Thematic juxtaposition means that the stories in the narrative are not connected to each other, parallel to each other, but all are oriented towards the same theme.
The juxtaposition of themes is also known as the orange petal structure from which the chronological order has been removed, and the story and the story are juxtaposed like similar orange petals, and "concentrated on a single theme (core)" 'In Toshi Jin's "Red Hot Chili Peppers", the entire narrative is linked by the theme of the film, juxtaposing multiple threads in the same theme, presenting a spatial narrative form of thematic juxtaposition.
The film revolves around the theme of "dream mirror" and consists of two parallel narrative lines, one is Red Hot Chili Peppers' treatment of police Fanchuan's mental illness through dream research. The other is that the chairman of the research institute Qian stole the dream machine "DCmini" in an attempt to control the entire human dream world. The two clues develop in parallel, do not overlap with each other, and finally converge through the medium of "dream mirror".
In the narrative line of Fanchuan's psychiatric treatment, psychiatric researcher Atsuko Chiba relies on the dream device "DCmini" to enter Fanchuan's dream as "Red Hot Chili Peppers" to try to psychotreat Fanchuan's mental illness, and this narrative line unfolds with Fanchuan's four dream treatments.
In the first dream treatment, Red Hot Chili Peppers entered Fanchuan's dream, and together with Fanchuan, experienced four movie scenes in his dream - Tarzan Adventure, train chase suspense film, Roman holiday romance film, and finally can't see the murderer's murder, Red Hot Chili Pepper learned that Fanchuan's mental illness is related to the movie.
In the second dream treatment, Red Hot Chili Peppers tried to guide Fanchuan into the cinema and let him face the core of his mental illness, but was strongly resisted by Fanchuan, Fanchuan subconsciously closed his dream, and the treatment was forced to be interrupted.
In the third psychiatric treatment, Red Hot Chili Peppers led Fanchuan to watch four movie scenes again, and forced Fanchuan to come to the psychological space that he was least willing to recall and face, helping him recognize the key to his mental illness - in the murder case, the murderer is himself, the murderer is also himself, and he killed himself.
The fourth dream treatment, Fanchuan through the conversation with the two bartenders in the virtual space, in their experience of making movies at the age of seventeen, Fanchuan finally understood that he gave up the movie to become a police officer, unwilling to face the self who has the dream of directing, because he gave up his dream of movies, Fanchuan's subconscious has always been ashamed of his own enthusiasm for movies when he was young, so Fanchuan buried his dream forever in the depths of his consciousness and "killed" himself. Through four dream treatments, Fanchuan finally untied his heart and cured his mental illness.
In another narrative line, starting with the theft of the dream device "DCmini", the genius inventor Tokida comes to Atsuko Chiba's house and informs criminals that two DC minis have been stolen. Since the dream-entering device is in the research stage and there are no restrictions on the dream program, it is easy for criminals to connect to the psychiatric machine through the stolen DCmini, invade other users connected to the psychotherapy machine, and control their brains by controlling their dreams.
The two immediately approached the director of the island to discuss a solution to the matter, ready to hide from the chairman of the group who had been opposed to the research and development of DC◥mini, but the chairman had already known about the matter and was ready to hold a meeting of the board of directors to terminate the research and development of DCmini, and told them that DC◥mini should not be invented, because dreams are the last sacred place of mankind and cannot be destroyed by technology.
While the two sides were arguing, Director Shima suddenly behaved abnormally, talking nonsense like sleepwalking, and jumped from the stairs. Everyone then discovered that the consciousness of the island director had been invaded by DCmini. Since then, more and more people who have used DC mini have invaded the brain, confusing dreams and reality, and the situation has further deteriorated.
Chiba, Tokida, and another member of the Institute, Oyamachi, began to investigate the matter. The thief's clues point to Shida's assistant ice room, which has been missing for a long time. The three go to the ice room's home, Chiba discovers the children's theme park in the ice room's dream, and following this clue, they come to the real-life park called "Dreamland" that corresponds to the park in Tokida's dream, where Chiba and Tokita find the ice room that cannot wake up due to the use of DCmini.
