Today is "520", the consonant "I love you".
Whether it is the love of lovers or the dependence on relatives.
"I love you" these three words, we are always ashamed to say.
Before communication technology was not very developed, the only way to express emotions was letters.
Twenty-six years ago, there was such a green and hazy letter that became eternal.
It doesn't have a word for "love," but it does speak of silk.
Finally, today, I can relive it again in the theater -
love letter
Love Letter
Director: Shunji Iwai
Writers: Shunji Iwai
Starring: Miki Nakayama / Etsuji Hikawa / Miki Sakai / Takashi Kashiwabara
Release: 2021-05-20 (Chinese mainland re-release)
Runtime: 117 minutes
Douban Top 250 ranked 74th, with a rating of 8.9, better than 98% of romance films.
If "Tokyo Love Story" is regarded as the enlightenment of a generation of Japanese dramas, then "Love Letters" is undoubtedly the deepest memory of thousands of Chinese people about Japanese films.
The early 1990s were the golden age of Hong Kong cinema.
The talents accumulated by Shaw's films over the years have shined in this era, Wu Yusen, Xu Ke, Wong Kar Wai...
Filmmakers of all genres and talents have emerged.
At the same time, Japanese cinema also quietly recovered.
At that time, Shunji Iwai was called "Wong Kar-wai of Japan" by Chinese film fans because of his slow stream of consciousness literary narrative, which was very different from the "entertainment first" mass aesthetic.
After graduating from Yokohama National University and directing many micro-films, MTV, and commercials, Shunji Iwai gradually developed his own video style.
In 1995, Shunji Iwai released his feature film debut, Love Letters.
Once the film was released, it caused a sensation in Japan, and then exported to Southeast Asia, Europe and the United States, and the response was also enthusiastic.
Anyone familiar with Iwai knows that he is not only a director, but also a talented writer.
The blockbuster "Love Letter" is adapted from his novel of the same name.
A letter to heaven, two people with the same name and surname, spanning more than a decade.
Spread out here like water flowing for years, transparent without any impurities.
The first shot at the opening of the film can be called a classic in film history.
On the snowy ground, a black robe silently plunged into view.
So cold, and so poignant.
Then jumped out of the picture on the poster -
The heroine, Hiroko Watanabe, looked up, as if she was emptying her head, and as if she was looking at something.
Across the screen, it was as if she could hear her breathing hard in the fierce wind and the heavy lamentations in her heart.
Three years ago, her fiancé Fujii Shu died tragically when she climbed the snowy mountain, and Hiroko was deeply saddened and still difficult to let go.
The oppressive tones and scenes reflect her low and stoic emotions.
It also brings us into the picture, with her to find the clue to the distant kingdom of heaven.
While looking through her fiancé's junior high school graduation album, Hiroko stumbled upon his former address.
The sudden death of a loved one always inspires people to be enthusiastic about metaphysics because of their thoughts:
She copied down the address that might no longer exist and sent a letter.
There was only one sentence in the letter —
"Fujii, how are you?" I am fine. ”
I thought there would be no more news, but I unexpectedly received a greeting from "Heaven"——
"I was fine too, but some colds"
It was as if a "clicking" sound came from inside the keyhole, and a dusty past began.
After several letters, Hiroko learned:
It turned out that the person who replied to the letter was a female classmate in Fujii Shu Kuni Junior High School, and she had the same surname as him.
What is even more surprising is that the girl in the photo has eyebrows that are somewhat similar to her own.
The moment she learned that she might be someone else's stand-in, Hiroko was heartbroken.
How could she have imagined that the love she could not give up was the first love she had been thinking about for a long time.
Perhaps out of a longing for her lover, she endured her grief and begged the other party to tell more about the tree.
Along with the communication with Hiroko, the fragments of the past are constantly being pieced together and reorganized.
The boy who was a little vague in his memory also gradually became clear in the mind of the female Fujii tree...
If you want to vote for the most memorable actor in "Love Letters", Takashi Kashiwahara, who plays the teenager Fujii Tree, will definitely win with an overwhelming advantage.
That year, at the age of 18, he debuted on the big screen and stunned the world.
He was widely praised by the Japanese media as "the last beautiful teenager of the 20th century".
Although the young Fujii tree does not appear much in the film, every time it is unforgettable.
In the library in the afternoon, the sun shines obliquely into the house.
The young man's clean and good face appeared behind the curtains.
Like a spring breeze blowing, blowing up the ripples in the hearts of many people.
There are only a few lines, but they are very commensurate with the sullen and quiet personality of the characters.
However, even this kind of beautiful man who is born resistant to beatings and seems to come out of a comic has a stubborn character in his youth.
Adolescent boys have a crush on the girl, not only bitter unrequited love, but also may change the method of teasing to enhance their sense of existence in the eyes of the other party.
The delicate Shunji Iwai observed this and interpreted it in a comedic way.
