"The man who has 75 days left to live is born to die and die to life." In the fall of 1951, Akira Kurosawa wrote this sentence in a 3B pencil and gave it to screenwriter Shinobu Hashimoto, saying, "This is the theme of the next film, please write a first draft first, and definitely don't go one step beyond the theme."
According to the plan, the film "Desire for Life" was released in Japan in 1952, becoming the second work directed by Akira Kurosawa, using realism as the theme to tell the story of the muddy old man trying to find the meaning of his existence. This is a black-and-white movie, no gorgeous picture, and no numerous awards, but it has always been a high score of more than 9 points in the Douban score.
As one of the most influential film directors in Asia in the 20th century, Akira Kurosawa shot 30 film works in his lifetime, mostly against the background of contemporary Japanese society, reflecting the living conditions of the Japanese people. The movie "Desire to Live" is such a work, it is not in the first echelon of directors, but as a collection of works about society and human nature, "Desire to Live" can best reflect Akira Kurosawa's inner spirit. The film reflects the rigidity of the system and people in a satirical way, and while reflecting social problems, it also carries out soul torture of the meaning of "life".
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" >01 The triple dilemma faced by Mr. Watanabe</h1>
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" >1 stereotyped system</h1>
At the beginning of the story, several people went to the civic section and demanded that the stinky pond be transformed into a children's park. The protagonist Watanabe sits in his office, facing the noise of the crowd, expressionless, and says lightly, "Go to the civil engineering department." In a few simple words, the masses went from the "Citizen Section" to the "Civil Engineering Section", then to the "Urban Construction Section", and finally to the "Deputy Mayor", thinking that everything could be done. As a result, the "deputy mayor" pushed back to the "citizen class", and after a circle of prevarication, the citizens returned to the same place.
Mutual blame, muddled, and inaction were the main themes of civil servants of that era. Twenty years ago, Section Chief Watanabe thought about improving work efficiency, but to keep his position, not to improve, but not to make mistakes. So, the pile of reform plan documents, like zombies, lay in the dark drawer box.
In the past three decades, Watanabe has returned without taking a leave of absence, and has been awarded the medal of "Model honor" by the government. A joke from his subordinate Oda, Missing, told the secret behind it: "I have never taken leave, not because I am diligent, but because I am afraid that the government will know that without me, the government will have no problem."
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" >2 silent family</h1>
The son who came home at night beat his father's pension doctrine
After thirty years of chaos, Watanabe is about to retire and enjoy his old age, only to find that he has stomach cancer and only half a year to live. This was the first time in his life that he began to reflect on the meaning of life, the meaning of family affection, and the meaning of work.
In fear, he longed to find solace in his affection. He sat in the darkness of the night, waiting for his son to come home, only to hear that his son was calculating his pension, buying a new house and moving. Watanabe sat silently in the dark room, tears in his eyes, a lost and lonely scene.
His wife had died twenty years earlier, and Watanabe did not remarry in order to take care of the children. All his sacrifices were exchanged for a child who did not understand gratitude at all, a child who only thought about how to squeeze his father. In his memories, Watanabe heard his son calling for his father, and he excitedly ran to the staircase, and in the howling cold wind, only one sentence was heard: "Dad, go and close the door." The tone of indifference, the distance between downstairs and upstairs, deeply reflects the estrangement between the son and the father. Near death, Watanabe saw his son for the first time, saw that his spiritual home was long dead, and the glimmer of hope for his family disappeared.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" >3 Imprisoned self</h1>
Meet third-rate writers at the tavern Watanabe
The lost Watanabe wanders the streets and buys sleeping pills to commit suicide, but he is not reconciled, because it is not until that moment in his life that he has not really lived. For the past few decades he has been a slave to the system, a slave to the family, a slave to life. Spending a lifetime in the system, never taking a day off, saving a lifetime of money for his son, not even willing to buy wine for himself. On the verge of death, see through life, want to spend 50,000 pieces quickly, do not know how to spend it.
With a cross of stomach cancer on his back, Watanabe began to search for the meaning of life. At the tavern, Watanabe meets a third-rate writer who takes him to nightclubs, meet dancers, and find redemption in his boundless erotic desires. All this did not liberate Watanabe, but fell into a deeper nothingness. Later, Watanabe met her resigned subordinate, Oda Girl, and her youth and vitality infected Watanabe. Watanabe meets Oda every day to skate, watch movies, and have fun. He clings to his youth day after day, but still cannot change the fact that life is empty.
In the end, Watanabe discovered that "finding something meaningful to do will make you happy." Watanabe made up his mind to embark on a project to renovate an old pond, and then the camera immediately cuts to Watanabe's funeral. What Watanabe did before his death was pieced together piece by piece in discussions among officials. Some people say that the film switches between 90 minutes, which seems blunt and rigid, but the charm of the film is also at this switching point, which expresses the theme of "to live and die, to die to die".
