At the end of November, Japanese director Shunji Iwai just came to Beijing with the movie "Love Letter" to participate in the screening event, and in early December, the news of the death of Miho Nakayama, the heroine of "Love Letter", came out, which was very embarrassing.
In "Love Letters", you can see simple and pure young love and various misplaced adult love, and the theme of this film is to explore life, death and memory through love.
Ah Teng meets Ah Shu
The male protagonist in the film and one of the female protagonists have the same name, both are called Fujii Tree, in order to distinguish, this article will call the male Fujii Tree "Ah Teng", and the female Fujii Tree will be called "Ah Shu" (Well said: Then I'll go).
Hiroko's fiancé, Atten, died in a mountaineering accident two years ago. When Aten was studying in Otaru when he was in junior high school, Hiroko, who had not yet let go, sent a letter to Otaru according to the address on Aten's junior high school graduation book. Unexpectedly, this letter to Heaven received a reply, and the sender was Ah Teng's classmate Ah Shu. Because Ah Teng and Ah Shu have the same name, Hiroko copied the wrong address of the two.
Hiroko Watanabe
Ah Shu began to exchange letters with Hiroko, and in the process, Ah Shu gradually recalled his experience with Ah Teng in junior high school. The two people in the same class and with the same name were fired as CPs with the help of their classmates' pranks, and both were deeply bound together whether they were on duty in the classroom or as librarians.
Accompanied by her current boyfriend Shigeru, Hiroko goes to Otaru to look for Ashu. Ah Shu was in the hospital, and the two could not see each other. Before leaving Otaru, Hiroko saw Ah Shu who looked like herself in the crowd, and Hiroko froze in place.
Female Fujii tree
Shigeru and Hiroko come to the snowy mountain where Ato was killed, where Hiroko reconciles with herself and lets go of the past. And Ah Shu also saw the portrait that Ah Teng drew for himself behind the library card sent by the schoolgirl, and realized that it was a grand and secret young crush.
Did you understand the "love letter" back then?
1, did Ah Teng send a love letter to Ah Shu? Delivered, including but not limited to 88.
Years later, the younger students found 87 library cards with the name "Fujii Shu" written on them in the library. It is true that the book was borrowed by Ah Teng, but the name is written by Ah Shu (the two have the same name). If you look closely at the movie, you will find that the library card has "2-4" written on the front, which is the class where Teng and Shu are located, and the seat number of the tree is the 24th, and the address of the tree's house is 24 Banji, Kanhan 2-chome, Otaru City, and the number "24" is closely connected to Ah Shu.
"2-4 Fujii tree", I wrote my name 87 times, in fact, it was all your name. Each library card was a secret confession of mine, and it ended up being a grand "Fujii whirlwind".
Male Fujii Tree (Teenager)
Ah Teng's last love letter to Ah Shu was the seventh volume of "Reminiscences of the Past". Ah Teng is a scumbag who only scored 27 points in the English test, and it is really difficult for him to write a touching love letter, but Ah Teng has talent. On the back of the library card in "Reminiscences", Ah Teng painted a vivid portrait of Ah Shu. Ah Teng handed over the book to Ah Shu and asked him to return it on his behalf, which was Ah Teng's last confession before transferring to another school, but Ah Shu did not find out about Ah Teng's good intentions at that time.
All the carelessness of the crush is actually carefully planned. I'm going to let you know that I like you, but I'm only going to show a little bit.
2. Does Ah Shu like Ah Teng? Like but don't know it.
In order to exchange for the test papers, Ah Shu waited for Ah Teng in the bicycle shed, the holy place of love in his student days, and waited until the sun and the moon changed classes.
In the library, looking at the past from Ah Shu's perspective, Ah Teng stood by the window like a young man in white in a dream, the wind blew the curtain, and the girl was worried.
But when Hiroko asked Ah Shu in the letter, "Who is Teng's first love", Ah Shu's first thought turned out to be another girl, Oi, and Ah Shu also confessed to Ateng on behalf of Oi. Because of this incident, Ah Teng punished Ah Shu who was incomprehensible. As Ah Shu rode home, Ah Teng came out of the middle and put a paper bag on her head.
It wasn't until many years later that Ah Shu looked through the library cards sent by the school girls and saw his portrait on the back of the card, that he realized that he was Ah Teng's first love.
3. Why doesn't Ah Shu seem to remember Ah Teng?
When that ignorant relationship was pervasive, Ah Shu's father died of pneumonia due to a cold. Witnessing her father's death in the hospital was an unbearable burden for the adolescent Ah Shu, and she didn't want to remember that sad past, so she sealed all the memories of that period. Even if she had a severe cold, Ah Shu refused to go to the hospital, and it wasn't until she was sent to the hospital by her mother that she opened the dusty memory again. The appearance of the teenager Ah Teng in the film is accompanied by Ah Shu's memories of his father who died of illness.
Female Fujii Tree (Teenagers)
4, is Hiroko a stand-in for Ah Shu? Did Atten ever love Hiroko?
This is the most uneasy thing for the audience, if Ah Teng's liking for Hiroko is only because Hiroko looks like Ah Shu, then I'm so sorry for the kind and beautiful Hiroko. The director's answer to this question was: "I think loved. ”
The tree had never moved, and if Ardeng wanted to continue the front edge, he could have knocked on the familiar door again. The similar appearance of Hiroko and Ah Shu is just the entry point of Ah Teng's feelings for Hiroko, and the person who can get married or Hiroko moves Ah Teng. In fact, there is no stand-in in the relationship, and people often fall in love with the same type of person.
