"Happy Hour" is fleeting, and married life is difficult to continue
Artistic :★★★★☆
Entertainment :★★☆
Comprehensive evaluation: ★★★★
< H1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > director</h1>
Ryusuke Hamaguchi is the most noteworthy of a group of young Japanese directors who have recently emerged, and in 2015, his 5-hour-long "Happy Hour", which tested the audience's endurance, was selected as the competition film for the 68th Locarno Film Festival that year and won the Best Screenplay Award, and the four amateur actresses in the film (Yukie Tanaka, Kikuchi Hazuki, Maiko Mihara, and Kawamura) also won the Best Actress Award at the Film Festival. This is also the first time that a Japanese actor has won this award at the film festival, and the film was subsequently selected as the third best film of the year by the Japanese Film Shunbao; in 2018, the topical work "Night and Day" entered the official competition section of the 71st Cannes Film Festival, when the 39-year-old Hamaguchi Ryusuke was shortlisted for the main competition of the Cannes Film Festival, and was hailed as the most creative Japanese contemporary director in the international film industry after Kore-eda and Naomi Kawase.
Ryusuke Hamaguchi also starred in the film
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > the introduction to the film</h1>
This 317-minute "Happy Hour" takes 4 ordinary Japanese women as a sample, 4 women who have entered middle age, Akira, Sakurako, Fumi and Jun, travel together, participate in workshops and reading meetings together, the personalities of the 4 people are not the same, Ming Ping, who lives alone because of her husband's cheating, is very shrewd and strong, and will strongly discipline newcomers when she works; Sakurako is a typical housewife, usually has no complaints about her husband, and will hesitate for a long time when she goes out to parties; Fumi focuses on assisting her husband to organize various workshops. Reading aloud, but a weak presence in various activities, almost invisible; pure residence, no fixed job, and also having to deal with divorce proceedings.
Although they are in different environments and personalities, they have always been very good friends, until the halfway point of the film, when others know the pure secret, everything is out of balance, not only their relationship with each other has a subtle change, but also affects their respective families, in fact, the married life of these four middle-aged women can also be seen as a woman in the emotional life and family relationship from respect to divorce in the four different stages, A variety of behaviors that are difficult to judge right and wrong are interspersed with emotions, forming a marriage specimen with complex emotional life and family relationships, allowing the audience to examine and compare the four stages of marriage failure from an intuitive perspective.
How to convey more to the audience in addition to the performance and script, director Ryusuke Hamaguchi has made a rather wonderful demonstration with his unique lens language this time.
Directed by Ryusuke Hamaguchi
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right">1</h1>
The first scene at the beginning of the film is the train driving into the darkness, and then from the darkness to a little light in the distance, and finally the audience finds that this is a sightseeing train driving out of the dark tunnel, and after driving out of the tunnel, you can see the four heroines of the film sitting on the train, and very special is that they all sit with their backs to the direction of the train, this exquisite intention breaks the concept of time and space, and I prefer to see the scene of the train running backwards at the beginning of the movie as the end of the movie . After all the darkness, there is light again, and this opening is perfectly in line with the theme of the film, "Balance", the film is destroyed from the beginning of the balance state to the end of the balance, and then it is balanced again, and this beginning also makes the whole movie form a complete closed loop.
The train headed into the darkness
Sail towards the light in the distance
They all sat upside down on the sightseeing train
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right">2</h1>
In the second scene of the film, the four women of Akiko, Sakurako, Fumi, and Jun share the food they brought on the misty mountain, at which point Sakurako says "I can't see anything", and Pure follows up with "Just like our future", everyone disagrees, but Sakurako continues, "But it is really confused!" In this scene, the director uses fog to symbolize their confusion, and also hints at the subsequent plot, the position where they sit corresponds to their relationship in the later plot, Sakurako, who is more closely related to Pure and helps Pure speak, sits with Pure, while Akira fumi, who later disagrees with Pure's approach, sits on the other side of the table, and in the court scene after the movie, the four of them sit in a very subtle position, and Akira and Fumi, who have an opinion of Pure, also sit on the same side, while Sakurako, who supports Pure, sits on the other side.
The fog symbolizes their confusion
The fog also hints at the plot that follows
The position of the four of them in the courtroom was also delicate
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right">3</h1>
In the following plot, there is a scene in which Sakurako closes the glass door inside the house when she receives a call, and inside the glass door is Sakurako who is calling, and the glass reflects the shadow of her husband, and the layer of glass between the two undoubtedly hints at the estrangement between Sakurako and her husband.
The glass reflects the shadow of her husband
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right">4</h1>
The first time Ming smoked on the balcony to relieve boredom was at night, at the end of the movie she went to the balcony again to smoke to relieve boredom, at this time the sky was already bright, these two smoking shots once again dissolved the concept of time and space, the whole movie they experienced is like a dream, only happened in the time of smoking a cigarette, in fact, all their troubles for their entire life is not like a short dream.
