"Memories of the Building Block Hut" is the most well-known highlight work of director Kato Hisato, and its theme, style, and narrative are full of a strong sense of nostalgia. This is an animated short film completed by Kato Hisanio at the age of 31. Prior to that, he had only 4 productions, including the college graduation work "The Apple Incident" and the promotional work "Five Wonders" for the band. After that, he did not see his public works again, which once puzzled fans who liked his works.
The film is full of French atmosphere, using impressionist painting style and strong Van Gogh colors, telling a story about memory that is complex but concentrated, and implicitly reflects on Hongda's social problems.
The film revolves around the old man inadvertently opening the memory valve in order to find a pipe, like peeling an onion layer by layer to show the course of life, warm with a faint sadness. For the review of this film, many people focus on the beauty of the memory, but what I want to express is not the same.
Why do people like memories? Some people say: Because the reality is not satisfactory, it will often think of the beauty of the past.
So, immersed in the good memories of the past, can you break free from the shackles of reality?
In my opinion, good movies can always be thought-provoking, and "Remembering the Building Blocks Hut" is a reflection on reality with memory, and immersion in it does not help to complete life. Therefore, this article analyzes why we should not be afraid of the future, do not read the past, and realize the quiet goodness of the years when we are looking for the direction of life, from the process of diving into the deep sea of memory in the story, to the process of returning to reality to toast the past, as well as the growth environment and the allegorical performance of the film by director Kato Hishito.
<h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" >01, the wooden house contains a lifetime of memories, can not be seen, nor can not be exhausted</h1>
On the vast sea, there are houses floating alone, some of which have been twisted to fall, and some of which are still standing like a lighthouse. The old man was in his hut, smoking a pipe, sometimes looking at the pictures on the wall, alone in the face of the rising sea waters on life and the submergence of life.
(1) Flashback life: Skillfully present the warmth of the past, which contrasts with the reality of loneliness
The old man always wore a pipe, from getting up to living at home, he never left his mouth.
In the beginning of the plot, the old man is in a relaxed state. However, when the pipe accidentally fell into the sea under the hut, he began to become restless. Habitually touching the mouth, but found that the pipe is no longer there, try to change the new one but do not like. So the old man sneaked into the house that had been flooded into the sea and tried to retrieve his beloved pipe. And the film opens the valve of the past scene performance with the old man's diving action.
It turned out that the old man's house was like an iceberg, revealing only a roof on the surface of the sea, while there were many layers submerged in the sea. In the rooms on different floors, the various stages of life of the elderly are recorded. From the acquaintance of the wife, to the daughter's visit with the object, to the appearance of love when she was young. The old man dived down layer by layer, and his past life was also flashbacked.
The memories of diving are full of warmth, in reality, he is only alone, and he has to constantly build houses to avoid being submerged by the sea. And the dead and silent roof next to it seems to tell the audience the cruelty of reality. Compared with the two, the contrast between the moods is strong.
From a unique perspective, the film uses the motivation of the old man's pipe to look for after falling, and unfolds the memories of past life scenes. Using flashbacks, through the good memories of the past in the twilight years, it highlights the loneliness and dilemma of reality.
(2) Metaphorical expression: holding a pipe of half-life emotions, building a new wooden house
If you want to tell a story with rich meaning, there will be many expressive elements of feature films, but short films must be very condensed. Therefore, we see a lot of excellent short films, all of which have a metaphorical expression.
In "Remembering the Brick Hut", the pipe, the rise of the sea, and the fortified hut all have their own metaphors.
Pipes are the beloved object of the elderly, and they are held from the moment they get up, whether they are working or resting. In my opinion, the pipe in the film shows the way of placing the memory, like the pipe in the mouth, it is a habit, it does not affect life, but it is also inseparable from it. If one day you are lost, even a new pipe is difficult to adapt to, because it carries memories. And how can memories be replaced?
