"Depression is not terrible, but it is terrible not to know how to achieve self-redemption"!
The film "Deep Sea" fully exposes the social problem of depression, and shows the inner world of a marginal group suffering from depression through the perspective of Betelgeuse.
In the film, Betelgeuse's dream is a splendid and bizarre dream she has woven for herself, while Nanhe is the light in her heart, giving her courage and hope.
Not only to present a visual feast to everyone, but also a pilgrimage to heal the heart.
Towards Alienation: The Realistic Conditions of a Fantasy World
Human desires are just a mirage that can never be fulfilled in everyday life. Dreams are an effective way of representing, which can establish a relationship between people and the object of desire, and use compensatory psychology and action to form repeated impulses in memory.
Its core proposition is to emphasize that dreams are real, and should be understood from the perspective of the metaphor of the consistency of subject and object, and reflect consistency in creation.
Therefore, "dreams" do not come out of nowhere, but originate from people's thirst for "things" and are rooted in helplessness in the real world.
In "The Deep", Betelgeuse is both not satisfied with reality and longs for the past.
The prominent depressive symptoms make Betelgeuse far from the real world and fall into negativity, generating intense self-anxiety, which is also the realistic condition of the imagery.
(1) Adult absence anxiety dilemma
Swiss psychologist Piaget's research on children's psychology believes that people's thinking continues to develop with age, gradually detaching themselves from the "self-centered" state and gradually establishing their understanding of things.
In the process of detachment from self-centeredness, the child gradually "takes others as objects of affection", realizing that not only does he belong to "a world of permanent objects", but also that his emotions are subordinate to those permanent objects of orientation and external causality from others.
From infancy, an emotional and cognitive way of connecting with others and getting comfort from them has been formed. This awareness also helps the child establish inner balance.
In the film, Betelgeuse originally lived in a family of three, but due to practical reasons, various conflicts occurred between the parents, which eventually led to the mother's departure. The absence of important emotional objects upsets the balance of Betelgeuse's inner cognition, resulting in anxiety.
After the father remarried, the father, stepmother, and younger brother formed a solid triangle. Feeling marginalized, the emotional communication between Betelgeuse and his father became less and less, and his anxiety became stronger, so he became more obsessed with his mother and the good past, which eventually led to depression in children.
(2) Escape from the virtual focus of other people's schemas
Adult absence leaves children in a state of "isolation", and this "imbalance" forces them to look for ways to relieve anxiety. The social space allows for certain behaviors while others are forbidden.
Trapped in a state of anxiety and depression, Betelgeuse isolates the cognitive activities of the outside world, avoids the placement and communication of the other schema, wraps himself in his mother's red sweatshirt, refuses to communicate with others, and escapes social goodwill.
Deep down, she misses the peaceful and beautiful days of the past, often looking at the warm family photos and videos, and the longing for her mother is getting stronger and stronger, and she longs to return to her previous balance.
In the process of cognitive development, children should get rid of self-centeredness and gradually establish stable emotional and cognitive patterns through contact with other people's schemas.
Piaget believed that a certain age group cannot understand something. Questions like these stimulate children's imagination and they feel like they're playing a game.
Dream fantasies are the most unique solution to the characteristics of children's thinking, and Betelgeuse produces negative emotions of distress, frustration, and helplessness in the contact with the real world.
Unconscious fantasies at this time seem to be a return to self-centeredness – a special mechanism for protecting one's inner balance.
Constructing the "Box Garden" space: the illusion twin of fantasy and reality
Bernick argues that in order to express an "imaginary reality", the emphasis is on bringing us real reality through real sensory experience. "Deep Sea" is based on the fantasy reality of the protagonist Betelgeuse, and constructs the fantasy narrative structure of the film.
In the imagery expression of the subject and the object, through the imaginary twin of the real world, a safe, free and sheltered space is created, so as to resolve the protagonist's realistic dilemma and promote the realization of self-redemption.
The construction of this narrative text is very much in line with the psychoanalytic therapy "Hakoniwa Therapy".
The term "Hakoniwa Therapy" is derived from Japanese and is known as "sandplay" in the United States and Europe, and is a clinical psychological technique.
Hakoniwa therapy refers to the client's random placement of toys in a box filled with fine sand, and the combination of them to connect their unconscious with real life, and in the process to combine with self-awareness, and finally achieve the purpose of activating the client's self-healing power and overcoming psychological barriers.
Hakoniwa therapy aims to heal by creating space, moving freely, showing authenticity, and activating autonomy.
A similar narrative line can be seen in the film "Deep Sea", which helps Betelgeuse complete psychotherapy.
