Doomsday pure love, Shinkai Makoto can still surprise people?

The last time Japanese animation shined in the main competition section of the Berlin Film Festival probably came back to 2001, when Miyazaki won the Golden Bear Award for "Spirited Away".

After 22 years, another Japanese animation was shortlisted for the Berlin Film Festival and received rave reviews. Before the release, the domestic pre-sale exceeded 100 million, setting a new record for the domestic pre-sale of imported animation.

That's right, this movie is "Journey to the Bell Buds" directed by Makoto Shinkai.

The theme of pure love of young girls, exquisite soundtrack and ultra-realistic high-definition aesthetic pictures have always been the most recognizable logo of Shinkai Makoto's works, and "Journey to Lingya" continues the style of the past.

Near-micron-level light and shadow processing, the ultimate one-to-one reality scene restoration, every frame can be used as wallpaper.

The girl and the teenager passed by, and the feelings were secret, which was basically expected.

But the plot of "Journey to the Bell Buds" at the beginning is not so dreamy, and even a little depressing.

The story begins with a painful memory of the heroine Suzuya, when her mother died unexpectedly at the age of 4, Suzuya could not accept this fact, and went around looking for her mother and lost.

Fortunately, the aunt arrived in time to pick up Suzuya, so that Suzuya could start a new life.

Fast forward 12 years, and Suzuya, who entered high school, seems to have come out of her pain and become cheerful.

By chance, on her way to school, she met Kusata, a handsome college student with strange manners.

Out of curiosity and worry, Suzuya follows the other party to a ruin, but is attracted by a self-standing "door" and inadvertently pulls out a "vital stone".

Strangely, this "important stone" gradually melted and turned into a cat demon named the minister and fled in a hurry.

What Ling Bud did not expect was that the "vermido" that escaped from the door rushed into the sky, and was about to form an earthquake.

In the nick of time, Kusata locked the door in time to prevent the disaster.

It turns out that the Kusanata family is an ancestral "closed door", and their mission is to lock the door of the earthquake hidden in the ruins of Japan, and prevent the catastrophic force "vermi" that caused the earthquake from entering the real world from the world of death "ordinary world".

In order to further suppress the vermi, the Closed Master also used two "Essential Stones" transformed by the gods.

Suzuya pulled out one of the key stones, greatly reducing the power to restrain the vermicom, and the doors of earthquakes across Japan opened like dominoes.

However, worse things ensued, and the elusive minister preemptively sealed Kusata in a chair left by Suzuya's mother.

With a deep sense of guilt, Suzuya embarks on a long "closed-door" journey with Kusata, who has limited mobility.

The popular "Your Name" in 2016 framed the background of the comet's impact on the earth, and the male and female protagonists avoided the destruction of a village by exchanging bodies and exchanging information across time and space. This is the first time that Shinkai Makoto has shifted his perspective from the calm everyday life of pure love to the narrative of disaster.

2019's "Weather Child" is a low-level teenager wandering in Tokyo, who chose to put Tokyo in the disaster of flooding in order to save his beloved Haruto.

Different from the first two fantasy settings that use meteorite falls and heavy rainstorms to metaphorically deal with the disaster brought by "311", the last part of the "Post-311 Disaster Trilogy", "Journey to the Bell Bud", directly points out the "311 earthquake" and faces the pain caused by the earthquake.

The first scene of the film is Suzuya lost in the uninhabited ruins, and a ship is completely suspended on the tall building, which is not Makoto Shinkai's imagination, but the real scene caused by the tsunami caused by the 311 earthquake.

The incident that caused the death of Suzuya's mother pointed to the earthquake that occurred 12 years ago.

From Kyushu, Japan, Suzuya traveled north through Shikoku Ehime Prefecture, Kobe, Tokyo, and then back to Iwate Prefecture, all of which are areas where major earthquakes have occurred in Japan over the past century.

The cancellation of anonymity about the disaster reflects Shinkai's cognitive change of 311 over the past decade.