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" >02 Analysis of the causes behind the triple dilemma</h1>
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" >1. Behind the "institutional rigidity" is the excessive exertion of boundary consciousness</h1>
The vice mayor's criticism of "Watanabe"
The "Han Feizi - The Seventh of the Two Handles" records that the sixth monarch of Korea, Han Zhaohou, fell asleep drunk one day, and the hat-in-law minister was considerate of the monarch and covered him with a dress. Han Zhaohou woke up, knew the situation, and at the same time punished the young minister who managed the clothes and hats. It is understandable that the pipe hat was severely punished for dereliction of duty, but why was the pipe hat punished? Because he crossed the line to manage things that should not be managed.
The officials in the film, everyone is worried about being punished for crossing the line, everyone is in their own protective shell, and their principle of handling things is "doing nothing and not dying". Watanabe tried to promote the renovation project before his death, but the vice mayor believed that he had crossed the line to win the hearts and minds of the people.
The design of the program, the division of responsibilities, was originally designed to speed up the efficiency of work, just like the social division of labor, so that everyone does things more simple. For example, if you let a person make a pencil all the time, it is estimated that it will not be made in a month, but when we subdivide the process of a pencil into thousands of programs, tens of thousands of pencils can be manufactured a day.
However, behind this division of labor is the indifference of human feelings, people are no longer regarded as people, people have no human touch, they have become an indifferent screw, they have become a living mummy. In this society, we all pay attention to rules and pay attention to the legal system. Everyone is obviously not a bad person, and they behave civilizedly and politely, but they cannot cope with the demands of the people at the bottom.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" >2. Behind the "silent and loveless family relationship" is "over-parenting"</h1>
Over-nurturing fathers who give everything for their sons
Typical over-parenting is manifested in three aspects, the first is excessive protection of the child, always worried that the child will have an accident, the second is excessive help to the child, always feel that the child's ability is insufficient, the third is to make decisions on behalf of the child, always feel that the child will make mistakes when he leaves himself.
Such parents hover over their children like helicopters, ready to dive to fight the fire. In the film, a son in his 30s lives in his father's house, covets his father's pension, and lets his father close the door in the cold wind, which is a typical "over-parenting". Watanabe, who is also a father and a mother, is overly invested in the growth of children, loses self-awareness, and deprives children of the opportunity to cultivate independent consciousness, and finally "over-parenting" fathers raise "over-dependent" children.
This kind of borderless parents abound, and when new students start school on university campuses, we can often see parents carrying suitcases and following students. At home, parents do everything, children only care about learning, no help with any housework, and even school bags have to be sorted out by parents. Over-parenting becomes a vicious circle, the more over-parenting, the child depends on the parents, the more dependent the child, the more the parents invest. When parents build up their children's sense of attachment, they make it more and more difficult to raise their children, and they eventually become the bearers of the consequences. Parents originally wanted to maintain the family, but as a result, they raised giant babies, nibbled on the elderly, and so on, and finally caused a series of social problems.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" >3. Behind the "self-imprisonment" is the "loss of the inner self."</h1>
After suffering from cancer, I began to fall in love with life
The psychologist Freud pointed out that everyone has an inner self and an outer self. The existence of a person first needs to exist psychologically, and psychological existence is to form an inner self, such as being born as a human being, what is my own dream, what is my desire. So what is the outer self? The external self, mainly the role of the self in the various relationships of reality. For example, we have the role of work, the role of friends, the role of hobbies, we also have the role of lovers in intimate relationships, and so on.
In the film, Watanabe lives in accordance with the system at work, follows the rules of the system, and has no idea of "inner self"; life revolves around his family, saves money for his family, does not think about the needs of "inner self", and for thirty years, he has not even appreciated the dusk. He never thought about how to live for "himself", the inner self was suppressed in a certain angle in the heart, until he was on the verge of death, he began to reflect on where the inner self was.
Psychologically speaking, people are made up of relationships, and when we are babies, people form an inner self and feel that the whole world revolves around me. In the process of growing up, people go out of the inner small world, establish broader interpersonal relationships, and develop themselves in a broader space. Extreme people often fall into two dilemmas, either unable to get out of the self-world and become extremely selfish, such as Watanabe's son, or lose themselves and become hollow people, such as Watanabe. In fact, to become a complete person, on the road of life, we must not only learn to get out of the narrow world of the self, but also know how to leave some space in the complicated world, so that we can freely walk back to the small corner of the self, so that our "inner self" has the space to breathe and live.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" >03 How to get out of the triple dilemma? </h1>
<h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" >1. Inject "humanistic care" into the "stereotyped" system</h1>
What is humanistic care is the concern for people.
In the medical system, humanistic care is Dr. Paul Carranish in "When Breath Turns into Air", who treats patients as "people" rather than just "diseases", saying that "doctors should occasionally be like pastors, comforting the hearts of patients and understanding their fears of disease". But in fact, the modern medical system presents a high degree of division of labor, responsible for the billing of bills, photos of photos, and medical treatment into a variety of shredding processes. "Patient" is regarded as "disease" rather than "person", the relationship between doctors and patients becomes the relationship between doctors and "diseases", and what patients need most is not only the medical knowledge of doctors, but also the humanistic care of doctors to cope with fear.