Shida enters the dream of the ice room and discovers that the person behind the scenes is not the ice room, at this time, Shida is also invaded and becomes a member of the "Great Parade" of the invasion dream carnival, losing his sense of self. In order to find out who is really behind the scenes, Red Hot Chili Peppers entered this dangerous dream, and after some investigation, it was found that the real mastermind behind the scenes was actually the chairman, and Koyamauchi was the one who assisted the chairman in his dream plan.
When the chairman wanted to kill the red peppers, Fanchuan was ending the dream treatment and found that the red peppers were in danger in the movie theater of his dreams, so he forcibly broke through the space of the dream and appeared in time to rescue the red peppers. At this point, two parallel narrative lines converge. After Fankawa thought that everything was over, he found that the real world had been invaded by the dream world controlled by the chairman, and the people in the real world were broken by the boundary between dream and reality, and their spirits began to be chaotic and crazy.
In order to prevent the real world from being swallowed by dreams, Red Hot Chili Peppers merge with Chiba to form a new life, defeat the chairman who tried to rule the dream world, and finally restore the clarity of the real world. The sub-narrative line of Fangawa's psychiatric treatment and the main narrative line of Atsuko Chiba's plan to implement dream domination constitute a thematic juxtaposition spatial structure that develops in parallel but is oriented towards the same theme.
Circle-style
Circle-style works often appear as stories "going around in a circle and returning to the original place", in the circle, the past, present and future are concentrated at a point in the center of the circle, when the circle turns, that is, after the narrative of the story begins, for the point in the center, the past, present, and future connect with each other, the boundaries disappear, time is seen as static, stagnant, only space is changing.
Therefore, the circle-style work "easily evokes the feeling of repeating and repeating" in "Tokyo Godfather", with "home" as the center, narrating the journey of Ahua, Akin, and Miyuki with the baby Kiyoko. The concept of "home" is the central point of the circle around which the past, present and future are blurred, and the narrative of the story forms a circle around this center.
At the beginning of the film, it is confessed that Akin, Ah Hana and Miyuki are homeless homeless people who have lost their homes. After picking up the abandoned baby Kiyoko at the garbage station, the trio takes Kiyoko back to the homeless house and decides to send Kiyoko to the police station the next day. However, the next day, out of sympathy for Kiyoko's life and illness, Ahua decides to help Kiyoko find her parents.
The three then embark on a journey to find a home for Kiyoko. During this journey, they come to the city cemetery (the house of the dead), the wedding of the gangster boss's daughter (the gangster boss's "home"), the foreign killer's home, the old homeless man's home, the Angel Tower Bar (Ahua's former "home"), the demolished Nishizawa Sachiko's house, the hospital (met the daughter abandoned by Akin, and helped Akin's "home"), the happiness apartment (Nishizawa Sachiko's new home), the children's hospital (Miyuki met her father and returned to "home" again), and found Kiyoko's real parents in the hospital, Sent Kiyoko back to her real "home".
The various "homes" in the film are not reflected in time and backward, nor are they connected in space, but they are connected through the journey of Akin, Aka and Miyuki to send Kiyoko "home".
And Ahua, Akin, and Miyuki, including Kiyoko, have all gone through the process of having a home, to losing a home, and then to having a home. They each have different times of home, loss and return, but through the center of "home", there is a home, a lost home and a home are connected together, and together with various "homes", they form a circle structure of nothing.
In "Millennium Girl", Chiyoko's journey to find love is also embodied in a circle-like spatial narrative structure. At the beginning of the story, the scene where the astronaut played by Chiyoko takes the spaceship to find "him" is staged, and at the end of the movie, it returns to the scene where Chiyoko is about to launch off on the spaceship. This scene contains the journey that Chiyoko has painstakingly pursued in the past, the situation in which Chiyoko is approaching now, and the belief that Chiyoko will continue to pursue in the future. The "quest" becomes a central point, connecting the past, present and future.