Recently, the famous Japanese director Koji Fukada's new work "Love Life" released resources online. Poison Jun watched the finished film for the first time. I will make a key recommendation with you today.
Previously, "Love Life" represented Asia in the main competition unit of the Venice Film Festival and won the focus of the audience, director Koji Fukada and Japanese actress Fumino Kimura and actor Atom Sunda attended the world premiere held at the Venice Film Festival. The film has also been exhibited at international film festivals in Toronto, London, Busan and Taipei Golden Horse.
The film is true and delicate, and has received rave reviews, not only was it praised by Cai Liangliang for "making me raise some impulses and really want to make a feature film again", but even Palme d'Or winner Hirokazu Kore-eda was moved to praise the film "I love this movie very much".
Some Douban netizens did not hesitate to praise after reading it:
"I thought there was someone in the world who really understood their pain and could comfort and support each other. As a result, people's lives are not all bitter, and their own suffering is like a lonely fool in the face of people's happiness. Fuck dog day life. ”
"Fantastic... It looks so good that I can't speak. ”
"Love is to love and kill each other, one thing descends one thing, and Koji Fukada can always abuse you."
Distance creates beauty
Director Koji Fukada was inspired by the song "Love Life" by Ryuichi Sakamoto's ex-wife and musician Akiko Yano to compile the movie "Love Life" to face love and life with the audience.
The plot describes that after the death of the genius Go teenager Keita, his mother Myoko (played by Fumino Kimura) and his father Jiro (played by Ayato Nagayama) face pain, and their feelings gradually change; At this time, Park Shin-ji (played by Atom Sunada), a Korean deaf and mute who has been missing for many years and is also the biological father of Keita, suddenly appeared at the farewell ceremony. The story focuses on how the three deal with their inner pain, and also brings out the intricate interpersonal relationships that span different nationalities.
The long shot in the first act of the film always maintains a "polite" distance from the characters, and interprets the core axis of the film - "distance" with an alienated camera relationship.
Just after Keita's unexpected death, Jiro and Miako drift apart, the former just wants to quickly put aside the child's death and successfully return to the "bathroom" where the incident occurred; The latter only wants to remember his son well, and even when the earthquake comes, the sky shakes, and he can't even stand steadily, the first thing he wants to protect is the chess game that is half compared to his son.
Letting go is a lesson that living people must learn in the face of death; But because I once loved, my thoughts overflowed in my heart, and it is actually difficult to say let go and let go.
Koji Fukada uses a human tragedy to open the distance between a couple who gradually distance themselves, and uses objects such as bathrooms and chessboards to bear grief, so as to test the state and mood of the characters.
It is worth mentioning that the character's acceptance of "religion" is also used to create distance.
The grandmother in the film, like her son Jiro, also wanted to put Keita's death down early on, so in the first half of the film, the choreographer arranged for her to put the church's propaganda on the table, suggesting that the grandmother would walk into faith and learn to let go with the power of religion; In the middle of the movie, he further tries to share this experience with his daughter-in-law, asking her to try to relieve her son's death.
This scene arranges for the two to gather on the balcony, and when the grandmother starts smoking, Miako seems to be willing to listen to her mother-in-law's advice, and try the cloud-swallowing fog that has not been experienced for a long time on the balcony, gradually repairing and narrowing the gap between her and her mother-in-law at the beginning of the movie.
In addition, "Love Life" not only transforms distance into the ideological bifurcation between husband and wife and the relationship between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law, but also integrates language elements and adds a new layer of definition.
Myoko's ex-husband Nobunji, a Korean deaf mute, speaks more than a language that only Miako can understand; Therefore, when her husband Jiro was angry and wanted to express his dissatisfaction with Mioko and Nobunishi, he could only stare at the conversation between the two, and he was so quiet that he was "speechless" - "You are in front of me, but I can't understand", which is the farthest distance in the world.
Later, the distance symbol symbolized by the language element was also used until the final climax of the film. After Miako chased Nobunshi to South Korea, she thought she wanted to help Nobunshi meet her parents before she died, but found out that she was deceived, but she actually came to attend the wedding of Nobunshi ex-wife's son.
Humor in everyday life
Koji Fukada is good at showing a unique sense of humor at plot turns, so that "Love Life" is not "Miyang" after all, and does not carry out the pain to the end, but there is warmth after sadness and anger, and absurdity after touching, intertwining a daily landscape with mixed tastes.
For example, Erlang returned home after a long absence, found that his wife took in his ex-husband without authorization, and said that he was laughing and interacting intimately, and he should have been angry, but finally ended up looking for a stray cat adopted by Park Shinji with them, and even was especially loved and rubbed by cats.
And Park Shin-ji, who has been stranded in Japan for many years, borrowed travel expenses back to South Korea from Miako on the grounds that his father was critically ill, and Miako not only generously paid money, but also sent him to the port with all kindness, and was moved by her ex-husband's farewell "shout" at the last moment, and changed his mind and jumped on the boat together, but found that he was deceived, it turned out that his father was not seriously ill at all, but just wanted to return to Korea to attend the wedding of the son born to his ex-wife.
Miako, who suddenly realized and lamented that she was too stupid, was helpless in the Korean countryside where she was not familiar with life and did not share the same language, but accidentally discovered that the "Korean sign language" that was useless in Japan could cross the language barrier and communicate with Park's listening son.
Staring at the jubilant wedding party in front of her, she was distant and silent, and suddenly, the rain poured down, and everyone ran back indoors, but Miako stretched her arms and swayed like a flower bud that finally bloomed with dew after a long drought, dancing alone after the music stopped—a rebirth ritual that cleansed her wounded soul, and Koji Fukada captured this magical moment with a fixed long shot that only reached her back, and the mystery and romance were comparable to the sunset dance in "Burning".
Transformation and balance
Looking at Koji Fukada's past works, it is not difficult to find that he is accustomed to arranging for "mysterious outsiders" to break in, causing ripples in the ordinary daily life of the protagonist, slowly spreading from small places until the whole life is swallowed and disintegrated by the whirlpool.
This is true of the husband and friend who came to the family-owned factory to seek employment in "The Depths", the unknown man who "stranded" on the beach in Indonesia and seems to have superpowers in "Man from the Sea", and "False Love" is composed of the chain reaction caused by the male protagonist inadvertently saving a strange woman.
By "Love Life", the plot of the movie has become popular, and there are no longer so many open interpretations and imagery; The characters' emotions have become restrained, no longer full of untraceable turns and the great tragedy and joy of the bloody drama, but the film depicts the malice and danger hidden under "Japanese politeness", as well as the life situation mixed with sorrow and ridicule, which is still very deep.
Personally, I think that this film can be said to be the culmination of Koji Fukada's transformation from "Side Face", which has achieved the best balance between "author-type film" and "popular drama", and shows ease in both image style and narrative technique.