1.
Dreams of Precious Days is a 2011 Korean animated film. Like other Korean animations, it continues the delicate and realistic and simple character style, which is very different from the Japanese animation that is exaggerated and aesthetic, and the emotions are rendered to the extreme. Even unlike another famous animation in their native country, "Beautiful Whispers", which describes their youth.
In this anime, there is no strange imagination at all, just a teenage time of young and naïve exploration. In order to highlight the simplicity and innocence of the story and characters, the director even set the entire background in the 60s, in which the joy and chagrin of growing up under limited material conditions and spiritual nourishment touched the hearts of the audience and judges, and was nominated for the long-form main competition unit of the Annecy Animation Festival in France that year.
2.
Iran is an introverted small-town girl. She loves running, but she is more afraid of being ugly and conceding defeat in public, so she will deliberately trip herself up under the pressure of the race, so as not to face the failure caused by the inability to face the finish line.
In the class, a girl who transferred from the capital Seoul, Xiu Min, was generous and beautiful, would lead a song when everyone was booing, and would share the literary and artistic poems she had written. Iran likes, or rather envies, Xiu Min's freedom and informality. Of course, not to mention, so many boys at school wrote her love letters.
Iran has not been in love yet. Her ideal love object is completely from the tall and handsome foreign male star in the movie, who will daydream about love from time to time. So when she found out that she was attracted to a boy in the same school who piloted a flying machine, Tetsuhide, her heart was initially troubled.
But what a capable boy Tetsuhide is, he can fix the radio, he uses all kinds of complicated instruments, and he tells her a lot of secrets about the universe. Iran began to sneak out with him — not even dating, just two teenage boys and girls sharing their visions of the future.
At the end of the story, Iran finally bravely stepped out of self-limitation, re-recognized itself, participated in the running competition again, boldly refuted Xiu Min's remarks about Zhe Xiu's rusticity, and slowly grew confidently.
3.
The whole animation is a very qualified literary film. The rhythm is soothing, the details are sufficient, and the appropriate environment depiction sets off the mood of the characters. And, play a good nostalgic card.
Students in the school still have to learn to use typewriters, and during recess, the class committee wipes two blackboards outside the window to shake off the chalk dust, and even the students have to stay to do cleaning, complaining about the assigned tasks, all of which are veteran animation fans who have had this experience.
I have to say that the parents of that era, whether it is South Korea or China, the mind is the same simple, and the method is also consistent and unified. Let the children wear the largest possible school uniforms, especially girls, first out of financial considerations, and second, so that the children are not attracted to the little outside. Therefore, Iran's affection for Zhexiu is like an alley that must be passed through every day, but no amount of joy can only be put in the heart.
On the one hand, he arranged the clothes he and Zhexiu would wear when he went out the next day early, on the other hand, he was ashamed to take care of Zhexiu who came to the door in the evening in front of his family. So many entangled and contradictory inner dramas, the joy of holding the quilt in the room and the frustration of running and crying in the wilderness, are all because of pure emotion.
However, after watching so many literary and art films, pure emotion alone is not enough to move people. Iran and Zhexiu, even the outwardly sophisticated, the same simple Xiumin on the inside, have precious and untainted dreams in the adult world.
Of course, Iran likes to run, but it does not like the competition for the first place in everything, and thinks it is good to be a physical education teacher in the future; but if you run and run, you really lead and go to the Olympic Games? So what else do you want to do as a teacher?
Chul-soo's dream is to be a scientist, to be the first astronaut in South Korea to land on the moon, looking back at the earth and lamenting the infinity of the universe (at that time, in the 60s, South Korea did not have astronauts on the moon). He always pointed to the galaxy and said to Iran, you see, in front of these planets, saints and idlers, fools and wise men, are like dust on the fingertips, how small, so many secrets in the universe we do not know.
Xiu Min's ideal should be to be a poet, and she will be creative in class, not according to the script, but find a poem by Frost herself, "The Road Not Chosen" to read in public:
There are two roads in the yellow woods
It's a pity I can't get involved at the same time
I stood at that intersection for a long time
I looked down at the pole of a road
Until it disappears into the depths of the jungle
But I chose a different path
……
Every word is sincerely expressed in the heart of the girl.
The most amazing scene, of course, is that Zhexiu and Iran ride their bicycles to a barren mountain to see the footprints left by the so-called dinosaurs. Zhexiu asked, do you believe that this is the footprint left by the dinosaur? Iran said, I believe, I believe they were the most powerful animals at that time, so they all chose to go to heaven later...
Zhexiu is still talking to himself there, will we leave footprints here in the future? However, Iran's heart had flown out, and she seemed to see that the surrounding area was like a cloud steaming, bubbling up red green and yellow blue, and it was impossible to distinguish between flowers and clouds, and in the middle of flowers and clouds, there were so many large and small, cute-looking dinosaurs. In this large colorful Impressionist garden, the sun is rising, the sun is shining, and it is thriving. They are the leaders of their youth, and they will surely grow up like them, as strong and fearless as they are.
4.
After watching the whole animation, each frame is the most secret thought at that time, whether it is a small trouble, a big dream, or those daydreams that are ashamed to export. When the faces of teenagers and girls finally stop blooming like flowers one day, but the moments that are lit up by the broken wishes will always be the clouds of beautiful dreams in the memory.
Precious days, precious dreams, precious self, and precious you who accompanied us all the way finally let us bravely cross into the long river of youth. Every time you look at it from afar, it is like a poem, like a picture like a song.
Only the years remember that our footprints will tell future generations that we have walked seriously.