5. Why did Hiroko send a letter without a recipient?
At the beginning of the film, Hiroko knew that Ah Teng's hometown had become a highway, but he still sent the letter because Hiroko subconsciously did not want to believe that her lover was dead and hoped that there would be no news, but reason told her that there would be no reply. In fact, this is a break from Hiroko, but it has led to a new story. The original letter contained only six words: "How are you?" I am fine! This is also Hiroko's last shout.
6. Why does this "Love Letter" look confusing?
Director Shunji Iwai made his debut in horror and suspense films, and "Love Letter" also has suspense overtones. Shunji Iwai splits the timeline of Love Letters, and the story alternates between reality and memory.
In the movie, Hiroko and Ah Shu look exactly the same, and the perspective of the film switches back and forth between two women who look the same, which confuses the audience. In addition, Aten has the same name as Ashu, and the two places where the story takes place, Kobe and Otaru, are covered with snow, which escalates the difficulty. The dislocation of the signifiers of the same appearance, the same name, and the similar location eventually leads to the ambiguity of the signified.
7. "Death" in "Love Letter"
If a youth film is just wrapped in sweet images, it is just a sugar water tablet, which can't stand the gaze of time. After 30 years, "Love Letter" has faded away from the packaging of those idol dramas, and what is presented is the development of cruel youth.
In "Love Letters", director Shunji Iwai set the theme as "death and rebirth". Ah Teng who died in the snowy mountains, Ah Shu's father who died of illness, and the dragonfly that was frozen are all manifestations of "death".
There is also a more hidden place - Aten's transfer. After Ah Teng transferred to another school, his classmates played a prank and put a pot of chrysanthemums on Ah Teng's desk. After learning the news of Ah Teng's transfer from the mouth of his classmates, Ah Shu lifted the flower pot above his head and smashed it to the ground, and Teng disappeared from the life of the tree, which is another form of death.
After worshipping his father, on the way down the mountain, the young Ah Shu saw a dragonfly frozen in ice. The dragonfly spreads its wings as if it is flying, and at the most beautiful moment, life comes to an abrupt end, but it is also frozen into eternity, this dragonfly is a metaphor for Aten, who is also covered in ice and snow many years later.
8, "New Life" in "Love Letter"
At the end of the film, Hiroko shouts at the snowy mountain where her fiancé is buried: "How are you? I am fine! At this point, Hiroko let go of the past and completed the reconciliation with herself.
Ah Shu lay on the hospital bed, looking at his grandfather and mother, finally got rid of the shadow of his father's death, and also regained a boy's innocent feelings for himself in his memories.
At the beginning, the grandfather rushed to the hospital with his seriously ill son on his back despite his daughter-in-law's objections, but he failed to save his son's life. When his granddaughter faced the same situation, the grandfather got the consent of his daughter-in-law, picked up his granddaughter, ran to the hospital with all his might, raced against time with death, and finally rescued Ah Shu, and he also completed self-redemption.
The daughter-in-law, who has been skeptical of her grandfather since her husband passed away, has finally untied the knot in her heart for many years.
9. Grandpa's secret
Ah Shu has a grandfather who will make people think of turtle immortals, and this stubborn old man contributed the most tear-jerking passage in the whole film. At that time, Ah Shu's father was seriously ill, and due to the heavy snowfall, it took an hour for the ambulance to arrive. The grandfather rushed to the hospital with his seriously ill son on his back, but it was still too late.
The daughter-in-law always thought that it was her grandfather's reckless actions that delayed the treatment. Grandpa asked his daughter-in-law how long it took him to get to the hospital, and the daughter-in-law said that it was about an hour, and the grandfather said it was 40 minutes, to be precise, it took only 38 minutes from home to the hospital gate. To be able to come up with such an accurate figure, it must be that the grandfather walked that section of the road repeatedly after losing his son, and repeatedly calculated the time.
When Ah Shu was born, his grandfather planted a tree in the yard and named it after Ah Shu. More than 20 years passed, and his grandfather told Ah Shu this secret. Ah Shu asked his grandfather why, and his grandfather said: Some things only make sense to do secretly.
10. Letters
In Haruki Murakami's novel "Norwegian Wood", there is a sentence that "death is not the opposite of life, but lives forever as a part of life", and inspired by "Norwegian Wood", Shunji Iwai wrote "Love Letter". The use of letters to connect the protagonists is also a reference to "Norwegian Wood".
In "Love Letters", Hiroko and Ah Shu have a total of 10 correspondences. In the last correspondence, Hiroko sent all the letters written to her back to Shu, because these letters belonged to Shu's memories. Hiroko sent the letter back, which also represented Hiroko's relief.
If we can take back the letters we wrote to others, we will piece together a more complete version of ourselves.
At the end of the film, Ah Shu writes a final letter to Hiroko, but it is not sent. The letters that I wrote to others were also written to myself.
11, a small easter egg in "Love Letter".
Ah Teng and Ah Shu were in the same class for three years in junior high school, and the sorting hat failed to separate them. By the third year of junior high school, the class of the two was the second class of the third year - a class with more acting talents.
The love in "Love Letter" is all about missing out, and every relationship is driven on a one-way street: the female assistant in the studio loves Shigeru, Amao loves Hiroko, Hiroko loves Teng, and Teng loves the tree.
"Love Letters" is a movie that comes first and then a novel. The film was completed in 1994 and released in March 1995, the same year Shunji Iwai published the novel of the same name, Love Letter. At the end of the novel, there is a description that is even more wonderful than the image: I pretend to be calm and try to carry the library card in my pocket, but unfortunately, my favorite apron does not have a pocket above and below.
Reminiscences are like water
Life is made up of isolated moments, and through memories and fantasies, many meanings emerge, then disappear, and disappear and then resurface.
Death is not the end of life.
Good night
Miss Nakayama
Lu Jia
Editor-in-charge: Chen Lingling