In management, humanistic care is the amoeba management philosophy of Kazuo Inamori, which simplifies the organization into the smallest amoeba unit, makes everyone responsible for the amoeba unit, and allows employees to fully exert their initiative and stimulate their talents. In an era when people are increasingly pursuing the pleasure of work, Amoeba is to break through the rigid enterprise system from the level of enterprise organization.
At the government level, humanistic care is Watanabe in the film, after suffering from cancer, decided to seek changes in the system and use his own strength to promote the children's park project, rather than blindly prevaricating and leaving the people's problems unsolved.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" >2. In a "silent" paternity relationship, share fragile moments, create emotional connections, and establish a good parent-child relationship</h1>
Psychologist Chen Haixian put forward three principles of sharing vulnerability, the first principle, to expose their vulnerability, everyone has a lot of entanglements in their hearts, we all want to package it up and show it in a perfect shape. But in the father-son relationship, it is a kind of bravery to be able to expose vulnerability. The second principle is to see the other person's vulnerability and to be able to accept that vulnerability. Whether it is a father or a child, there are times when they are vulnerable. Accept the vulnerability of the child, accept the vulnerability of the father, accept the vulnerability of the self. The third principle is not to treat vulnerability as the enemy and bad communication as the enemy. Jump out of the conflicting father-son relationship, establish sincere communication, establish emotional connection, and establish a good parent-child relationship by sharing fragile moments.
A closer look at the relationship between Watanabe and father and son reveals a lack of communication, a lack of emotional connection, and a lack of moments of vulnerability. In all perspectives, the father has been silently waiting for the child, he sees the child's loss on the baseball field, sees the child's panic in front of the operating room, sees the child's reluctance when he leaves home to join the army, and knows that he has a lot of emotions, but all of them are packaged as strong. There is little communication between them, and the father has been playing the image of great brilliance, silently bearing.
Between father and son without communication, like the gap between life and death, the father feels very lost, but he can't help but express his feelings. The father tried several times to share the fragile moments, but all of them ended in failure, and it was not until after his death that the son learned of his father's stomach cancer. The father is accustomed to being always strong in front of his son, accustomed to hiding all the fragile moments, accustomed to being an eternal giver, and the son also thinks that the father is an eternal "mountain" that can still be relied on even if he is old. The son is growing up, the father is aging, becoming vulnerable. In the former "father-son" relationship, the child needs to be taken care of, the child is the one who exposes the fragility, as the father is old, the role is reversed, the father is the person who needs to be taken care of, and the father becomes the person who needs to expose the vulnerability. In life, we continue to become strong, and this strength unconsciously becomes a wall, standing between father and son, let us forget that exposing vulnerability is also an important lesson in the relationship between father and son.
<h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" >3. In the "imprisoned" self, explore the meaning of life and live out your true self</h1>
"Watanabe" busy with the children's park project
What is the meaning of life?
The Cyrenist school believed that the meaning of life was that the pleasure of the body and the senses was higher than the pleasure of the spirit, because the former was stronger and more real. This is Watanabe's one-night experience after meeting a third-rate writer, Watanabe did not find happiness, and the next day he was still like walking meat, living empty.
Akira Kurosawa, through the character Watanabe, expressed his understanding of the meaning of life, "The greatest joy in life is not in pleasure, nor in remembering the past, but living in the present and doing a meaningful thing." This is also a true portrayal of Akira Kurosawa's state of mind in life, in 1952, Akira Kurosawa was 46 years old, and his young time was nearing the end, and he began to explore the meaning of life.
Sartre said that the meaning of life is that we have the right to choose. The system is rigid, but in the rigidity, we also have the right to choose to do something practical, to choose not to be materialized, to choose to live according to our nature as human beings. Watanabe tells us with his last life that the meaning of life lies in the fact that we have the pursuit of "transcendence from things", do not indulge in the desire of purple drunken fans, do not insensitively restrain ourselves, get out of our "selfish" small plans, and find our own meaning to others in the wider world.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > concluding remarks:</h1>
In Kurosawa's vision, stereotyped institutions, silent family relations, and imprisoned selves were the subjects of Japanese social leaders in the 1950s. In a pessimistic mood, but also revealed a positive meaning, the little man Watanabe at the end of life, began to seek the meaning of life, in the process of helping others to find the joy of life.
Watanabe's stomach cancer seems unfortunate, but it is fortunate, "stomach cancer" makes him reflect on the meaning of work, reflect on family relationships, and reflect on his own life. Carrying the cross of "stomach cancer", he finally began his real life. The film criticizes the undesirable phenomena of Japanese society, and at the same time, it also tells people to know how to cherish life, reflect on life, and live the true meaning of life.
But everyone has an understanding of the meaning of life, sartre also said that the meaning of life is that we have the right to choose freely, breaking the shackles of life to pursue a free life is a choice, and living a life in accordance with the system is also a free choice. Knowing how to break the inherent life and pursue life is a kind of wisdom, and knowing how to get along with the ordinary within the system is also a kind of life wisdom.