When it comes to Japanese movies, the first thing that comes to mind is him — Kore-eda.
He directed "Sea Street Diary", "Thief Family", "Like Father Like Son" and so on, this series of family healing movies.
If Miyazaki is the healer of the anime world, then Kore-eda is the healing king of the film industry.
And today, the movie I want to recommend is by Miwa Nishikawa, Kore-eda's first disciple.
If Kore-eda is good at depicting the healing of the family, then Miwa Nishikawa is good at describing the details of society.
She is not only a Japanese director, but also a creative and talented writer, and her works have been shortlisted for many important Japanese literary awards such as the Naoki Prize, the Yamamoto Goro Award, and the Mishima Yukio Prize.
And the film she directed this time, although niche, can make people reminisce for a long time.
"A Beautiful World"
The film's team is very strong, adapted from Sasaki Ryuzo's Ito Shoshu Literary Prize novel "Identity Account", based on real people, plus Nishikawa Mikazu herself as the screenwriter.
It is conceivable that the script of this movie is definitely not bad, and it also has a high score of 8.2 in Douban.
The film stars Hiroshi Kosho, a Japanese actor, who is also known as the Chinese version of Chen Daoming by Chinese audiences, and you can imagine how influential he is.
Since appearing in the public eye in 1983, he has won all the film-related awards in Japan and is known as a national treasure actor in the Japanese film industry.
He has never starred in a bad film, people call him the vane of a good movie, and it is conceivable that the "Beautiful World" in which he participated, with him as the lead actor, can receive much attention.
However, this film was not released in China, and when it was released at the North Film Festival, although the number of viewers was not high, after the end of the film, the applause was endless.
The film revolves around a former mafia gang member sentenced to prison for homicide, released and reintegrated into society after serving a 13-year sentence, vowing to work on a new life.
The so-called "Identity Account" specifically refers to a record book used to record the past resume of prisoners, and this record book is generally not public, but the male protagonist is an exception.
He obtained the "Identity Account" from the prison authorities, which recorded his past "glorious record", and planned to use it to appear on TV programs after he was released from prison to find his mother, who had been lost since childhood.
However, the protagonist Mikami, who has been out of society for thirteen years, has long been unaccustomed to the lifestyle of the new era, and his gangster communication method has long changed.
Japanese gangs, which originated as groups of the samurai class, played a very "active" role during World War II.
At that time, because of the war in Japan, the chickens and dogs were restless, and the order was once chaotic, and the emergence of gangster groups alleviated the chaos at that time to a certain extent, and even became a "good helper" to help the government maintain order.
So, the first thing that comes to mind when people mention Japanese gangsters is that this is a group that has a state public platform to recognize the legal status of gangsters.
However, with the development of the Japanese economy, the development of gangsters has gradually declined.
As of 2017, the total number of people in The Japanese underworld is only 130,000. Not only is the number of people declining, but aging has also become a serious challenge for Japanese gangsters.
In the past, the violent era of knife and gun operation has become a history, and now Japanese gangsters emphasize "try not to shoot, try not to move the knife", and Japan's largest gang "Yamaguchi Group" has explicitly prohibited members from drawing guns in public.
However, as far as Mikami, who was once the bodyguard of the gang, the "benevolence" that he once pursued has long ceased to exist, and people have begun to become selfish.
"Young mothers can take their children to foster families; when they encounter small gangsters and robberies on the side of the road, passers-by also stand by and watch."
People mention the underworld, they have been avoided, but Mikami has to bear the necessary price for having joined the gang.
Because of his former gang membership and his disconnect from society, he is still stuck in the way he worked 13 years ago, and it has become extremely difficult to find a job.
Beginning in 2011, governments at all levels in Japan promulgated the Ordinance on the Exclusion of Violent Groups, which clearly stipulates the code of conduct that citizens must follow if they are not identified as gang members.
The promulgation of this regulation not only draws a clear line between the people and the underworld, but also makes it difficult for gangsters to move forward in life.
In addition to not being able to open a bank account, renting a house, and not allowing their children to attend ordinary schools, there are many restrictions on life that bring inconvenience to their lives.
After Mikami was released from prison, because he could not find a job, he could not open a bank account, and even the application for low insurance became difficult.
The TV show that originally helped others find their relatives saw the particularity of Mikami's identity, and then changed the theme: whether the former gangsters who had changed their minds and face could be re-made ordinary people.
In the film, a very heart-wrenching data is also given: many people with prison backgrounds will return to prison after 5 years of prison - they have been stripped of their social identity, because they cannot withstand the world's eyes, even if they are patient with their tails between their legs, they will eventually unconsciously return to their old business and repeat the same mistakes.
In fact, Mikami is the same.
As soon as he rented the house, Matsumoto, who was the street director, immediately learned his identity. When he went to the supermarket to buy something and paid the bill to leave, Matsumoto preconceived that he was stealing and took him into a cubicle to search.
There is also Ryutaro, as a screenwriter, when he sees Mikami fighting with the little because he went to help others, he is frightened, and his thought is not to help, but to escape, afraid that the next person to be beaten is him.
Although the misunderstanding was finally solved, this series of behaviors was an insult to Mikami.
However, he chose to endure alone and did not blame.
But when he feels a little bit of human warmth, he will be grateful to the point of tears.
Ryutaro worked hard to help him find the staff of the welfare home where he lived when he was a child, and although the other party had already remembered something, a previous hospital song brought Mikami back to his youth.
Playing soccer with children in the open space and bathing with Ryutaro made him feel one of the few warmths.
Mikami, who chose to start a new life, found a job in a nursing home to take care of the elderly, and those who had helped Mikami helped him celebrate his life at his home and gave him a bicycle.
At that moment, Mikami, like a child, was fully revealed on his face, and he also had the motivation to live again.
They told Mikami to learn to be patient and not impulsive, and he did the same, but it was heart-wrenching.
In the nursing home, he met the disabled caregiver, although the other party was a fool in the eyes of others, but he was very kind at heart.
But the "different" disabled care worker is often bullied by others, just bumped into by Mikami, according to his previous personality, he will definitely rush up and beat others, but he remembers the advice of his friends, be patient, endure until the high blood pressure soars and falls to the ground.
When he heard others talking and laughing at the disabled care worker, Mikami's eyes clearly revealed anger, but he still chose to be patient.
When he left the nursing home after work, the disabled nurse took a bouquet of freshly picked flowers and gave it to Mikami, saying that it was picked before the storm and hoped that he would accept it.
His kindness made Mikami feel guilty and heartbroken, and that night, Mikami died clutching the bouquet of flowers in his hand.
The movie is over, but what the movie conveys isn't over yet.
The title of the film is "A Beautiful World", but people can't feel many beautiful moments.
But human nature is to find beauty from these indifferences.
For ordinary people, this may be the most prosaic life, but for Mikami, who has been abandoned by society, he can feel the warmth, and it is through Mikami that we can also feel the waves under this peaceful life.
The director also uses irony to expose the most common bullying in society, whether it is stereotypical prejudice or verbal humiliation, if you can't bear it, then you will gradually go to the edge of society.
People can't help but want to cry, a little sad, a little sad, and they will feel that Mikami may be the normal person.