"The Deep Sea", a baptism from the sight and heart.
Under the brilliant colors and CG effects, the core of the story is full of soulfulness, and the colorful picture contains the most original emotional core, which will touch the softest part of everyone's heart.
Watercolor, oil painting, particle ink scenes, the brilliant colors that seem to overflow the rainbow outside the screen, and every life that comes to life in the film are all surreal spaces that "Deep Sea" presents to the audience with the most advanced CG technology, the most powerful picture ever created by Chinese animation.
However, when this dreamy world collapses in the second half of the movie, when the heroine Betelgeuse reaches out to grab these beauty, you can feel her pain at this moment, and you can know why she must indulge in this world and not want to wake up.
"The Deep" is a heart-wrenching story and an animated film with a distinct author's style.
The story of the movie is not difficult to understand, or the audience can roughly expect it, but this film is not the kind of popular animated film, especially the core of the story.
The movie enters the second act, that is, after Betelgeuse comes to the Deep Sea Hotel, accompanied by noisy hotel scenes and colorful visual impact, the plot here is actually relatively fragmented, and the look and feel is not friendly.
After the perspective of the last 30 minutes "returns" to the real world, the re-combing of the past timeline will immediately activate the memory points immersed in the gorgeous Deep Sea Hotel.
At this time, you will find that some seemingly "meaningless" plots in the first half have very meaningful correspondences in the real world. Don't worry that the movie can't be understood, although there are many echoes before and after, the clues of the movie are very clear and can get the main content.
But it still needs to be interpreted, not to sort out the story, but to analyze the characters, and interpret some metaphorical parts of the film to help you understand the creative intentions of director Tian Xiaopeng more clearly.
Since it is an interpretation. Not only spoilers, but crystal clear. "Deep Sea" is not afraid of spoilers, but friends who have not seen the movie, please do not read it for the time being, because you can't read it.
Betelgeuse's "Deep Sea"
Betelgeuse, an unhappy girl who lives in her own world and can't get out.
She used to have a happy family, but as the family changed and her parents divorced, she followed her father to form a new family, with a "new mother" and a half-brother, but Betelgeuse was unhappy in this new home.
No one in the family cared about her.
There are two details at the beginning of the movie: the family goes out to play on the bus, three people sit in the front row, and only she is alone in the back row; The family took a group photo, if it were not for the reminder of the photo, it is estimated that the family would have forgotten her. As for the SMS reminder for the birthday (Unicom money), it is even more explicit.
Not to mention the introverted Betelgeuse, no child will be unhappy in this environment. But Betelgeuse's great thing is that she does not show this "unhappiness" in front of her new family, but instead pretends to make her brother happy.
Betelgeuse's heart – she wanted to find her mother.
In the process of watching the film, a puzzle appeared, since she has always wanted to find her mother, why did she choose her father instead of her mother when her parents divorced? (At one point I thought my mother was dead)
When the second half of the story is revealed, we understand that Mom is just a symbolic symbol of Betelgeuse's heart, a concrete representation of her happy family.
And the mother in reality, most likely to leave her, as can be seen from the opening text message, it is estimated that there is another family, and she is no longer wanted.
Countless dreams, cold ice and snow, that was the scene of her final breakup with her mother, and also represented her true inner situation.
And the "mother" she has been chasing is just a back, and the image is blurred, because maybe she has forgotten what her mother looks like today. Betelgeuse's mother is always the family portrait video on her phone, which was a video of her third birthday, when she was three years old.
The changes in the family in the past and the estrangement of the current family have made Betelgeuse live in her own world and can't get out, which has also led to her self-contained depressive personality, and even self-blame and inferiority.
The deep sea is her "heart" that she can't go out, and Betelok's "safe haven" in her heart is the Deep Sea Hotel.
Here, although the hotel is chaotic, she can feel a trace of warmth, looking hateful Nanhe, walrus and others who are not very good-tempered, in fact, they all care about her, and the furry sea otter. Betelgeuse is here, at least you don't have to force a smile, but also show a genuine smile.
Note that "safe haven" is in quotation marks.
Altered sea elves
What sea elves, if that thing is called "elves", Gayo and Sadako can be called "angels".
