In my spare time, I was bored and watched a new movie, Natsuko Kobayashi's "Song of birds", I haven't seen a Japanese movie in a long time, not the kind of movie you think, it's a serious Japanese movie.
The overall tone of the film is mainly black, and most of the cameras show Tokyo at night.
Images such as jellyfish, starry skies, black holes, and abstract masks appear repeatedly.
In Tokyo, where the lights are red and the paper is drunk, the heroine Asuka is a young cleaner who works the night shift at the Shiratori Group. The Shiratori Group is a star-making factory. It has many singers and a talent show "My Song".
Birds
Asuka's life is always two points and one line, after returning home from the night shift, the child Wenxiang will go to school, the husband will also go to the supermarket, and there is a mother-in-law with neuropathy at home.
Such a family is actually a true portrayal of the life of most Japanese people, in the ultra-fast pace of life in Tokyo, Japan, the pressure of life is increasing, most people are engaged in jobs they do not like, there is a desire for dreams in their hearts, but only desire, life has been suppressed breathless. I had to hide my dreams deep in my heart, and slowly die with the passage of time.
Asuka does her best to take care of the family, her biggest hobby is to watch the TV talent show "my song", when watching others become singers and realize their singing dreams, the small flame of hope in her heart is ignited, but her husband laughs at her, "What song do you want to sing, is it the song of the vacuum cleaner?" In her husband's eyes, she was just a cleaner and could not sing at all, which aroused the strength to realize her dreams and was ready to pay a high price.
The film is presented in flashbacks, with Asuka participating in the TV talent show My Song, performing a repertoire involving a big-name composer who has died, Ryo Omoto. The group boss and the second in command interrogated Asuka in the office about what the relationship with Omoto Ryo had, and in order to wash away her innocence, she recalled her previous dark social journey step by step in order to learn music.
In order to learn, Asuka began to sell his body and use the money he had exchanged for his body to pay for the cost of studying. She loves music so much that she has a quote in the film: "When I was young, I would walk around my boring town, listen to music, I even wanted to sing together, I didn't dare to do it anymore, and then I felt like music changed my world, my world became beautiful, it changed everything." 」 ”
Some of the heroine's mental journey in the film has been presented with animation, which may also be a compromise to avoid a lot of sensory stimulation and become a film of desire. Music is a powerful force. It pushes people to do crazy things.
Asuka's guests continue to increase, and her husband finds the clue, but Asuka strongly denies it, she cries and calls in the bathroom of the restaurant, she wants to stop this, but under the lobbying of the intermediary, she wipes away her tears and life continues.
This time her guest turned out to be a fat otaku— her husband's lewd colleague. She wanted to stop the incident, but her lewd colleague named her husband. Asuka has some collapse and has to satisfy the perverted demands of the otaku.
Of all the men she came into contact with, there was not a single one who was unsympathetic. Perhaps this is the greatest sorrow of women. Obviously, people are talented, but they have to exchange their bodies for opportunities to show their talents. This reminds me of the female stars Shirley and Gu Hola who committed suicide in South Korea some time ago, all of whom were cardamom years old, but under the patriarchy of South Korea, they could not bear the unspoken rules and chose to commit suicide and die.
Asuka finally participated in the recording of the show, but did not choose the previous tracks, and wrote a particularly ugly tune on the spot. The second in command of the group was embarrassed and angry, and wanted to stop the live broadcast, but was stopped by the boss, who said that the song was called "Death of the Music Show".
At the end of the movie, I thought that Asuka was finally reborn and could go to success, but as soon as the camera turned, a person in black clothes and pants led her to the room, obviously the second in command, and the ending was self-evident.
She jumped from one abyss to another. I think she was desperate.
The overall style of the film is dark, and a jellyfish often appears in the shot, which should be a metaphor for the heroine to live in the deep sea like a jellyfish.
And a shot outside the window that appears a dozen times over and over again in the movie, outside the window are two bare gray trunks, but with some light. As if expressing the light of hope of the heroine. At the end of the movie, the jellyfish on the screen turns into a red bird. Maybe the heroine has achieved her so-called success, but she has paid a bloody price.
At the beginning of the movie, Asuka sits behind the piano and says, "I'm Asuka, this is my song, I hope you like it." "This is perhaps the purest wish of Asuka's life!" However, no one pays for music anymore, which is the greatest sadness. Birds can fight for music, which is also the most terrible thing, but it is also the most helpless thing.