The 92nd Academy Awards ceremony came to an end, and the best animated short film was directed by Matthew Excerpt from A. Cherry's "Hair Love". Looking back at the Oscars' favorite short films in the past five years, without exception, they are all about personal growth, family feelings, and reflection on human nature, focusing on current social issues.
Speaking of the excellent short film that is missing today in pursuit of happiness and paying tribute to life, we have to mention "The Building Block Cabin of Memories", which won the 81st Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film.
Memory Building Block Hut is a 2008 animated short film produced by Japanese animation companies (Robot Communications) directed and written by Mr. Hisahito Kato, and is a new work after his director", "The Traveler's Diary". The animation uses the artistic texture of watercolor, the sallow tone is thicker than the fresh style common in Japan, combining a series of symbolic elements, expressed through imaginative forms, giving the audience a new perspective.
At first glance, I don't know what I like in the painting, but then I am already the person in the painting - this is the biggest feeling brought to me by "The Building Block Cottage of Memories".
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > the opening image of the innovation</h1>
In the dimly lit cabin, the old man sat alone, in front of him was a wall full of photos, recording his life as a family, a child, and a widow. Suddenly, with his pipe in hand, he got up and pulled open the lid of a cellar on the floor, took out his fishing rod and began fishing. This scene sets the audience with suspense: Why would anyone fish at home? Did he live on a boat?
In the next scene, the picture turns outdoors, solving all the doubts. All around are houses standing on the surface of the water, cooking smoke, petrels circling, and under each house is supported by crooked buildings under the water. A night passed, and the old man who woke up had just gotten out of bed, and his feet touched the water—and the water had flooded up again. He was already surprised and built another floor with materials. It turned out that the water would rise every once in a while, and in order to be able to continue to live, everyone had to increase the height of the floor all the time. The old man was able to fish because the next layer was soaked in the water.
The animated short film is only ten minutes long, so it will attract the attention of the audience at the beginning. A few shots make the moral of the whole story suddenly enlightened: the flood is like time, approaching uncontrollably upwards, and people are gradually retreating. Abandoning many heavy objects in life, only a table and a chair, a bed and a pipe are left.
The color and style of "Memories of the Building Block Hut" are more inclined to French lyricism, but director Kato Hishinsheng still mixed the Japanese aesthetic consciousness - Yu Ning in it, making it more representative of the global context. It is a zen of things, which represents the beauty of a sense of age, even if the appearance is mottled and faded, it cannot stop (or even strengthen) the simple and simple beauty. The more prosperous the city, the more it can resonate with the silence, such as the popularity of MUJI in the world.
And the surrounding or abandoned or dilapidated houses, showing the choices of different people, different choices bring fate. A lone angler, putting a hook into a small cellar opening, expecting to catch a fresh fish or a little memory of the past? Last year, in this door, the faces of people were peach blossoms. People don't know where to go, and peach blossoms are still smiling in the spring breeze. When I first read Cui Hu's poem, I only felt regret, but when I saw this old man sitting dryly, it was a feeling of pity and choking that "the other person is broken, the person is not seen, and the person goes to the empty building".
< h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > layers of memories</h1>
When the old man moved, the pipe he used to use accidentally fell through the cellar entrance to the lower floor. He wanted to change a new pipe, but when he saw the wetsuit, he decided to stretch his spine that had been rickety for a long time, put on the wetsuit, close his eyes and lean back and gently plant himself into it, planting a life buried by time.
The footsteps he searched for did not stop at the moment when he picked up his pipe, and the old house where he once lived gave him the idea of going back layer by layer. Pulling back the lid with difficulty, the blistered white world slowly takes on color because of the memories. Whispering softly in front of his wife's bedside, the family taking pictures happily, the restrained son-in-law who came for the first time, the daughter who was about to be late for school, the child with blocks... Finally arrived at the first floor, the first date of the woods Yerba Buena, they personally built their own love nest, raised a glass to celebrate the arrival of a new life. The melodious sound of the harmonic piano is muted because of the abrupt fading picture, and the old man who is relatively free to drink is holding up his empty arm.
Jian Wei said in "The Faint Woods" that in the pompous apocalyptic wasteland, I was like a sad eagle, perched on a dead tree in the dark night, looking into the distance, combing through memories, searching for stories that made the corners of my eyes wet during the flight. It is always necessary to find one or two things, one or two people, and carry them across the threshold of the century, like a lantern, in order to settle down in the new century.
The old man "grunted" bubbling and bubbling, all the way downstream in search of memories. Even though the torrent of time flooded the houses where he lived together, he still lived with those beautiful fragments.
The old man retrieved the original cup, the warm red tablecloth was different from the original, but he still touched the cup with a sense of ceremony. It is the clean crispness that keeps the film from falling into the trap. Tonight there is no wind, no rain, and no you, but I salute the wind, the rain, and you.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > humanistic-based animation style</h1>
Technology, in recent years, seems to have become the protagonist of movies and animation, 3D prevails, special effects are piled up, and audiences who originally expected to appreciate different life stories through the screen seem to have become "appreciation experts" of technology. Because of this, the Academy Award for Animated Short Films is particularly fond of thoughtful and artistic works. For example, the early years of "The Old Man and the Sea", "Danish Poet".
"The Building Block Cottage of Memories" uses the sea tide, gulls, guitar, and vertical flute to render a quiet and distant atmosphere, using the house as a box to preserve the best memories of the old man's life; using the pipe as a key to guide the old man to retrace the past. The memories come in a flashback way, and the old man is like a cotton hanging from a branch gradually filling up and stiffening, and then retracting the green fruit, blossoming and splintering. Immersing himself in memories will be buried in the bottom of the sea, but the memories will also support him to float to the surface, leaving warm hope.
Japan is an island nation located on the seismic belt, and disasters are frequent, but it also has the world's beautiful cherry blossoms and coastline, and spring and summer are as wonderful as fairy tales. Therefore, the Japanese have a pessimistic consciousness in their bones, thinking that the beauty will eventually dissipate, but this does not prevent them from cherishing the present and pursuing the beauty in the broken. In this creative environment, whether it is Masters such as Hayao Miyazaki, Katsuyo Otomo or Oshii Mori, the works of The Imagination contain the emotions of compassion and compassion, and are keen to explore society and human nature.
As an animation director who is good at magic realism, Kato Hisato's more representative work should be "The Diary of a Traveler", from which he can already see his thinking between humanities and art. In "I Am Sam", the little daughter asks her father, "Daddy, why is the sun yellow, because the memories are preserved in the sun?" "Kato's works are usually old and warm colors, restrained, slow and deep, and the emotional tone of the story is usually more pessimistic, but it always bites the audience's emotions. But no matter how long or short, it can always contain deep thinking, and a thousand people look at it, and there are a thousand emotional appeals.
Memories are like icebergs on the sea, stretching under the tip of the tip, and when you are old but speechless, please open the box of memories.