Sea levels are rising, and there are two layers of meaning. First of all, with the emergence of the problem of climate warming, the rise in sea level has become unstoppable, and the crooked and collapsed huts on the sea surface in the play allude to the situation of life. The years are merciless, and people will eventually come to the day of being drowned. Secondly, in reality, the geographical environment of the Japanese island country and frequent natural disasters are also the metaphorical expressions of the director in his works, so as to arouse people's attention to the natural environment.
The elderly continue to build houses, ostensibly to cope with the threat of rising sea levels, but in fact, it is more a metaphor for the loneliness and helplessness of people in their old age. The aging of Japanese society is not a new thing, and the decline in fertility rate has led to many people having no one to rely on in their later years. You don't have to find a way to survive on your own. Just like the huts in the film have been emptied, they may have passed away, they may have the opportunity to move out of there, but the old man has no one to rely on, and can only continue to build houses.
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02. Behind the brilliant idea of "Building Block Hut" is the imagination of Kato Hishinsheng's thoughts, and it is incompatible with the trend</h1>
Kato Hisahito is not a prolific director, but each one has a unique perspective, so that although he can only see a limited number of his works in China, there are still many loyal fans who love it.
In the past Academy Awards for Best Animated Short Films, many of them have discussed the good, evil, beauty and ugliness of human nature, as well as attention to social issues, such as "Balance", "Bao Bao", "The Old Man and the Sea" and so on. The reason why "Memory Building Block Cottage" can win the award, the film's story theme creativity is on the one hand, and the thinking of larger social issues outside the storyline must also have a positive effect.
Director Hisato Kato is Japanese, and in his growth, he has experienced environmental degradation problems such as increasingly serious climate warming and rising sea levels, coupled with the innate geographical conditions of the island country and the impact of the aging of Japanese society, which has given him a rich understanding of the meaning of life.
It's not uncommon for films with memories, with Anna and Bella evoking memories from photo albums and rocking chairs witnessing social change with a chair. From this point of view, there is precedent for the subject matter of "Memories of the Building Block Hut".
Compared with the performance space of live-action movies, animation has certain narrative shortcomings, but this actually sets off the wonderful creativity of Kato Hisato's memory carrier. The design of "Building Blocks in the Water Hut" not only carries the performance of the story content, but also sublimates the connotation of the film without traces, and implies the thinking of social reality problems, such as the old and the restless, the climate warming, etc.
The sublimation of these realistic thinking did not destroy the overall warm tone of the film, and the performance was melancholy but not sad.
The creative and dreamlike plot of Kato's works may seem absurd, but they are influenced by the Japanese environment and culture. For example, in "The Diary of a Traveler", pigs with exaggerated slender legs, cities floating in the sea driven by frogs, rabbits flying to the moon on trams, and so on. The subsequent Red Berry continued the characters and absurdity of the work, only to be brighter in tone.
In "Memories of a Building Block Hut", the idea is similar to the first part of "A Traveler's Diary", and the home is also in the sea, from a frog to a stacked hut, which makes the climate problem more extreme.
Kato Hisato seems to be out of step with the trend, and when the current three-dimensional animation CG technology and IMAX have become the direction of trend creation, he is not moved, always adhering to the simple picture texture of traditional two-dimensional animation, and depicting his strange and rich inner world like an impression style painting. In fact, he was exposed to a lot of Japanese animation and Disney animation in his childhood, but in his subsequent experience of foreign art education, the concept of "establishing a free creative and critical spirit, and forming an artistic personality as the goal" had a great influence on him.
"No dialogue" is characteristic of Kato's works, but music plays an important role in it. "Memories of the Brick Hut" is still in collaboration with Kenji Kondo, and the music of the whole film slowly flows out of a piano. Similar to the previous "Diary of a Traveler" and "Red Berries", there are no complex melodies and harmonies, only simple but direct piano music.
As Walter Motch puts it, "Auditory metaphors give the film a poetic mood." "Each floor of the room in the plot is a memory, and the musical mood also changes, either gloomy or lyrical, creating an atmosphere of nostalgia and sadness, and fully expressing the audiovisual art of the film like the finishing touch."