The impact of this earthquake not only corresponds to the physical destruction of villages and cities in "Your Name" and "Children of the Weather", but also means the spiritual destruction of survivors such as Lingya in "Journey to the Bell Bud".

The vermicom's entrenchment over the present world, the "everlasting world" burned by fire, the ruins of the broken wall that Suzuya experienced when he was a child, and the ruins that hide the "door" are all externalizations of people's inner world.

However, discussing such a heavy topic does not mean that the film is sad throughout.

Shinkai Makoto added a lot of bright and light elements to reconcile——

For example, Kusata is sealed in a three-legged stool, and it is ironic to fight wits and courage with ministers and take care of children;

The Chancellor's personality is as unpredictable as the weather, but it is eccentric, mingling with humans, and full of cuteness.

It is worth mentioning that the function of these characters does not stop at providing jokes, but also contains Makoto Shinkai's deeper thinking about life.

The cursed grass is too confined to a crippled body, with limited mobility and anxiety, symbolizing people's confined, closed and stressful lives during the new crown epidemic.

The minister's refusal to fulfill the mission has become a cold "stone", and he just wants to live a free and loved life, which is very similar to the expression of the male protagonist in "Weather Child" who cares about the life and death of most people to save one person.

In addition to the above design, the image of the "door" that runs through the entire film is also worth exploring.

Makoto Shinkai once said in an interview, "The door is a symbol of daily life, and people need to pass through the door when they leave home and return home, but disasters interrupt people's daily life." Countless people left a 'I'll go back' and went out, but about 20,000 people couldn't go home or fulfill their promises."

In the film, Suzuya sees Changshi through the "door" several times, but he can never touch it and can only linger outside, which means that Suzuya has not looked directly at the fact that his mother died for 12 years, resulting in this "heart door" has not been closed.

As for the harm caused by disasters, how can the damage caused by disasters be reduced? Makoto Shinkai also gave his own thoughts in the trilogy.

Pain cannot be avoided by the "body swap" in "Your Name", nor can it be eliminated by the touching love in "Children of the Weather", but can only be relieved by the kindness of daily life and the long self-healing of individuals.

During her journey north, Suzuya met many people who gave her support and warmth, such as a single mother raising two children alone and a carefree high school girl of the same age.

The journey also promotes the aunt and Suzuya's reflection on intimacy.

For twelve years, in order not to affect the growth of Suzuya, my aunt practiced celibacy and lived an ascetic life. In her aunt's view, her sacrifice of self should be exchanged for Ling Ya's gratitude and obedience.

But on the contrary, the aunt's self-touching efforts brought a heavy psychological burden to Suzuya.

When Suzuya rebellious embarks on a journey and refuses to obey her aunt, the contradictions and conflicts between the two are truly revealed.

The aunt confessed her regret and hatred for Suzuya for 12 years after taking care of Suzuya, and Suzuya, who lost her mind, also fought back fiercely, denying her feelings for her aunt.

In an instant, the relatives who have been with each other for many years have become strangers because they tell the truth. But interestingly, it is precisely because of the frankness and courage of the two to face the problem that the problem was finally solved.

Escapism does not make people better, only by accepting pain and facing reality can healing and hope be possible.

From this perspective, this "closed-door" journey is not only Suzuya's redemption of the "stone" pulling out and the promise to the beloved, but also a process of accepting the facts, facing the pain, and then healing itself.

From "Your Name" to "Journey to the Bell Bud", in the use of animation technology and the expression of themes, Shinkai Makoto has always been constantly breaking through himself. The grand social issues and the setting of saving the world finally return to down-to-earth life and personal care, which is Makoto Shinkai's transcendence of past works and the reason why "Journey to the Bell Bud" can ignite the audience's emotions.

But this breakthrough does not convince all audiences to pay.

The deep affection of the male and female protagonists who do not know the origin, the fantasy of pure love across time and space to change the past, and the "heroism complex" that individuals can save the world can only exist in the highly purified Shinkai Makoto fairy tale universe after all.