Compared with "Kamakura Story", which was introduced and released on the same day, "Commemorative Hand" has a much smaller momentum, and the first day of scheduling is only 5.8%. In fact, "Commemorative Hand" is more popular in Japan, and it is the box office champion of 2017 Japanese love movies – although the label "love movie" may not be accurate.
Compared with the technical nominations of "Kamakura Monogatari" at the 41st Japan Academy Awards, the nominations for Best Picture and Best Screenplay for "Commemorative Handki" are also more valuable, although they are also returning home. However, the male and female lead actors Kitamura Andi Andi Hamabe both won the best newcomer award (the two also won the best newcomer award at the 42nd Newspaper Zhiying Art Awards), at least indicating that the director's casting is discerning and the ability to adjust the actors is extraordinary.
Poster of "Commemorative Handki"
In many ways, Commemorative Teki may remind the audience of another Japanese animated film, The Shape of Sound. The genre category of "The Shape of Sound" also has the label of "love" - and it is also inaccurate. Both films are the theme of campus life, the story in "The Shape of Sound" mainly takes place in the junior high school student stage, and "Commemorative Hand" aims at the high school student group, but because of the difference between the Chinese and Japanese education systems, the campus life state in the film is closer to that of domestic undergraduates.
The most suitable group of moviegoers is also a college student who has not yet officially entered society. Adults who have been in the social university for many years have a very easy polarization of the movie-watching experience of "Commemoration of the Hand": either indifferent or in tears. The emotional experience provided by "Commemoration of the Hand" varies according to the audience's viewing mentality and life experience, and is not suitable for moral judgment. Just as the emotions between the male and female protagonists in the film are even defined by the expression "above youda, lovers are not enough", it seems inappropriate.
Stills from "Commemorative Handki"
The plot of the film is described in words, as bland as boiled water - the film does not attract the audience with the strangeness of the plot. Haruki Shiga, a high school student book committee member played by Kitamura, accidentally finds the secret of Sakura Yamauchi's pancreatic terminal illness when he stumbles upon the hand of his classmate Sakura Yamauchi (played by Miwa Hamabe). The two people, who originally had very different personalities, approached and spent some campus time together. Sakura Yamauchi eventually died in an accident, and Haruki Shiga returned to teach at his alma mater many years later. Shiga Haruki (played by Oguri Shun) and Sakura's soon-to-be-married former friend Kyoko (played by Keiko Kitagawa) reminisce about Sakura's life and cherish Sakura's meteor-like life. Cherry blossom imagery appears many times in the movie, and the warmth and perishability of cherry blossoms reflect the warmth of Sakura's personality and the brevity of life. The film is another embodiment of the Japanese character's concept of mourning.
"Nian Nian Te Ji" tells the story of the juvenile heart, a large number of men and women talk to each other, nagging, not responsible for providing the amount of information to promote the progress of the plot, only to help the audience intervene in the sensitive and delicate heart of the character. Neither Haruki nor Sakura is a genre character in a "strong" drama film. The film is responsible for showing life without being responsible for judging life, and the audience does not have to worry about whether Sakura's entanglement with Haruki is difficult for strong "social phobia patients", or whether Sakura and Haruki's "Truth or Dare" game in the hotel room is not the woman's unilateral irresponsible "strong".
"Pure Love" films are often criticized by audiences for "false innocence", and "Commemoration of the Hand" inevitably leads to similar doubts. The film writes the age groups of male and female characters in a small way, and allows the male and female protagonists to live in a near-closed campus that maintains a certain distance from society, in order to convince the audience of the characters' personalities and the logical possibilities and rationality of their actions. The smooth and natural performance of the two newcomer actors, there is no trace of hard work, and the Best Newcomer Award is well deserved.
The movie does not deny that Sakura invited Haruki to enter the small "heart machine" played by his life trajectory, and Haruki's life trajectory has indeed changed because of Sakura. The handover between people is full of accidents and inevitability. The Commemorative Hand Chronicle records the long reverberations of the handover between people. The film uses Sakura as the driving force of the plot, and the protagonist who really grows up is Haruki. Just like in "The Shape of Sound", Nishinomiya Glass, who suffers from hearing impairment, is actually Ishida's guide on the road to growth in life. "The Shape of Sound" discusses the two-way harm of school bullying to the bullying party and the bullied party; the theme of "Commemoration of the Hand" is to open the locked heart defense, accept and embrace goodwill.
As a branch of the plot, Haruki has repeatedly rejected the gum handed by Gamu Jun out of kindness, and finally laughed, and the change in the process was precisely the result of Sakura's promotion. Kyoko competes with Haruki for Sakura's friendship, and the two have a strained relationship, but reunite years later, talking calmly about their student days, thanks to Sakura's bequest years after his death. The Slovaks are gone, and there is still a surplus. The film's choice of staggered narrative memories of the student years and the current life of adults more than a decade later is also an allusion to The fact that Although Sakura died early, she still lived in the hearts of her friends for a long time, and was a "silent unconditional support" for her friends (Zhang Ailing, "Comparison Notes").
"Commemoration of the Hand" is a pre-publicized farewell. The film does not deliberately render the heaviness of Sakura's illness, and there are very few scenes in the film where the hospital appears. Japanese and Korean film and television works earn tears from the audience, and the male and female protagonists suffering from terminal illness have become old terriers. Although the Commemorative Handbook has the same setting, it does not follow the stereotype. Sakura's positive attitude towards life sweeps away the miserable rain and wind of the same type of film, but the light is bright and the moon is clear and loose. The film is softly illuminated, and the audience's heart is also warm.
Sakura's teki is the most important prop and clue in the film, and Antoni de Saint-Exupéry's "The Little Prince" also appears many times, forming a clever echo of the theme of the film. The audience is no stranger to the picture books of "The Little Prince", and it is not difficult to see that the film intends to borrow the relationship between the little prince and the fox and the rose in "The Little Prince" to allude to Haruki and Sakura. The film does not directly let Haruki and Sakura discuss "The Little Prince", which is subtle. The film has a large number of similar treatment methods, twists and turns, leaving the audience to taste for themselves, clever and without traces. The original title of the movie is "I want to eat your pancreas", which is surprising and also has a deep meaning.
In the film, Sakura says that she once watched a TV show and heard that eating the same parts of other animals can help heal. Anthropologist Fraser pointed out in his book "Golden Branches" that the essence of "complementing the form" is homeopathic sorcery. Sakura would certainly not have read The Golden Branch, but she would obviously not fall into superstition without modern medical knowledge. Sakura's words to Haruki, "Eat the pancreas," are jokes, but they actually hope that their friendship will last forever. This line is reproduced at the end of the film in the form of narration with subtitles, creating afterglow after the question.
Oguri plays Haruki Shiga as an adult
Sakura thinks that the rest of her life is short, and she makes a wish list, but she does not realize all of them, but she dies due to an accident. There are many ups and downs in the world, and in the end, everything cannot be as expected. "Remembrance of the Hand" is a bitter elegy, but even if the past is heavy, it is not insignificant. The film is played by Oguri Shun as Haruki after adulthood, several scenes with tears in his eyes, silent and silent, and mourning his feelings. The wild song once competed for the night, and "Nian Nian Hand Ji" salvaged the tortuous hearts of young people, not to make the audience cry silently, but to arouse the tenderness in the audience's heart. Shaoguang is fleeting, and the years last forever. To remember is to echo.