Ming smoked on the balcony for the first time to relieve his boredom
Ming smoked again on the balcony to relieve his boredom
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right">5</h1>
When pure husband comes to pure rented home, the camera backlights on pure husband, and the black shadow forms a huge sense of oppression on the audience, at this time his face is blurred, perhaps at this time, he is the shadow that lingers in pure heart!
The husband's vague black shadow has an invisible sense of oppression on pure
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right">6</h1>
In this scene, the distance of the camera shooting from far to near, from the beginning of the far shooting, slowly switch to the side shooting, until the final close switch between the front of the two people, the lens language is very good with the relationship from estrangement to familiarity of the entire process.
At first it was a far-flung shoot
Slowly switch to side shooting
Finally, close the distance and switch head-on
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right">7</h1>
At the reading meeting, the camera records the process of Miss Nono's reading her work almost the whole time, the shooting time is almost the same as the real reading time, the audience can also listen to Miss Noh's work as if it were on the spot, but in the process of reading, the camera will insert Fumi and her husband from time to time and the pure husband and shaved shot, and the relationship between the five of them has a lot more associative meaning under the editing of the shot. The dullness and calmness of the reading process also formed a sharper contrast with the intensification of the contradictions at the following celebration banquet.
The works that Can be read aloud are actually written by the actors themselves
Shots of Fumi and shaving inserted in the reading session
Fumi has no sense of presence at all in her husband's activities
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right">8</h1>
Although there are almost no intense action scenes in the movie, whenever there is a scene in the movie where people sit quietly at the table, it is the time when the contradictions and conflicts are most intense.
The scene of sitting at the table usually has a fierce contradiction
Eating at the table also hints at the contradiction between the two
Increasingly fierce clashes at the celebration feast
People who seem to sit quietly at the coffee table are actually more conflicted
Almost all of the film's cast came from 17 amateur actors who took part in acting training at the Kobe Improvisation Research Society, which Hamaguchi ran in 2013, while four female actors with no acting experience began filming after just five months of improvisational training. The body study meeting and the reading meeting are only a few sentences on the script, mainly relying on the camera to capture the actor's improvisational performance, and the paragraph of the reading meeting has revised the script many times in order to fit the performance of the actors without acting experience, including allowing the actress who plays the female writer to improve the reading content by herself, from the script to the performance, the actor is given full freedom, and the camera completely records the process of the body study meeting and the reading meeting, so the film was filmed for 8 months before and after. Far beyond the average movie in 2-3 months, the script has also been revised 7 times, due to the addition of more improvisation, and finally extended the original 2-and-a-half-hour film to 5 hours and 17 minutes.
The 4 actresses who won the award for this film are actually amateur actors
The film's unconventional length and documentary style obviously cannot rely on traditional plot conflicts to promote, and the director sets two key scenes as the two balance points to support the film, that is, the first half of the body study session and the second half of the "water vapor" reading meeting, the first half of the study meeting to find the balance point undoubtedly refers to how to deal with the marriage relationship through communication and exchange.
Body study sessions
Reading sessions
From listening to each other's intestines, looking for the centerline of the two people, communicating thoughts through forehead contact, until finally standing back to back, these four sets of actions reveal the process and way of handling family relations in married life, and the relationship between people who are difficult to establish will collapse easily because of external forces like the chair that stood up at the beginning, and the body study will show not only the process of communication in marriage life, but also predict the collapse of married life in the second half of the plot from the beginning. Because married life is also a balance that the two try to maintain, but at the beginning of the second half of the film, the purity of the four people has been absent, and the second half of the unbalanced second half is full of contradictions from the beginning of the reading meeting, and the contradictions and conflicts of all the people in the two scenes after the reading party and the café have gradually reached an irreconcilable point, and the entire plot has finally irretrievably collapsed.
The relationship between people is like this chair that strives to maintain balance
Everyone listened to each other's guts
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > pure</h1>
Chun waved goodbye twice in the movie, at the end of the first half, she waved goodbye to the other three people, the night before saying goodbye, Chun introduced herself to three friends like the first meeting, and also unveiled the secret of her divorce that later bothered everyone, the next day Chun waved goodbye to the previous life, at the end of the movie, she waved goodbye to Sakurako's son again, and began another life of her own, these two farewells both mean pure summary of past life, but also hint at pure rebirth, The timing of Chun's first wave of goodbye is clearly carefully arranged by the director, and the time is exactly in the middle of the film, and after the departure of this person who can no longer be back-to-back, the lives of others are out of balance, and their respective lives are like the chair that fell down without balance to the brink of collapse.
