No one is an island,
Can be self-sufficient.
Everyone is a piece of the continent,
Part of the whole.
If the sea washes away a piece,
Europe is less,
Like a cape lost a corner,
It's like losing a piece of your friend or your own territory
The death of anyone is my loss,
Because I am a member of humanity,
So don't ask who the death knell is for.
It's for you.
—John Dorne
I love John Dorne's "No Man is an Island."
Why is this poem attached to the beginning of the article? Because the theme of the movie "Song of the Quiet Cafe" that I am going to write today is this:
No one is an island, you always have to have a connection with people. Even if you are a complete loner, you will still have some kind of subtle contact with people who are related to you at a certain time through some way, producing a vibration of the heart, so that your loneliness is suddenly eliminated. As the famous writer Zhou Guoping said: "Loneliness is the fate of people, love and friendship cannot eradicate it, but they can soothe it." ”
In Zhihu, I have seen a topic: How do you endure loneliness?
A man with the online name "Director Apan" said: "After the relationship between two people reaches a certain height, it will become very fragile, and both sides will feel that the other person is not honest enough or does not care enough about themselves, love is like this, friendship is also like this." I should admit first that I wasn't honest enough. No matter how selfless I pretend to be in front of outsiders, I know in my own heart that I am selfish. I don't want my friends to meet new friends because I'm afraid they'll leave me. I don't want my lover to praise any of the opposite sex, because my jealousy is very strong. I was a boy, but I was flirtatious like a girl, but I understood that what other people wanted to do was not about me. I resisted strange feelings, resisted communication, so I simply shut myself up, like a high-cold pretending dog. After becoming a habit, it becomes natural and comfortable. I don't deal with strangers and don't bother to forge new friendships, I seem to have a whole new sense of security, just a little lonely. Pack up before you go out and don't care if people say I'm dressed like a funeral. When I went to the restaurant to eat, the waiter instead gave a compliment and thought I was not very good to deal with. Go to Happy Valley for a roller coaster ride, don't care what other people think, I shout loudly, shout fuck your mother. When I'm tired from work, I just lie down and go to the fucking liquor bureau dinner. When I meet a like-minded friend, I can't say three words, and I don't stick to the wine. When I meet someone I like, just look at it more, I know exactly how many pounds I have. ”
Loneliness to such a state, can be regarded as real loneliness. Many people wrap their hearts in fear that after opening up, they will be more lonely in the future.
Japanese people seem to be particularly fond of coffee-themed movies. I've seen several films, including the incredible tale of the seaside played by Yoshinaga Sayuri. Coffee has a healing effect, and coffee can make people no longer lonely. Two strangers sit together drinking coffee, and from strange to familiar, the loneliness suddenly disappears.
The pace of Japanese literary films is basically very slow. You have to have leisure, be able to calm down, be patient, and go deep into the protagonist's life, fate, and heart with the plot little by little, to find those subtleties that can resonate with you.
Unlike Korean films that pursue a tortuous plot and bizarre story structure, Japanese films have always been bland and full. It's like chatting with an audience, telling you a story that's happening around you, the details of some people's lives, and the emotions inside. At first, it may feel dull, but at the end, it finds that it has already entered your heart and touched the deep affection hidden in your heart. You don't shed tears, but you do hurt your heart or healed by it.
Recommended to show people this "Quiet Cafe Song", she did not like. She loves Korean movies, such as "Poisoned in the World", and has a clear love and hate.
Stills from "The Song of the Quiet Cafe"
The 4 protagonists in "Song of the Serenity Cafe" are all loners.
Cape Yoshida is in the coffee business in Tokyo. Suddenly, a lawyer came to the door and said that her father had left a large debt when he disappeared 8 years ago, and she had to pay it off on her behalf. The only property he left behind was a dilapidated house by the sea on the Nengten Peninsula.
Yoshida was furious, but had to sell his Tokyo coffee shop to pay off his debts, returned to the Noto Peninsula, and converted the broken house into a Nighthawk Café, mainly for the roasting and delivery business of coffee beans, but also for the local retail business.
The café is diagonally opposite Yamazaki B&B, owned by a single mother named Eriko Yamazaki. She graduated from high school and was too lazy to run a homestay, so she had to work at a nearby downtown nightclub. The 9-year-old daughter and 7-year-old son are left at home, often without food or clothing, and occasionally go to the supermarket to steal food and wrap their stomachs. One day, her daughter was approached by a teacher because she could not afford to pay the tuition. In Eriko's absence, her daughter asked Yoshida to borrow money. Yoshida said it was okay to borrow money, but he needed to help her work together.