Whether the boy takes a bunch of unpopular books from the library and writes "Fujii Tree" over and over again on the library card:
Mischievously fastening the flour bag on the girl's head:
Or deliberately taking the wrong test paper, delaying time under the girl's flickering bicycle lights, just for this short time:
It makes people laugh.
All kinds of neurotic plots can be called the campus version of "the birth of the drama spirit".
At first glance, I felt that there was no lower limit, just as the girl tree's relentless evaluation of the young tree -
"How can a guy as obnoxious as he can get a girlfriend?"
However, if you think about it, compared with the idol drama section from dog blood to fabrication distortion and deliberate adultization, those slightly childish stupid behaviors are closer to the daily life of our student days.
Only such a clumsy outpouring of love can leave precious negatives for the best age.
After acting in "Love Letters", Kashiwara Takaichi became a hit and won the Newcomer Actor Award at the 19th Japan Film Awards, and the star path was opened.
Even after this, his acting career has been bumpy several times, and he has been cut into a stubble-faced uncle by the years, but he still can't erase the figure of the handsome teenager in people's minds.
In addition to him, there is also the performance of Miho Nakayama in two roles, which is also commendable.
Hiroko and the adult female Fujii Tree,
A trailing step in the cold winter, the heart is like a fog;
A big grin, with the warmth of an autumn day.
Personalities are very different, but because of the emergence of a past, there is an unexpected entanglement of fate.
Beginning with the tree's third anniversary memorial service, Hiroko embarks step-by-step on the path of self-redemption.
And this belated understanding, taking the letter as an opportunity, pointed to the belated confession.
"Love Letter" was re-screened on the 20th anniversary, and Miho Nakayama appeared in Taiwan
For more than 20 years, many people have struggled with the mysteries buried in the film:
Has the male tree ever loved Hiroko?
How could Hiroko accept such a cruel truth?
I don't think that matters anymore.
When Hiroko finally accepted Akiba's pursuit, she rushed into the snow and shouted into the distance——
"You—okay—?"
"I—very—good!"
Just six words echo in the valley, like the understatement of Grandma in "Blind Love", "I don't want you anymore." ”
It is full of affection, but it is full of determination to look up.
And the love words that could not be opened were carefully folded up and sealed in the sketch on the back of the library card, and the song he hummed before the mountain disaster.
Then the good will be immortal.
You may not understand why a pure love movie is cramming so much discussion about "death."
From the funeral of the male tree, to the death of the female tree's father, to the death of her as an adult due to the heavy sense of adventure...
It seems that it does not match those fresh and beautiful settings.
The Japanese are obsessed with death, and even more obsessed with the courage and calmness of living to die.
Haruki Murakami once wrote such a sentence -
"When people see a beautiful feast disappear, they can find a sense of peace of mind."
In the shadow of the sun, this kind of material mourning complex is interpreted very appropriately.
From the expression of the funeral in "The Mortician":
A subtle insight into aging and death in Tokyo Story:
To the "Sea Street Diary" with two funerals in the series of trivialities:
It is repeatedly shown to people that death is not the end, but just another beginning, existing in another form.
Images of snow and death are repeatedly intertwined in "Love Letters".
The part that touched me the most was when the female tree was critically ill in the hospital, and she met the scene in her subconscious:
It was after attending her father's funeral that she saw a dragonfly frozen on her way home.
The perception of death comes invisibly.
It's like a veil being torn off, revealing the original rush of life.
Seeing the dragonfly buried under the ice, she understood that her father was not far away, but still accompanied by her side.
The deceased is gone, but those fragments of warm pulse can leave an indelible mark in the deepest part of the heart.
"Life is just a series of isolated moments, and by memory and fantasy, many meanings emerge, then disappear, disappear and then emerge again."
This sentence written on the title page of "Reminiscing Like Water" is not only a summary of the flow of encounters between the two "Fujii trees", but also the best point about the whole film.
It reminds everyone off the screen that reality is originally broken, and regret is inevitable.
Fortunately, living in the fate of impermanence, we have not lost the impulse to love and embrace life.
After struggling, I can always gain the courage to be reborn like the tree planted by my grandfather at the end of the film.
After making his debut film, starting with "Swallowtail Butterfly" the following year, Shunji Iwai's directing style has taken a significant turn, becoming more gloomy, bleak, and more intensely socially critical.
It is precisely because of this that "Love Letters" has always occupied a special position in the minds of many fans.
A youth film, in order to make the audience resonate, in addition to the handsome men and beautiful women, the beautiful scenery, it is necessary to make full efforts in the polishing of the story and the heat of emotions.
"Love Letter" did it, and with its literary sensitivity, it evoked the viewer's nostalgia for that old time.
No WeChat, no kindle, no iPhone.
Only the bulky desktop computer and the red mailbox standing in front of the door convey the true feelings between people.
So warm, simple and intimate, as the saying that has gone viral on the Internet:
"The carriages and horses are slow, the letters are far away, and there is only enough to love one person in a lifetime."
In may you push open the door of youth, from the depths of time, salvage those fireworks-like brilliant past events.
*Author: A midsummer's Gate