With the release of Hayao Miyazaki's 80-year-old work "What kind of life do you want to live", the content contained in the movie itself has also been constantly discussed by netizens. Like many of Miyazaki's previous works, the variety of otherworldly things that appear in the works is dizzying, and when I feel that Miyazaki has a rich imagination, I am more thinking about what is the metaphor behind these characters?
The movie "What kind of life do you want to live" is very much like Miyazaki is questioning every viewer, so did he give the answer he wanted to say in the movie? Obviously, it was given, and it was given extremely obscurely. The movie is divided into two time and space, one is everything that happens in reality, and the other is the other world that the heron leads the boy into. In magic and reality, the characters are intertwined, and it is impossible to distinguish them very clearly.
The heron in the movie can travel between the real world and the other world, and can be said to be the messenger of two time and space. And the cause of the story can be called the little boy's inner demon - the mother was burned to death by fire. It is precisely because of this knot that the little boy is haunted by his mother's death, and the little boy's indifference and rejection of his stepmother, and there is a story in the other world behind. It is through a magical experience in another world that the little boy and his stepmother are reconciled. This is a superficial thing in the movie. And Miyazaki can't just explain an ordinary animation that anyone can understand.
In the other world, the first thing real people encounter is a large number of pelicans, which pour in when real people go to the door of life and death, and the reason is that it is caused by the feathers of herons. The second appearance is when the pelicans eat the ascension of the wah-wah and thus prevent the opportunity for the pelicans to turn into humans, and of course, these pelicans will not become humans. THEY'RE JUST A GROUP OF GOUTUI WHO HAVE BEEN PITTED, AND AFTER THEY HAVE NO USE VALUE, THEY CAN ONLY DIE MISERABLY AND NOT BE REBORN.
And the wala in the play represents the civilians who died in the war, they seem weak and powerless, harmless to humans and animals, but they are such ordinary people who do not have any threat, even if they are reincarnated, they will not be able to live in peace, and they are at risk of being eaten at any time.
In addition, the tall and mighty parrots in the movie are soldiers who represent Japanese militarism, they are majestic and powerful in another world, but they become cute pet birds when they return to the world, this contrast is very funny and ironic. In the end, the parrot of militarism was not able to maintain the other world, which represented the inevitable demise of Japanese militarism.
Finally, I have to mention Miss Huomei, a real mother in another world. When the other world was about to perish, Miss Huomei and the real person chose different channels to come out, which means that Miss Huomei did not want to be resurrected again but chose to be reincarnated. Only the real person and the stepmother returned to the real world. After all, it's the real person and the stepmother who should accept each other.
Miyazaki's films are full of various metaphors, so many people can't understand them, but it doesn't mean that Miyazaki's movies are not classics.