03, from the memory of good to the reality of thinking, rather than saying that the film is nostalgic for the past, it is better to say that it knows how to let go and realize that the years are quiet</h1>
"Memories of the Building Blocks Cabin" cleverly presents a portrait of life, which arouses strong resonance among the audience in the warmth of memories. But with the rising threat of realities at sea level, the contrast between good memories and harsh realities makes one reflect on how life should go on. Is it memory to relieve the pain of reality? Or is it brave to step out of memory and break free from the shackles of reality?
(1) Don't let reconstructing memory deceive yourself, and look at past lives rationally
As the old man opened the door of memory under the first layer of the sea, the past scenes in his mind poured into his mind, allowing him to continue to dive down to pursue. In these houses, there is the company of lovers, the joy of the daughter's childhood, and the entanglement of love when she was young. But why are the memories full of beautiful scenes? Where are those quarrels and gatherings?
In fact, there is a concept in psychology called "episodic memory". This memory is related to personal experience, it will naturally record the scene of life and maintain a certain plot. However, this memory is not stable and unchanging, and it also has the characteristics of dynamic adjustment.
Professor Philip Zimbardo, a well-known psychologist at Stanford University, also proposed the theory of "reconstructing memory":
In fact, we reconstruct memories. When we reconstruct an event (thought, emotion, or image), we use memory fragments to fill in the gaps in memory as if we remembered it, rather than the actual situation of the event itself. Most of the time, memory reconstruction will go so well that you simply don't realize how much of the memory content is actually the result of the reconstruction.
In simple terms, memories may not exactly match the facts.
For example, in the film, the old man remembers the scene where his daughter takes her boyfriend home, perhaps he was not very satisfied with the man at that time, and secretly warned his daughter to consider the relationship carefully. But years after everything has passed, the current situation makes him expect a moment of warmth, unconsciously reinforcing the scene of memory, and selectively forgetting the unhappy dispute.
Therefore, although memory is beautiful, it is not appropriate to over-immerse it, and it is necessary to avoid falling into the "illusion" of reconstructing memory and amplifying the problem of reality.
(2) Rebuild the reality of the hut, toast to the past, and realize the quiet of the years
When the old man surfaced and returned to the reality hut, his heart was full of emotions. In addition to the recovered pipe, there is also an extra goblet in the hand, which has the same emotional sustenance as the pipe. The table was filled with two glasses of wine, and with the sound of cups, the movie came to an abrupt end.
This glass of wine is not only a tribute to the warmth of the past, but also has the meaning of toasting with the past and looking forward freely.
Feng Zikai said in "Not Spoiled and Unfazed through Life": Do not be confused in the heart, do not be trapped in love. Don't be afraid of the future, don't think about the past. So, all right!
The past is like the wind, whether it is good or bad, for people trapped in reality, there is no substantial help.
Of course, we need the strength of spiritual or spiritual contentment to sustain ourselves from being overwhelmed by the realities of reality.
However, if you are always immersed in the beauty of the past and do not extricate yourself, it becomes a bondage to life and binds your own thoughts.
Facing the real dilemma, finding a solution, and taking the road of the future more firmly, this is a more meaningful thing.
Time will eventually dilute everything, no matter how good the past is, how cruel the reality is, we have to live in the present and bravely move forward, after all, life must go on.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > concluding remarks:</h1>
Kato's works are very distinctive, absurd ideas, through the philosophy of life, but also naturally express the concern for real social issues. Ingenious, not contrived, is worth savoring over and over again.
The old man's house in "Memory Building Blocks Cottage" has been built smaller and smaller, like the top of a tower. The sea that flooded into the house forced the old man to keep building a hut, isn't this the life of the twilight years? So, choose to linger on the beauty of the past, or brave to go to tomorrow, although Kato Hishinsheng did not give his answer in the film, but with the bumper picture at the end and the bright music, I think he chose the latter.
Resources:
The creative philosophy of the Oscar-winning animated short film Memories Brick Cottage | Yu Tianliang
Factors influencing Kato's animation creation in the island environment | Wang Jiapei, Li Qingqing
"Memories of building blocks hut": a real life of loneliness and warmth | Shi Wei