Pure waved goodbye for the first time in the film
Pure waved goodbye for the second time
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > Sakura</h1>
Sakurako in the first half of the movie has been like a model housewife, blindly accommodating her husband's time, even the son who is still studying to make the little girlfriend pregnant is also she to make reparations for the husband of the head of the family, pure exodus makes her feel that she has never been understood and concerned by the family, when she opens the refrigerator, the suffocation feeling brought to her by the stuffed food makes her suddenly collapse, although she has righteously told the son who let the little girlfriend pregnant to have the responsibility of being a person. However, she herself later had a one-night stand with an unknown male student she met at the workshop, completely disregarding her responsibilities as a person.
Sakurako's son, who is still studying, gets his little girlfriend pregnant
Sakurako, who was on the verge of collapse, had a one-night stand with him
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" ></h1>
Ming lives alone because of her husband's cheating, she should hate the third party, but she has an ambiguous relationship with both the shaved brothers and sisters, and she usually teaches her newcomers to take on more important work responsibilities, and after learning the pure secret, she is distraught but she commits almost fatal work mistakes in front of the novice; Ming likes to smoke on the rooftop to relieve boredom, but the bitterness of smoking on the rooftop in the first half of the movie and the depression of smoking on the rooftop in the second half of the film will certainly not be the same reason.
Ming's fatal mistake is discovered by a novice
Ming and the shaved brothers and sisters both have ambiguous feelings
Ming and Shave actually kissed?!
Kiss your shaved sister again?!
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > Fumi</h1>
Fumi and her husband usually have no real emotional communication, they eat step by step, arrange work step by step, set the birthday celebration content step by step, praise each other step by step, cover each other with blankets step by step, and even when Fumi resolutely let her husband leave, she still handed him the car keys that her husband forgot every time, Fumi was actually the most stoic of the four, and the others listened to each other at the study meeting she organized for her husband, but she did not let others listen, The only intestinal sounds she listened to were also those of her husband Takuya, but they were secretly listened to when Takuya was asleep, and they seemed so rusty when they were supposed to communicate well at this time. After her husband was driven away by her, Fumi lost the only person who could listen to the intestinal sounds, and she fell to the ground as if she had lost her balance, and at that moment she may not have understood anything, or she may have figured out everything, but then the worst result happened to Takuya, and although this result was unexpected, it was reasonable.
After breaking up, he still habitually handed the car keys to his husband
Fumi who eavesdrops on her husband's gut sounds
Fumi fell to the ground after breaking up with her husband
After Jun leaves, all three families have completely lost their balance, Sakurako's husband falls down the stairs and cries on the side of the road, Ming breaks her leg, and Fumi's husband Takuya also has a serious car accident...
The husband who knew Sakurako had cheated on him stumbled and fell down the stairs
Sakurako's husband hid his face and wept on the side of the road
Ming, who had lost his balance, broke his leg
Fumi's husband suffered a serious car accident after breaking up, and his life and death are uncertain
< h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > shaved</h1>
The key figure who stringed the four women from beginning to end was the teacher of the seminar, Shave, they all participated in the shaving workshop, shaving was also related to each of them, he had asked Fumi who was resting between reading meetings to go with him, and finally took akira, Sakurako took shaved class, and finally had a one-night stand with another male student, jun was pregnant and left the country, also because shaved feeding told her that there was a woman who specially accepted women who had defected to the past and asked for divorce like in the Edo shogunate era. And help them force a divorce "Gencheji Temple", (see the article "Tonight's Movie Companion" for women and runaway men: feminism in the Edo period?). The balance of the shaved feed seems to be first-class, and his ability to break the balance is also first-class.
Shave asks Fumi if she wants to go with him
Finally shaved and took away Ming
There is no real sense of good and bad people in Hamaguchi Ryusuke's film, every character is facing the dilemma of life, the film is real and objective to everyone to try to escape but can not escape the dilemma, the uncertainty of the relationship between people is quite subtle, the director uses a way close to the documentary to let the audience fully immerse themselves in the atmosphere of the scene, and experience the emotional conflict with the characters. It is also through the real and delicate performance of these characters and the meticulous crafting of the script that the character development and the direction of the story finally become an inevitability.
Sakurako and Fumi, who are trying to escape but have nowhere to escape
Happy hours are always short and fleeting, even a 5-hour movie can not explain the reason why married life can not continue, married life is full of all kinds of unsolvable problems and unpredictable difficulties, and these problems and difficulties seem to be a dead cycle, again and again exhausting everyone's energy, repeatedly binding everyone's freedom, after the balance is finally broken, contradictions will inevitably erupt.
Married life is full of all kinds of unsolvable problems and difficulties
The four heroines in the film must know a lot of the philosophy of life like us, but they also have a bad life like us, in fact, there is no happy time, the so-called happy time can only make them temporarily forget the troubles that have been bothering them!
Happy times are fleeting, and married life is difficult to continue
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