The lines have obviously been changed, and there is already a saying on the Internet, and the original name of the thing is "Nightmare". Because of some force majeure, you know. But since they are now called sea elves in the main film, let's call them that.
This is what the director wants to convey to the audience, including the title of "Deep Sea".
The ocean is the cradle of life, and the sea that nurtures and embraces all is also synonymous with strangeness and fear for human beings. These two opposing views are presented in the film.
In the real world, the ocean is manic and devouring horror, and the theme is embodied with "black", the endless black sea. In the surreal world, the deep sea is always clear and blue, beautiful.
The sea elf was something in her dreams, and the mother in the dream turned her head and became like this, a little scary. And the black sea elf in the surreal world, looks very different, people avoid talking about it, but they are as willing as a glutton.
So, the sea elves represent Betelgeuse's contradictory heart—hope and poison.
Betelgeuse believes that the sea elves can lead her to her mother, representing the goal (hope) she has always pursued; But the soup made with sea elves will be overwhelmed after drinking, and hope will become blurred, and even eventually forget everything.
What I said is already very straightforward, and the audience can roughly experience it in the process of watching the film. The deep sea surreal world is the Yellow Spring. The Deep Sea Hotel is the ghost gate. Sea elf soup, naturally Meng Po soup.
"The Deep" is a story of life and death. Betelgeuse is experiencing a near-death experience. But movies are not so simple.
The "Two Sides of the Eye" of the Deep
The "safe haven" of the Deep Sea Hotel should be put in quotation marks, because it is unreal, it is the world created by Betelgeuse himself, and it is the world that he subconsciously imagined after reading the album of "Deep Sea Hotel" when he was about to die.
The deep sea represents Betelgeuse's deep heart. The Grand Hotel is a haven she created, where she hides herself and feels the solace of "nothingness", which is the most straightforward reflection of "living in her own world".
But here, it also means death, because this also represents the ghost gate.
Remember when Betelgeuse first arrived here and was overwhelmed by several fat diners? This is a metaphor for her inability to breathe after falling into the sea.
When the full picture of the Deep Sea Hotel was first revealed, the plaque on the door read "Wealth at First Sight" and "You Are Here Too". Friends who are familiar with folklore will not be unfamiliar, these two lines of words are the words on the black and white impermanent hat (there are several versions of folklore, and the above is one of them).
I think this is the biggest feature of "Deep Sea", director Tian Xiaopeng, in the film to create two worlds, two emotions, and the two sides of the same thing. They are opposed to each other, unified with each other, very philosophical.
For example, as mentioned earlier, the two images of the sea and the two representatives of the sea elves, the Deep Sea Hotel is both a haven and a place of death.
Perhaps everyone has their own "Deep Sea Hotel", which is a safe house for autistic people, depressed people, social fearers and even everyone who is unhappy, they wrap themselves up and do not want to go out, but over time, they will bring immeasurable negative energy to themselves and will be truly detached from the real world.
But don't forget that the hotel in the movie is not a simple haven or a place of death, but also a ship. This small ship has not stopped exploring forward, looking for a possible exit (the eye of the deep) in its perhaps meaningless life.
The red ghosts that appeared from time to time at that time were enough to devour the hotel, and the prototype was the red clothes given to her by Betelgeuse's mother, which represented the sad memory that could not go out, and came to the illusory world from reality, which was enough to destroy the beauty of fantasy. It will also prevent you from getting out of here.
"The reality is so tragic, why should I go back, it's better to leave?" This is Betelgeuse's inner world when he is dying.
At this time, you just need a guide.
Because people are more to save themselves, but they also need the goodwill of the outside world to guide you and help you.
In the end, it was Captain Nanhe who took her to escape the land of the Yellow Spring and bring her to the Eye of the Deep Sea.
The South River that no one knows
Nanhe is actually the same kind of person as Betelgeuse. At least we confirm that he is also unhappy. He is also smirking, making others happy, and besides, he is also ignored.
Unbelief? On the opening cruise, the clown was in the camera several times, until he interrupted Betelgeuse to read, he was "at your side", but the audience most likely did not notice him. (So much so that this one doesn't even have a serious still, and it's difficult to match the picture)
Nanhe is an ordinary working youth (North Drift or South Drift?). ), from the information revealed by the plot, he should be a frustrated painter, and the coloring book "Deep Sea Hotel" is his masterpiece.