Since then, the two children have worked in Yoshida's café after school, learning a series of processes such as identification, roasting, and packaging coffee beans. In their day-to-day relationship, they began to rely on Yoshida and regarded her as a relative. A week later, Yoshida gave the two children their weekly salary for the first week, and the two finally paid the tuition fees that the teacher had urged several times.
Yoshida made a warm cup of coffee for Eriko
When Eriko learns of this incident by chance, she is extremely angry. She is afraid that Yoshida will hurt her children, and she hopes to always wrap the children and herself in their unfortunate lives, without contact with outsiders, lest the other party hurt them.
Yoshida calmly faced Eriko's unreasonableness, did not explain, did not defend. The two children still go to work in the shop. She still takes care of them.
After Eriko's divorce, she became acquainted with a rogue man. The man had a lewd image and ate soft rice. Half of the salary she earned at the nightclub was given to this man. He would come to her when he had no money, and the two children fled as soon as they saw his fierce and evil appearance. One night, he sneaks into Yoshida's Nighthawk Café and tries to rape her. Eriko, who arrived just in time, knocked him unconscious with a bag of coffee beans and called the police. Afterwards, Eriko sat desperately in the café, overwhelmed. Yoshida made her a cup of coffee. After drinking coffee, she let down her guard, opened herself, and decided not to work in nightclubs anymore, working with her children at nighthawk cafes.
Yoshida's coffee bean business is getting better and busier. She gave Eriko a generous salary, helped Eriko reopen the homestay, and invited her father's former neighbors and friends to visit the café. Their interpersonal circles are getting bigger and bigger, and their loneliness is fading.
Yoshida left Noto, and the children were desperate
A piece of news shattered the temporary beauty. Police found Yoshida's father's skull. Eight years ago, he was killed by a blunt blow to the head when he went to sea. At this point, Yoshida learns that his father's disappearance is death, not abandoning their mother and daughter and running away from home. She could no longer face the sea. As soon as she saw the sea, she had to think of the tragic situation when her father was killed. She closed the Nighthawk Cafe and returned to Tokyo to live again. The two children of the Yamazaki family cried and did not let her leave, and Eriko did not keep her, but just smiled lonely and watched her leave.
Mother and son three returned to loneliness. Eriko often stood outside the Nighthawk Gate looking out at the sea. Yoshida's appearance heals her loneliness, but her departure makes her even more lonely. Her back, only those who have been lonely, know the depth and heaviness of that loneliness.
After staying in Tokyo for a while, Yoshida drove back to the Noto Peninsula again. This time, she brought more belongings.
Eriko looked at Yoshida unexpectedly, stunned, and said, "Welcome home." ”
Yoshida smiled, and she replied calmly, "I'm back." ”
Seeing this, my heart fell to the ground. Finally, the 4 people were reunited.
Taiwanese director Jiang Xiuqiong
When I watched the film review, I learned that the director of "Song of tranquil cafe" turned out to be a woman, and it was Chinese, Jiang Xiuqiong from Taiwan.
She debuted as an actress, was nominated for the 28th Golden Horse Awards for Best Supporting Actress with "The Juvenile Murder Incident on Muling Street", and then worked behind the scenes of films for many years, gradually starting the road of film creation. In 2008, the screenwriter and director's short drama "Jumping Grid" won the Golden Horse Award, the Golden Spike Award, the Taipei Film Festival and other awards. The television work "Wormwood" won many international awards such as the 2009 San Francisco Film Festival Best Television Film Award. The documentary "Traveling with Light and Shadow" (2009) was shortlisted for the Best Documentary at the 46th Golden Horse Awards and won the Million First Prize and Best Documentary At the 12th Taipei Film Festival. This "Song of Tranquility Cafe" was also shortlisted for the 17th Taipei Film Festival in 2015.
Her directing style is very delicate, especially suitable for people like me who like literary films.
Yoshida teaches girls to make coffee
It was a really great movie trip. After reading it late at night, my heart was full of warm feelings. Maybe the person who gave you warm memories will leave again, and you will be overwhelmed by it. But where life does not meet, how do you know that you will not meet him again in the future at a certain corner?
Some people say that loneliness is essentially a departure from human nature, and if people do not speak, they will lose their human taste. So, connecting with the world, connecting with people, is a particularly cool thing.
There is always someone who has the power to make you live like a soaring nighthawk!
Lonely seaside café
Lonely siblings
Lonely Eriko Yamazaki
Warm Yoshida's smile
Flower sculpture Twilight Snow works, purely original debut. Likes and retweets make people feel warm.