incense that had not been sorted for a long time, pick out the hard incense heads, and separate them from the ashes. While picking them up, he suddenly realized that this action was like picking up the bones after his parents were cremated. "Would my father not be the adult he wanted to be and realize the life he wanted to live?" Inspired by this, he created "Deeper than the Sea".
In 2008, my mother also passed away. He clearly remembers the last meal he had with his mother, which was at a restaurant in Shinjuku. Her mother kept complaining that the meat was scarce and expensive, but she still finished all her favorite dishes. After that, he sent his mother to the station and watched her back until she disappeared into the crowd at the ticket gate.
After his mother passed away, Kore-eda Hirokazu began to write the script for " ". The creation started from the regret of "not being able to do anything for my mother." The film tells the story of the younger brother and older sister getting together at their parents' house on the anniversary of the eldest son's death. . The first line of the script is "There is always a little bit of time in life." In the past, due to filming movies, he spent very little time with his mother.
"I didn't want to miss her sadly, so I made a bright movie. I hope everyone will feel after watching the movie: Ah, my mother is there." Hirokazu Kore-eda said.At the San Sebastian International Film Festival in Spain, after the film screening, a foreign audience walked up to Kore-eda Hirokazu and said: "Why do you know my mother so well?"
"The existence of movies is not to judge individuals"
1995 , Hirokazu Kore-eda attended the Thessaloniki International Film Festival in Greece and saw Sergei Eisenstein's drawings in a local bookstore. He remembered his thesis advisor Nori Iwamoto when he was a student, who had translated many of Eisenstein's works, so he wrote a letter to the teacher with this sentence: "From now on, I will enter the world of movies." That year, the first film he directed, "The Illusion of Light," was released. Before
became a film director, Hirokazu Kore-eda was a TV documentary director. Most of the documentaries he shot focused on social themes. In 1988, in order to prepare for the filming of the documentary "Another Kind of Education - Records of the Spring Class of Ina Elementary School", Hirokazu Kore-eda conducted a three-year interview at Ina Elementary School in Nagano Prefecture. This is an elementary school that does not use textbooks and promotes "comprehensive learning" .
The school borrowed a cow from the pasture to raise and set breeding and milking goals. The students took care of it from the third grade to the fifth grade. Unexpectedly, the cow gave birth prematurely and the calf was already dead when it was found. The students cried and held a funeral for the calf. After that, they continued to milk the cow every day, heated it and drank it at lunch. The supposedly happy moments of milking and lunch also took on a different meaning.
A child wrote in his composition: "Clatter, it makes a sweet sound. I am here to milk the cow today. Although I am sad, I still have to milk the cow." Seeing this, Kore-eda Hirokazu had mixed feelings. This is their response to "mourning" Understanding, "Although he is happy, it is mixed with sadness. Although he is sad, the milk is still delicious. Experiencing such complex emotions, what should we call it if it is not growth?"
This experience also affected his subsequent views on the themes of children and death. of continued attention. "Children and dead people often look back at the world, and they criticize, evaluate, and say, 'What the hell are you doing?'" is how Kore-eda explains the role of these two characters in his films.
Zaori is a single mother who works in a laundry. After discovering her son's abnormal behavior, she suspected that he was being bullied on campus. She went to the school to inquire, but was treated coldly. (File map)
In addition to education, in his many years of documentary career, Kore-eda Hirokazu has extended his attention to every corner of Japanese society, including social welfare issues. This awareness of caring for society has also continued in his films. middle.
In "Shoplifters", Hirokazu Kore-eda not only focuses on the discussion of family emotions, but also presents his thoughts on social systems and structures. In his opinion, the way the police deal with non-blood family members and return them to their original families in the film is very cold. “These characters have been abandoned by us and society, but we have once again disintegrated this society. Family, we have abandoned them again." When
conducted a media interview about "Monster", a reporter pointed out that this film reflects one of Kore-eda's frequent themes - the unreliability of the system. Kore-eda explained that in many places, especially in Japan, you will see examples of individuals being sacrificed to protect an organization or system, and schools are indeed a classic example in this story.
However, Hirokazu-eda is more about presenting rather than judging in the movie. "Even if I criticize someone, it will not turn into a personal attack in the end. What I value is that the vision should be deep and wide enough to capture the kind of things that happen." personal social structure."
He sees himself as a recorder. He once wrote in the book: "I am not nurturing works. Whether they are works or emotions, they are all contained in the world early. I just pick them up and collect them, then hold them in the palm of my hand and show them to the audience. ."
His work "Nobody Knows" was adapted from real events, telling the story of four brothers and sisters who were abandoned by their mother and lived in an apartment in Tokyo. This film was nominated for the Palme d'Or at the 57th Cannes Film Festival.In the days after the screening in Cannes, Kore-eda Hirokazu was frequently reminded that "there is no moral criticism of the characters in the film, nor does it even accuse the mother of abandoning her child."
To this, Kore-eda responded: "The existence of the film is not for When it comes to judging individuals, the director is not God or a judge. By designing a bad guy, the story (world) may become black and white, but I think not doing so will make the audience bring this issue back to their daily lives to think about it again and again.”
Southern Weekend reporter Weng Rongrong
editor-in-chief Li Muyan
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