(1) Build a fantasy space with imaginary reality
Childhood experiences play a key role in the personality formation process. Attachment to an object of affection and the exploration of the outside world are major components of these experiences.
In early childhood, Betelgeuse had a stable family relationship until the parents quarreled and broke up, and this balance was upset, and a blocked childhood experience was subsequently formed.
Just as Hakoniwa Therapy emphasizes "free and protected space", "Deep Sea" also creates a healing environment in the real world.
So that Betelgeuse can be self-centered without intervention, return to a balanced cognitive experience, express yourself very freely, vent all the bad emotions in the real world, form your own understanding of the real world, and gradually heal the deep wounds in the process, and finally return to the real world.
Dream imagery is not limited to theoretical linear observation, it is a complex system.
"Deep Sea" constructs a complete narrative space in two dimensions: real and unreal, in which the cruel reality and glorified fantasy are constructed.
The main characters, environments, and objects in the novel are all derived from real space, but they are all different.
With the help of the thinking characteristics of the protagonist child, the film projects a picture book that I read by chance - "The Legend of the Deep Sea Hotel", which beautifies the cruel reality that originally caused people to have negative emotions.
In this deep-sea world, the eccentric and estranged father is a hard-mouthed and soft-hearted sea otter Lao Jin, and Aunt Hua who has her own child is the first to accept Betelgeuse's Ah Hua, replaced by a little sea otter who is intimate with Betelgeuse, wearing ill-fitting sneakers and turning into comfortable cotton slippers, instant noodles have also become "Manchu and Han full seats", and the gray-blue real world has become colorful.
The glorified reality provides Betelgeuse with a space of freedom and shelter, allowing Betelgeuse to guide its latent self to self-realization and self-redemption.
The relationships in The Deep Sea are alienated realities and aggregated fantasies. A return to self-centeredness, a connection with self-awareness, and self-healing are the main features of Hakoniwa therapy.
In reality, Betelgeuse lost his status in the family after his father remarried and his younger brother was born. Father and Aunt Flowey care more about and pamper their younger brother Jelly Bean.
Having lost the sustenance of his family's feelings, Betelgeuse completely closed himself off, isolated from the outside world, did not associate with others, and was unwilling to accept the kindness of others.
In her imagination, she was an outsider, but she attracted the attention of the entire Deep Sea Hotel. Although everyone was still jealous of Betelgeuse, they still showed great kindness and care.
At the same time, the narrative in the film also presents the illusion of "reality" and "whitewashing". "Deep Sea" is in Betelgeuse is swept into the sea, and the South River enters the sea to save people, creating a dual space of reality and illusion. Games provide the raw materials needed for cognitive activity and adapt reality to the multiple needs of the individual.
The film renders the otherwise hopeless sea drift into a fantasy adventure game, allowing Betelgeuse to escape the great despair of reality.
Even the "Samoyed joke" told by Nanhe before his death is beautified by fantasy as a moment that makes Betelgeuse happy.
Compensated in the fantasy space, Betelgeuse smiled sincerely at Nanhe.
(2) The law of fantasy solves the dilemma of reality
The self-centered image space, although it is unconsciously associated with real life in the interviewee's self-consciousness, is not constrained by the real world and has independent imaginary rules. Betelgeuse in the real world wants to return to the balance of the past, but he can't, and it is difficult to communicate with his mother normally even over the phone.
When she jumped into the deep sea, her mind was haunted by her obsession with her mother. Transform your imaginary underwater world into a real sense of powerlessness and solve real-life problems with different rules of the game, so as to complete the fantasy narrative text of "Deep Sea".
"Deep Sea" chooses to concretize the illusory spiritual perception, make it visible and touchable, and defeat it with illusory rules.
Here, obsessions and nightmares are described as "sea elves", who guide Betelgeuse on his expeditions under the sea. It will hum its mother's tunes and guide Betelgeuse forward, and it will wander in its dreams, bringing the Deep Sea to the "Eye of the Deep".
Ethereal depression is vividly manifested as a "depressed ghost", and the person who has fallen into depression is depressed, from melancholy to pain, and even becomes stupor.
Just as a depressed person clings to negative, defeated, angry emotions, when Betelgeuse is in trouble, the depressed person envelops himself and everything around him until he suffocates.
On this basis, through the reconstruction of emotional objects, the empathy of the objects is promoted, so that Betelgeuse can continue its childhood hindered development process, and build a self-healing psychological structure, and finally realize the self-healing of Betelgeuse.
