The Instrument of Sand (1974) was my father's favorite old film, outperforming Witness (1977) and The Hunt (1976). It's hard for me to imagine what a twenty-something, introverted, melancholy youth would see from a murder movie based on Kiyoharu Matsumoto's speculative fiction. He always said that this movie is his symphonic enlightenment film, and the mood of the music and the situation of the protagonist in the picture are completely in line, and after watching it, they understand that music can be expressed. But I always wondered if something had touched him.
At the Shanghai Film Festival, I did the "100th Anniversary of Shochiku Filming" unit, and I bought "The Instrument of Sand" and sat in the midnight scene at nine o'clock to watch it instead of my father. If it were not for my father's emphasis, I would not have paid attention to the child who played with the sand at the water's edge at the beginning, and the instruments made of sand that fell as soon as the wind blew, because this detail was equivalent to showing us the murderer and his whole fate at the beginning--the lonely child, who became an instrument by personal struggle, but was a sand instrument, which was destroyed as soon as it was blown.
Of course, the film will be a third of the way through to hint at us, the murderer that two police detectives are looking for, one old and one young, who met on the train at the beginning, that is, the genius composer and He Yingliang, who are handsome and have a complex and bitter heart. The identity of the 65-year-old deceased is unsolved, proving that if there is no two police detectives who are so desperate to cling to the truth, this case should become a cold case and a death case sealed in the archives, and the murderer may also have a "beautiful" life, which shows that the connection between the murderer and the victim is so weak that the "perfect crime" is very likely to be realized, on the other hand, it also reminds us that there is another kind of person in the world, who can pay great and lasting patience and effort for some firm belief in beyond their own interests, and this kind of person is not a "sand instrument".
This gripping story is not only the credit of director Yoshitaro Nomura, but also the strength of Matsumoto Kiyoharu's "social reasoning" on history and the environment at that time, as well as Akira Kurosawa's royal screenwriter Shinobu Hashimoto and director Yoji Yamada, who is good at writing about the daily life of ordinary civilians, who must have spent a lot of time in excavating complex human nature and adding joy to the detectives. In this summer's story, the detectives wear shirts and suits to work under the scorching sun, the heat wave rushes to us across the screen, they refuse to let go of the obsessive state of any details, considering the entanglement of public expense or self-funded travel to investigate the case, realistic, life-like, and reconciles the serious and bitter atmosphere of the crime film, especially the young detectives search for incriminating evidence along the railway line like hounds, aren't they both secretly laughing and writing?
As the case reversed, we were shocked to discover, together with the detectives, that the deceased who had been mistaken for a tramp was a well-known retired township policeman, who had good intentions for all criminals and the weak, and did their best to help, and such people could not have enemies. Why would Yingliang kill such a person? The second half of the film has been solving this suspense. What is the fate that Yingliang has designed for himself? Through hard work, give full play to musical talents, after becoming famous, he fell in love with Bai Fumei, the second generation of officials, and under the sponsorship of his father, he immersed himself in creating the piano concerto "Fate" that had been brewing in his heart for a long time. Maybe he couldn't see clearly. Seeing the end, I believe that if Yingliang is not arrested, he may fall into a long period of inspiration depletion, because the source of inspiration for creation is often love and hate, the source of fate that makes him love and hate entangled, he escaped from life, and then put into music to sublimate, his task is completed.
Does Yingliang understand what love is? Obviously, he did not love the big girl, she watched the scene he composed, the cat she caressed in her hand, perhaps a symbol of estrangement, the family cat is beautiful, people can be raised, can play, but can not understand, never suffered the sunshine girl, will not understand what is the "fate" of her fiancé to fight with music, he uses delaying the marriage date to cover up fear, escape his inevitable loveless family life, he does not believe in happiness. Nor did he love the high-ranking call girl who could do everything for him and even cover up his crimes because he was pregnant. Pen and ink do not need too much, we can imagine that Yingliang, who carries the secret of his life, the warmth that can be obtained from the bottom woman will be more intimate and more real, but his secret leads him to choose a woman of high social status, change his origin, compared with other men, he is the most unlikely person to marry her. The entanglement between the two of them several times makes us suspect that he may have had some sympathy for her. The child in her womb is not only a burden to block his future, but also forces him to face the parent-child relationship that he does not dare to establish, for him, this child, is an unborn demon that must be killed. Men who do not love their fathers are lost, and escaping the fate of father and son will also escape their own lives.
Does Yingliang really not love his father? When he stands on the stage, at the same time, the detectives begin to talk about the whole case like Sherlock Holmes, and the film enters its most extraordinary and colorful passages - Yingliang and the band's performance, the detective's statement, and the past of Yingliang and his father under the soundtrack of "Fate", the three cross-editing, pushing the audience's eagerness to solve the puzzle to the climax of the plot. This is the essence of how the music of my father's generation interprets people's moods and circumstances. Sugano Hikari and Wasakawa Yashishi and others, do very emotional, very imposing, slightly old-school soundtrack, later Iwashiro Taro and others, should also be the soundtrack composer of this school, this kind of music can become an acoustic album that exists away from the film itself, and can also pull the mood of the film deeper, such as Hideyoshi and his leprosy father were driven around, under the influence of such sensational music, we seem to intuitively feel by the heart, which is also the fate of many people of that generation, Or think of yourself and the fate of your own generation. Without this music, the tragic state of not being able to even get food and freezing to nowhere would be greatly reduced by the picture (no lines). This music also has soothing, gentle and flexible passages with percussion as the skeleton, which can be matched with the true feelings of two fathers and sons who are happy to be in difficult situations and rely on each other in the midst of suffering.
Children's emotions are sincere, but adults are in a complex society surrounded by countless eyes, in order to involve identity, status, marriage, career interests, to hide or even give up their sincere feelings with others, we stand in the position of Yingliang, indeed can understand his behavior, in order to preserve the existing bright, decent, normal life and glorious and rich future, a person who has a broken childhood and has not felt too much love is likely to embark on the desperate road of killing the only one who knows.
The old township police are simple, kind, and loving good people, and the misunderstanding that good people can easily walk into is that they cannot understand the hearts of people who reject or even have evil thoughts born of misery. He sent lepers to a special medical institution for isolation, which was the best measure that could be taken against this incurable infectious disease in that era, but his love could not make up for the damage caused to the young Yingliang by the separation of father and son, and forced him to re-establish the father-son relationship when Yingliang was in a smooth situation. Yingliang must have developed a real hatred for this good man who is firm in principles- this is the strength of the screenwriters' accurate grasp of human nature. Killing him, Yingliang seems to have killed the shadowy shame, killed his own past, and by killing this good man, he has completed the killing of his father. The empathy of the protagonist detective is amazing, he hears From this emotional music, Yingliang meets his imaginary father, and this twisted son's love for his father that can be contained in the music makes the audience feel sorry for Yingliang's fall. Repressed emotions and the pain of life stimulate artistic impulses, energies, inspirations, and are finally released in creation, and this film also allows the audience to experience the spiritual process of the creation of countless works of art.
The film is also a journey to explore the hearts of others, and suddenly, I understand the sadness and bitterness of my father and the youth of their generation, as the ending credits mention, "The fate between father and son is eternal." ”
Text | Zhang Yue Edited | Chen Kaiyi
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