In the real world, we often envy the magic and fantasy of the movie world, and even hope to become the male and female protagonists, and enter the movie world to experience the imaginative plot and world. However, the Japanese film "Chance and Imagination", which won the Berlin Film Festival Jury Prize, is only a film of daily encounters and dialogues, which can make the audience fall into an illusory story that is magically incomparable.
How exactly does director Ryusuke Hamaguchi combine "imagination" and "reality" to create a delicate state of mind under "accidental" events? Next, let's take a look at this divine work praised by film critics - "Chance and Imagination".
Through three short films, "Chance and Imagination" describes how people under the "accidental" event fight between "imagination" and "reality" and make choices in life.
None of the three short films have a plot of spilling dog blood, but through a very lifelike dialogue, focusing on the mental journey of these characters, delicately depicting their struggles and psychological difficulties.
The first paragraph, "Magic (Incomparable Illusion)", mainly describes the complicated thoughts of the girlfriend's new ambiguous object turning out to be the ex-boyfriend. This paragraph is mainly composed of three dialogue scenes.
The first dialogue scene is in a small car, and the heroine listens to her girlfriend talk about the new ambiguous object. From the dialogue, you can feel that the two sisters are very good sisters, who will share their hearts and love development after work, but under the camera, the two always leave some gaps, not so close.
Through the arrangement of the camera, it can be seen that the relationship between the two friends seems to be close but is actually somewhat estranged. In the dialogue, you can see the heroine's girlfriend share the moment of electrocution with the new ambiguous object, and even use "magic" to compare this encounter, the ambiguous imagination of the first encounter fills the entire air, the heroine also continues to comply with the topic to make questions, just at the beginning of this will only think that it is a simple girlfriend exchange, did not perceive a little wrong. However, when the girlfriend got out of the car, the heroine suddenly did not know where to go, which made people feel as if something else had happened, and the heroine's expression gradually became worried and afraid.
In the second scene, in the vast number of new creative offices, the heroine runs to her ex and chats about his new ambiguous object being her girlfriend.
As soon as the scene comes out, the "accidental event" is pointed out, and the audience also understands the worried look of the heroine in the office on her own. Then ㄧ man and woman staged a power struggle in love, the woman may not be willing to let the ex be robbed, found that the ex may still love each other deeply, the man is pulling in deep love and rejection, this dialogue scene is very wonderful, the entanglement of the relationship between men and women, unbearable, 100% in front of the audience, which is also reminiscent of Hou Mai's movie.
And the scene ends in an ambiguous, if i.e., distant quarrel, and it is not really clear whether to divide or end. But interpersonal relationships are inherently ambiguous, and it is difficult to say that they are broken at once.
The third scene is in a coffee shop, the heroine chats with the girlfriend, the ambiguous object is accidentally called by the girlfriend to show the heroine, this incident is "accidentally" embarrassing.
Through the plot of "imagination" and "reality", Ryusuke Hamaguchi shows the heroine's unwilling anger at the relationship and the fulfillment of the final release. In the boundary between imagination and reality, the photographer uses a more violent and perceptible camera shaking zoom in\zoom out, showing the heroine's strong inner contradictions and allowing the audience to focus on the heroine. Finally, the heroine left and looked at the city that was under construction, no longer shaking and uneasy, but her heart was like water.
She escapes from her struggle, which may be an illusory moment that magic can't match. Hamaguchi captures the small entanglements of life and distills them into a magical moment, where the hesitation of life swings, which is the daigo of life, and everyone must face, bear or enjoy.
The second segment, "Open Doors," is my favorite of the three short films, mainly depicting married women who are excluded from college and have to have intimate relationships with fresh meat in the same class, and the little fresh meat is humiliated by the teacher who won the novel award, so he asks the married woman to frame the teacher.
The film's main dialogue scene is how married women seduce their teachers by reading novels aloud.
Narrating lust in a recitation is probably the most poetic seduction I've ever seen. The seductive power of married women when they recite each time, with the explicit description of the text, the air is filled with the imagination of "desire", and the content and expression of the text also echo each other, and the woman stimulates the man and stimulates a stronger desire.
The dialogue scene is in the teacher's office, and the teacher's door is also open, whether it is cursing fresh meat students or married women seducing the teacher. To some extent, this is contrary to Japanese social culture (concealing evil and promoting good), showing that the teacher does not hide it whether it is right or wrong, but speaks in a bright and upright manner.
So when a married woman seduces the teacher, several times the door is closed and opened, which shows the woman's hesitation and the teacher's firmness, after all, the woman wants to frame, so she wants to hide and secretly come, but has been knocked down by the teacher's brightness.
In addition to reflecting the psychological state of the characters, this side also confronts the obscure description of "desire" in Japanese film and television works, if "desire" is also a part of life, the deliberate concealment only makes it seem disgraceful. In the end, the woman was defeated by the teacher's "open door" and finally honest with herself and the situation she faced.
What's interesting, however, is that in the five years since the married woman misremembered the letter, the backgrounds of all three characters have changed. Women "accidentally" meet fresh meat classmates, and they begin to "imagine" what happened to the teacher in the past five years.
Finally women honestly express their desires, whether it is a form of revenge or a liberation after years of repression. The film ends here, leaving the audience with more vague imaginations. Hamaguchi's depiction of "sexual desire" is very poetic, making it a scene of small talk about life, and the momentary spirituality he captures continues to fuel in the hearts of moviegoers:
"How long have we not been honest with ourselves?"
The third segment, "Once Again", is the most dramatic of the three short films, as well as the most heart-warming one.
It mainly describes the wonderful experience of two middle-aged women who mistakenly recognize each other as high school classmates and carry out the healing of trauma. The very wonderful point of this film is that before the two people found themselves mistakenly recognizing each other, they had been chatting for a long time, and even sat in each other's homes, and these previous chats did not make the two feel strange?
In fact, the director deliberately let the two people have an indescribable embarrassment and alienation when talking, but the audience will only think that it is too long to see each other, caused by time and years. However, when the answer was revealed, even the audience was stunned, and the sound of doubt could be heard in the live cinema hall.
But even better is yet to come, as both demand that they speak their minds as the high school classmate who confessed. Corresponding to the first two short films, it shows the honesty and sincerity between interpersonal relationships. In this way, the two embarked on the road of healing, and the blue heroine finally gave a complete account of her regrets from many years ago, and the white heroine also remembered the name of the classmate in the short and beautiful memories.
I dare not say how much life realization this "chance encounter" brought to the two protagonists, changing their future life experience. But suddenly someone listens to you and accompanies you, it is as if you are "once again" back in adolescence, "imagining" that once beautiful time.
The "roller ladder" that allowed them to meet was like a magic door, opening this unique, short but beautiful experience. And the director finally before leaving, but also used the vista from the roller ladder to the bridge, the distant two people instantly close again, the woman in white moved to say that she remembered the name of her classmate, the two laughed happily!
This stranger warmly summarizes the frustrations and sorrows of the three short films, and although life is hard (through lost love, divorce, scandal, regret), there will always be such a beautiful and sincere moment.
"There is suffering and happiness, and it is not in vain to go through life!" 」
Hamaguchi Ryusuke transforms the small things of human affection into the magic of the movie, and leisurely tells the audience. The three short films are independent, but they can be compared and intertextual. 3 accidents, 3 magic pieces, through the combination of "imagination" and "reality" to refer to the desire for sincerity. Small events like "chance" will bring about a different "imagination" of life.