However, due to various reasons, Nanhe can only fall here, and the "Deep Sea Hotel" priced at 168 yuan is likely to sell badly, otherwise he would not pretend to be a clown here to sell art.
And the hometown he has been nagging about should not have been back for a long time, perhaps because he has a bad relationship with his family (like Betelgeuse), or because of his inferiority and facelessness.
Who would notice a smirk clown? But Betelgeuse noticed and accidentally found the "Deep Sea Hotel". And this picture book that no one cares about has become Betelgeuse's fantasy "safe haven".
I think that when Nanhe first drove Betelgeuse, he was probably happy in his heart - finally someone appreciated my book, but unfortunately she didn't buy it. There's a bit of a sense of mutual redemption here.
In the subsequent story, and even the ending, Nanhe is the "drama eye" of the whole film, and it is also the most emotional character.
During the day and night of drifting at sea, Nanhe was trying to make her happy and not "sleep over", and he only showed Betelgeuse an optimistic and positive look. So I say that Minami River and Betelgeuse are the same kind of people who try to make others happy with a fake smile, but they are unhappy themselves (reminiscent of "Joker" directed by Todd Phillips).
He is a smirk, but in the end he tells the other person: I hope that every laugh you have in the future is genuine.
Breaking the "phobia"
"Clown phobia", the word has probably been heard by many people, including various film and television dramas, whether it is DC's "Joker" or "Clown Returns", the clowns in it are scary existences.
Only in "Deep Sea", the clown image of Nanhe is so warm and moving, which is the special feature of this film, and it is also the embodiment of director Tian Xiaopeng's "two sides of one" in this film.
"Clownophobia" is a mental illness with a prevalence of up to 2%. From a psychologist's point of view, fear of clowns usually begins in childhood, and this has long been included in the psychologist's biblical Statistical Manual for the Diagnosis of Mental Disorders:
"It usually starts when a child is two years old, when they feel anxious when they are surrounded by strangers. At this age, the child's mind is still developing, the clown is always very mixed with makeup, and the child is not yet able to distinguish fantasy from reality. ”
It can be seen that the scary clown images in film and television dramas are based on clown phobia, not because of the phobia of clowns in the movie, and the cause and effect relationship should not be reversed.
Based on this theory, Betelgeuse may have been afraid when he first saw the clown Minamika. At least won't like him.
When she arrived at the surreal "Deep Sea Hotel", when Betelgeuse was unhappy, she felt that this man looked very scary, especially when he was angry for the first time, the clown makeup on Nanhe's face appeared, and the impact was extremely strong.
And when she feels warm, she feels that Nanhe is very sunny and handsome, and there is also the credit of the camera here, especially the "splitting the sea" moment when Nanhe took her to escape the depressed ghost, the majestic shore is incomparable. And when Nanhe escaped, he felt that this person was very irritable and ugly, mother-in-law's.
What kind of existence does a person's appearance have in your heart?
What the movie wants to express is the reverse shaping process of a certain character, not that I see the person on the other side, I have his impression in my mind, but I determine the "look" of the other party. Just like when we are in a bad mood, it is the same to see someone who thinks that this person is "unpleasant".
From the plot level of the story, Nanhe, whether in reality or in the Deep Sea Hotel, was not very likable at first, because he had been driving Betelgeuse, behaving strangely, and eating shoes, and the audience probably did not like the character at this time
But what you see is not what you imagined. In the second half, you will find that these actions are so heartwarming. This ugly man, when he turned to leave, couldn't help crying!
A person's good or bad does not lie in his skin, but in his heart.
The choice of two worlds
In the dream, the image of Betelgeuse's mother is blurred because the mother in her heart is just an imaginary she pursues.
In the middle of the story, this dream continues, but the mother she has been chasing becomes Nanhe. At this point, she had begun to doubt her choice, unsure of what she had been pursuing for a long time. Until the end of the movie, she clearly discovered that it was Nanhe who sent her to the "exit of the deep sea" and the exit of Huangquan Road.
