As one of the representatives of the new Japanese film movement, Shunji Iwai's works are well known to many people. He is good at describing youth with delicate and beautiful shooting techniques, and telling the audience about the cruelty and pain of reality with suppressed emotions.
And "Dream Traveler" is such a film about youth and reality. The film tells the story of three mentally ill people embarking on a dream-chasing journey, they flee from the spooky mental hospital together, away from the hideous-looking medical staff, they are like "angels" who suddenly descend on the world, and like small animals that break free from their cages, they take brisk steps to face the wind and the sun in search of the "end of the world".
Coco, Curly Hair, and Ah Wu, they are not unforgiving, insane, they are like children who lack love and care, struggling hard against the world, fighting themselves, finding the end of the world on the wall. When they are defeated by reality, they can only be redeemed in death.
Unwilling to be a counterfeiter, Coco strangled her twin sister to death with her own hands. After being taken to a mental hospital by her parents, she was greeted by a group of monster-like staff. Before he could say goodbye to his parents, he was put in a cold and damp ward. The ill-mannered nurse threw away all her belongings, except for the small shawl full of black feathers that Coco vigorously left behind.
Coco could dye the psychosocia suit black, with small black boots and a small black skirt paired with the black feather shawl so that she looked out of place. But she didn't think so, because she wanted to be unique. She always believed that her parents were gods, that their parents created themselves, and that it was because of themselves that they had the world, so she could not share this "sacred" love with her sister. She wanted to be a child who would always be pampered.
Also living in childhood is Curly Hair, but his childhood was ruined by Sensei Tokiya, which is unfortunate. Since elementary school, he has been harassed by Shi Qianya, and he has no power to tie the chicken, except to cry his nose and pray to God in the hope of changing teachers. But the reality is often unsatisfactory, and until high school, he has been living under the torment of Shi Qianya.
Finally, on the rainy day when he couldn't bear it, he rushed up and stabbed Shi Qianya with a knife. Curly hair, who had been tortured for many years, wanted to stab a few more times to satisfy his revenge, who knew that Shi Qianya's life was too fragile, so he died so easily. Since then, the shadow of his childhood has been infinitely prolonged after The Death of Tokiyaya.
Only Ah Wu seemed particularly "normal" among them. Although it does not outline the background of this character too much, it can be felt from his raised hands and feet that he is an obedient child. He was lively and cute but timid and afraid of things, he was afraid of making mistakes and being locked up, and he always kept in mind the rules of the mental hospital: no jumping off the wall.
This is very much like us as children, the world is not as big as my dreams, I just want to be the only one in the world without knowing the sky. But at the same time, we are also fragile in childhood, originally inviolable little angels, but also the most vulnerable to harm and threats, so it will become an unbearable memory that cannot be erased for a lifetime.
For a long time, Shunji Iwai liked to tell stories from an underage point of view, as if it seemed to him that only these simple, lovely children could have the purest souls and find what we had lost from them.
Coco, who thought that killing her sister would allow her to enjoy the love of her parents, was "thrown" into a mental hospital by her indifferent parents, because they were frightened, they could not accept what their daughter had done, and they could not understand the desire for love in Coco's heart. Because they were adults, sanity and maturity told them that Coco was crazy.
Curly Hair is sent to a mental hospital because of the hallucinations that Senya always had when he killed him, where he thinks he is safe, so he reads books every day to immerse himself in another world, or to regain himself when he was reading. But the reality is that after escaping the invasion of Shi Qianya, Curly Hair has walked into another abyss. Female doctors in psychiatric hospitals have long sexually assaulted him, and the tortured curly hair will appear to have the illusion of rain every time it collapses.
The cautious Ah Wu doesn't have so many troubles, but he only wants to please others, hoping to become a good old man who is not abandoned and liked by everyone. So after the curly hair was given to The Coco Barbie, he was not willing to show weakness, and he was looking for a "small gift" that could be given to Coco all the way. He flipped into a black plastic bag in the grass, and the excitement on his face was indescribable, but when the layers of packaging were peeled off to reveal a severed hand, Ah Wu's world collapsed.
Reality often runs counter to our ideal utopia. Some people will grow rapidly in one fall after another, get rid of innocence and forget innocence, and some people will hit the wall again and again at the moment of breaking the cocoon into a butterfly, unable to accept the pain it brings.
This is the characteristic style of Shunji Iwai, and under his lens, the pain of growth and youth is repressed and obscure. It is different from most youth films, without straightforward lines and ups and downs, and uses the most cautious and obscure way to show the unforgettable heart of growth.
I always have to die, I have to die, then let me atone for your sins - "Dream Traveler"
The magic of cocoa, curly hair, and Ah Wu's dream-chasing journey is that "no jumping off the wall" is allowed. So even though they passed churches, heard choir songs, walked through crowded squares, and walked through the tree-lined paths between buildings, they never jumped off the fence. Beneath their feet is a road without a way out, a prison on the brink of ideals and reality.
Every time she passed the church, Coco would stop and sing along with her, and after refusing the priest's invitation because "don't jump off the wall," the lovely pastor took his own ladder and climbed up the wall to sit with them. "Why can't you go down the wall?" "Are you angels?" A few questions made the priest look more like a patient who should be locked up. After Coco left, he picked up a piece of black feather and asked himself, "Is there a black angel in the world?" "It's reflective.
Ah Wu looked around for a gift for Coco, but accidentally fell off the line, fell off the wall, and fell to the ground at the moment he fell to his head and bled. Every time he struggled to get up, he tried to straighten his head, but to no avail, his neck made a "click" and "click" cracking sound, like the moment when a dream was shattered. No matter how he struggled, Ah Wu eventually died under the wall.
The other side of the curly hair shot several times at the distance with the stolen pistol, and when he pulled the trigger, he did not hesitate, because he was bent on finding redemption at the end of the world, his heart was like ashes, and the life of the flesh was meaningless.
And when Coco realizes that killing her sister was a mistake, and her parents, whom she regarded as creating the world like a god, have abandoned her, she gradually loses the courage to live, who originally longed for freedom. Coco grabbed the gun from Curly Hair's hand and said, "I'm always going to die, I have to die, so let me atone for your sins."
Coco chooses to use suicide to help Curly Hair achieve the redemption of the end of the world, the moment she falls, the black feathers in the sky dance with the wind in the sunset, and she is helping Curly Hair to be reborn in her own way. It turns out that death can also be a new beginning.
Haruki Murakami once said: Death is not the opposite of life, but eternal existence as a part of life. Since death is part of life, reconciliation with death is especially important for the living.
For Shunji Iwai, what matters is not how the world is, but how it feels. Three mentally ill people who were deranged in the eyes of others, full of longing and hope, convinced that the end was the end of the world. They are marginalized people in society, all good things do not belong to them, and perhaps for them, the end is the best destination.
I am @ Huahua is 1 cat: a young sister after 90, self-disciplined Capricorn, pay attention to me to chat about good films after tea and dinner.
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