On April 10, the creative career of another film master was forever pressed the freeze button. The famous Japanese director Nobuhiko Obayashi, known as the "image magician", died of lung cancer at the age of 82. As one of the most important Japanese directors who rose to prominence in the 1980s, the death of Nobuhiko Obayashi undoubtedly means that an era is a little further away from us. >>> Japanese director Nobuhiko Obayashi died and said he wanted to make another 3,000-year-old movie
Nobuhiko Obayashi
Unfortunately, Nobuhiko Obayashi's new work "Seaside Cinema", which was originally scheduled to be released in Japan in April, had to be withdrawn due to the epidemic. Some people say that Obayashi Nobuhiko seems to be holding his last breath, waiting for the day when the movie will come out, but in the end he can't wait. And "Cinema by the Sea" became his last posthumous work.
In 2016, Obayashi was diagnosed with advanced lung cancer and was told by doctors that he had only three months left to live. Fortunately, he has survived this year with amazing perseverance. Perhaps because he felt that time was precious, in the last few years, he did not stop filming "Flower Basket" and "Seaside Cinema". This is already a high yield for Obayashi Nobuhiko, who is entering his old age; not to mention, he also has to fight against illness while creating.
What is rare is that the last two films are masterpieces that really follow his inner spirit. The 168-minute Flower Basket is the final chapter of the "Obayashi Nobuhiko - War Trilogy" after "Flowers in the Air" and "Forty-Nine Days in the Wilderness".
Stills from "Flower Basket".
In the film, Obayashi uses surreal images that are real and illusory, showing the Japanese "beauty of material mourning" and the "infinite youth" of wartime to an extreme. The risk of filming "Flower Basket" with illness made Obayashi Feel Like Returning to the Japanese New Wave Period half a century ago.
The posthumous work "Cinema by the Sea" is even longer than 179 minutes, full of sincerity. This time, Obayashi conveyed his "anti-war" philosophy in a very straightforward way. The film is set on the eve of the atomic bombing of Japan, where three young people in their youth travel into the fantasy world of the film and witness the chaos of war and the world.
However, the tragedy of Hiroshima is doomed to be unmeasurable. As Nobuhiko Obayashi said, "Movies can't change history, but they may change the history of the future, and I hope young people can see it." "Such a voluminous posthumous work is not only the film history of Nobuhiko Obayashi himself, but also a treasure trove of fans that belongs to all of us."
In the Japanese film industry, Nobuhiko Obayashi's maverick behavior has long been obvious to all. He has always called himself a "film author", and from the beginning of his career, he has firmly established his creative ideals. Even though his resume includes some mediocre works for a living, his best-known style has never faded.
Posters for "Cinema by the Sea" that failed to be released as scheduled.
Avant-garde, ahead of its time, eerie, colorful, and full of freedom as an artist. Throughout his life, Obayashi Coulduhiko, whether he was making experimental films or commercial films, could speak handily. Among the top ten directors of the 1980s in japan's "Movie Shunbun", he ranked seventh alongside Akira Kurosawa and Kiyoshun Suzuki (based on the creative power of the entire decade of the 1980s).
In Obayashi's films, "Onomichi" is the most common place name. This is his hometown, and it is also the movie stage that keeps him haunted.
In the 1980s, Nobuhiko Obayashi took "youth" as the theme and created the famous "Onomichi Trilogy", namely "Transfer Student", "Girl Who Traveled Through Time and Space", and "Lonely Man". In the 1990s, he filmed the "Shin Owomichi Trilogy" on the theme of "death", namely "Two People", "Tomorrow" and "That Summer".
Oido, a city located in eastern Hiroshima Prefecture on the verge of the Seto Inland Sea, seems to have mastered the artistic lifeblood of Nobuhiko Obayashi and become an indelible mark in his films.
More important than Omichi is the "ghost" complex in Obayashi's films. Some fans have said that Obayashi May be the director who loves to shoot "ghosts" in the history of Japanese cinema.
Stills from "Two People", the ghost of the sister and sister.
In "Two People", filmed in 1991, chizuko, her sister who died in an accident, always appears frequently around her sister in the form of a ghost, and the magical reality of "the body is dead, the soul is not going" is particularly touching. In "Strange Midsummer", filmed in 1988, the male protagonist Harada continues to visit after Asakusa re-encounters the ghost of his late parents until his body becomes weaker and weaker.
But unlike the "ghosts" that we perceive as evil in our daily lives, the "ghosts" under Obayashi's lens are often well-intentioned and good-hearted people. They appear quietly, either as relatives, friends or lovers, and once again become the bondage of the living, which some people call "the oriental phantom full of warmth". Presumably, this is also Obayashi's understanding of life and death in the world.
Of course, "Haunted House", born in 1977, is Obayashi's most well-known work. In this once controversial fantasy film, Nobuhiko Obayashi blended almost all the ideas he could think of at the time, using a cut and collage method to combine elements of folklore, weird talk, advertising, cartoons, horror movies, stage plays and other elements to concoct a dizzying pot of chowder rice.
Stills from "The Haunted House".
The film is full of strange images: illusion magic mirrors, corpse pianos, bloodthirsty clocks, strange cats, suction cup lights, meat grinding cabinets... That year, Obayashi was nearly forty years old, and with the last residual heat of the New Wave, he brought such an unprecedented video experiment to the Japanese film industry. Even in the critics, there are many criticisms, but the praise of Shuji Terayama, Masahiro Shinoda and others undoubtedly proves his aesthetic value.
When it comes to the relationship between Obayashi and China, in fact, there are quite a few origins. In 1995, one of his "New Onomichi Trilogies", "Tomorrow", was shortlisted for the 2nd Shanghai International Film Festival; in 2018, his penultimate film "Flower Basket" was screened at both the Beijing and Shanghai International Film Festivals. Even as early as the 1980s, Obayashi made a film "Watermelon in Beijing" to show the friendly relations between China and Japan.
Poster of "Watermelon in Beijing".
Just think, if the current epidemic can recede as soon as possible, we may still have the opportunity to see Obayashi's posthumous work "Seaside Cinema" at this year's domestic film festival. And if Nobuhiko Obayashi could live a little longer, I think with his personality, he might make another movie related to the epidemic, just like he did when he made "Flowers in the Air" for the March 11 earthquake in Japan.
□ Lu Zhiyu (Film Critic)
Beijing News Editor Wu Longzhen Proofreader Liu Jun