Due to family changes, Betelgeuse lost its original emotional object and interrupted its exploration of the outside world, resulting in a serious lack of communication and interaction with others, which needs to be compensated in the deep sea world.
With the unfolding of the story under the sea, Nanhe, Lao Jin, Ah Hua, Jelly Bean, and the "Deep Sea" have established a long-standing concept of "home" for Betelgeuse, allowing their cognitive activities to continue. Captain Nanhe becomes the new target of Betelgeuse's affection, and he helps Betelgeuse break his seal step by step.
Then, with the help of external forces, the movie stimulates Betelgeuse's self-awareness, breaks the inner shackles, and finally achieves the goal of diving into the deep sea.
In reality, the two people are adrift on the sea, and the clown Nanhe keeps telling jokes and stories, comforting the depressed and desperate Betelgeuse and guiding him out of self-isolation.
In the imagination, everyone on the "Deep Sea" is united, and Captain Nanhe leads Betelgeuse on a journey to explore the "Eyes of the Deep Sea" at all costs, helping those who are downcast to find the "Eyes of the Deep". At this time, Betelgeuse received a long-awaited phone call and heard the voice of his mother, who had not been seen for a long time.
Trigger an epiphany experience: fantasy healing in a symbiotic world
In the process of watching a movie, it is easy for the audience and the characters to form an emotional symbiotic connection. "Deep Sea" is structurally designed at the end to take care of the emotional needs on and off screen. The film uses a curtain and a beam of light to construct an inner space to present the dialogue between fantasy and reality when Betelgeuse is dying.
In this way, the narrative logic of the film can be fully presented, and at the same time, the perception of the symbiotic world is realized. Imagery emphasizes the therapeutic efficacy of awakening the subconscious. Betelgeuse breaks the spiritual entanglement, and through self-talk and memories, the audience is also healed by the epiphany of the characters.
(1) The self-redemption of the characters on the screen
The epiphany experience is a psychological experience that accompanies the whole process of epiphany problem solving, which contains a concept of alternating the old with the new, abandoning the invalid past and obtaining an effective way of thinking.
Constrained by the reality of imbalance, Betelgeuse subconsciously introspects, blaming themselves for all the reasons and choosing to please others with reason. In this movie, there are many similar character self-statements, such as "It's all because of me" and "I'll come back when I grow up." ”
In the free space created by itself, Betelgeuse takes the initiative to repair the blocked cognitive behavior, gradually completes the psychological mechanism of assimilation and Hue, incorporates external stimuli into the existing thinking framework, and experiences the experience of epiphany.
The new collective life and adventure have allowed Betelgeuse to rediscover its own meaning and value, just like the words left to her by Nanhe: "You don't need to be overly sensible in the future, laugh when you want, cry when you want to cry, don't please others, live for yourself, although sometimes the world is gray, there is always light waiting for you."
When the adventure comes to an end and the fantasy returns to reality, the characters get rid of their doubts and condemnation, find new and effective solutions, and complete self-salvation.
(2) The audience's emotional resonance off the screen
Compared with other artistic media or forms of expression, the "sense of presence" of film is stronger, that is, it attracts the audience to project a high-level, high-frequency, and large amount of attention in a limited time, forming an emotional construction of the text, and creating a highly immersive viewing experience in a short period of time.
The production team of the movie "Deep Sea" spent two years to create the "particle ink" technology, using more than 2 billion particles and more than 200 colors to build a colorful underwater world.
With the help of 3D technology, the immersion of this film has been further enhanced, and the audience follows the perspective of the protagonist to experience the gloom and unreality of reality, the pain of parting and the satisfaction of new life, and build a symbiotic relationship on and off the screen.
In addition, "Deep Sea" also sets up the suspense of the plot through retrospection, allowing the audience to see the development of the story in the real world, thus forming a symbiotic experience of a symbiotic world, that is, the protagonist gets an epiphany experience after experiencing redemption after redemption, and the audience off-screen can get an "aha" experience with Betelgeuse as the plot progresses.
The human mind is the source of all art and science, and therefore the search for the mind is on the one hand to explain the psychological structure of a work of art, and on the other hand, to reveal the elements that enable man to create art.
The humanistic spirit is a valuable resource for artistic creation. Through the attention to social reality, "Deep Sea" provides an in-depth analysis of depression, a psychological disease, thus completing the construction of a fantasy text and ensuring the authenticity of the film.
With the advantages of the free imagination of the original animation, it also projects social care with realistic value, presenting a unique animation creation path. This is undoubtedly a kind of animation creation that draws on social reality and pays attention to the inner spirit, providing a practical idea and inspiration.