Corresponding to reality, the light of the eye of the deep sea is the light of the rescue ship, and when she finally came here, she found that the South River had disappeared (and her physical strength fell).
The real world is gray, stormy, and no one cares about themselves; The surreal (near-death world) is colorful and has a very intimate group of friends.
The greater the difference between the two, the more painful it will be to make the final choice.
At the time of her death, the real mother finally appeared, calling her name in her ear, but the little girl completely ignored it, she wanted to follow Nanhe.
Betelgeuse has always wanted to break through the cloth-like barrier, which is the boundary between life and death, and it is also a bit like autistic people often say "separation from the outside world". In the end, Betelgeuse broke through the barrier scarred, but Nanhe told her to try to survive, because that barrier has been broken by you.
The ending of the whole film is painful, not only the parting of life and death, but also the pain of reality, because the field touched by the film has exceeded the general emotional definition.
The scrolls shown in the end credits of "The Deep" are fragments of Betelgeuse's life after he survived. Her longing mother only appeared at her hospital bedside, and Betelgeuse returned to her new home, albeit in much better spirits.
But, is she really happy? I don't think so, she's not really healing, she just wants to open up, trying to integrate into a new life. She is no longer autistic, no longer pessimistic, no longer living in her own world, but like Nanhe, living in the moment, and showing an optimistic and positive look to outsiders, she will also make others happy.
"I hope every laugh you have in the future is genuine." Nanhe's words were said to soothe Betelgeuse, as well as those who may have the same experience as him-
Live well!
Finally, finally
Let's say something personal.
"The Deep" is worthy of all kinds of praise. This kind of praise is not only for technology and pictures, but also for a very bold story. But it has to be said that the film has a limited audience (perhaps lonely or socially fearful people are more likely to understand the story of the movie).
I think that after the release of the film, the topic of "parents shelling the deep sea" is likely to appear.
But as the famous director Guillermo del Toro said at the recent Golden Globe Awards, "Animation is a movie, animation is not exclusive to children." It is a medium".
And it is precisely the story mode of "Deep Sea" that is similar to the "Labyrinth of Pan God" before Fat Gyro, dark fairy tales, and under the colorful colors is a slightly realistic core.
And speaking of fat spinning tops, I think of his favorite H· P. Lovecraft, that's right, "The Deep" has the style of Cthulhu, and at one point it was crazy. In addition to the sea elves tied to the tentacles, the Deep Sea Hotel in the middle is docked in that town, like the coastal town of Innsmouth in the "Cthulhu Mythos".
I don't know how long the film's production cycle is, and I don't know the production fee, but the producer Caijiao House, after "Jiang Ziya", there has been no new film coming out, and has been busy with "Deep Sea", the picture and technology of the film, the top visible to the naked eye, the funds are burning.
And the release of "Deep Sea" is also a twist and turn, postponed many times. The film should have been last summer, and then changed to the National Day, but it was not reviewed, and the content of the film must have involved a lot of changes, and the Spring Festival file should be its last chance, although it is not so appropriate.
It is necessary to support the director, be able (dare) in today's environment, do not cater to the market, make animated films with such content, and touch the boundaries of animation. To give a less appropriate example, this is our "Red Hot Chili Peppers", the animated version of "Pi".
Such creators should be cherished.
Easter eggs, your name
Betelgeuse and South River, which are the names of the two stars, Betelgeuse from Orion, and South River III, from Canis Minor. Among them, I don't know much about the meaning of the name of the South River (sorry I don't know much about astronomy), but the meaning of the name Betelgeuse is worth picking.
Betelgeuse, a red supergiant star in the constellation Orion, is one of the largest stars that can be seen without binoculars and one of the most famous stars in the night sky.
According to astronomical observations , Betelgeuse is reaching the end of its life , and astronomers expect Betelgeuse to eventually end its life with a Type II supernova explosion.
Betelgeuse has been observed darkening since December 2019, and scientists have speculated whether Betelgeuse is about to explode. It stands to reason that its supernova explosion will be bright for about a month, which will be a good time, but within a few months Betelgeuse will return to its previous brightness, which makes astronomy enthusiasts very "disappointed".
All scientists agree that it is teetering on the brink of death... But that didn't happen. So scientists also call Betelgeuse the "immortal star."