(Resources have been collected, small partners click here genius can see it ~ ~ )
"There is not much difference between people,
It is necessary to create works that can touch the most fundamentals of human beings. ”
The person who said this was Shinichiro Watanabe, a god-level animation supervisor in Japan.
His works, from "Star Cowboy" and "Chaos Samurai", to "Apollo on Sakamichi" and "Tokyo Remnants", casually come up with a masterpiece that is enough to leave a name in history.
The work I want to introduce today is also written by Watanabe.
It's just that compared to the above familiar animation works, there are not many people who know and have seen it, so it seems relatively niche.
However, this does not affect the classicity of the animation in the slightest.
It's a short film written and directed by Watanabe in 2007.
《BABY BLUE》
<h1>1. "Contest" with "Second Five"</h1>
BABY BLUE (aka Light Blue) is only 14 minutes long.
Strictly speaking, BABY BLUE is not a stand-alone animated short.
Its real identity is actually part of the film GENIUS PARTY ("Carnival of Genius") produced by the animation company STUDIO 4°C.
Genius PARTY consists of 7 short stories, each of which has a different supervision, and Watanabe Shinichiro is one of them.
In this animated film with a strong production lineup, many people said that they had a fondness for the last short story, Watanabe's "BABY BLUE".
Nowadays, we can see that "BABY BLUE", as a part of the movie, has its own exclusive entry on the Douban score, and more than 5,000 people have given it an average high score of 8.5, which shows its popularity.
What is even more amazing is that the Douban home page ranks first in the short review of high praise, which is actually a comment with a quite "lead to war" flavor. It reads:
"The ending proves that Watanabe is a level that ten shinkai makoto can't reach together."
In fact, there have been many people who have compared Watanabe's short film with Makoto Shinkai's films, especially "Five Centimeters per Second", and there are indeed some similarities between the two in terms of picture style and theme.
However, BABY BLUE and Second Five are very different.
Although it cannot be arbitrarily said that the former must be smarter than the latter, anyone who has seen "BABY BLUE" has to admit watanabe's genius.
After all, your uncle will always be your uncle.
(Look at my kneeling posture is still standard?) ）
<h1>2. Love stories and grenades</h1>
The story of BABY BLUE is not complicated.
From the content point of view, it is an animation about the school love of young boys and girls;
Thematically, at its core is the "missing" between narrators.
Seeing this, you may be like me at the time, wondering why Watanabe suddenly had a whim to make such a love animation, let alone a theme that was used badly.
However, I can tell you here that it is not an ordinary animation of male and female protagonists talking about small love.
BABY BLUE It's very hardcore.
How about a hardcore method?
It adds one important prop to the campus love story:
hand grenade!
At the beginning of the story, the male and female protagonists skipped class and went to the South Hunan Sea to set off fireworks.
This bright summer, the breeze, the light clouds, the sound of cicadas, and the floating between the two, if there is no emotion.
Everything seemed so quiet and peaceful, until the male protagonist talked about the original secret.
On the tram, the man asked the girl if she remembered the grenade that the two had hidden somewhere in the past—a secret that only he and she knew.
The heroine asked him how the grenades were doing.
At this time, I saw the male protagonist calmly say:
"Actually, I'm carrying it now."
The male protagonist told the female protagonist that there was a teacher in the middle school who was very excessive, and he wanted to blow up the office at that time.
Perhaps, children yearn for "bombing school" or something, which can be called a true portrayal of "the same world, the same dream". (Shhh)
The man brought the grenades on his body on this day, in fact, he wanted to find a place to bury them with the heroine.
However, things didn't go as smoothly as they thought.
First, the two accidentally overslept on the tram, so that they sat at an unfamiliar terminal.
Later, in order to get rid of the entanglement of the Shonan rioters, the male protagonist resolutely threw out a grenade.
Such an unexpected plot development can be said to be "very Watanabe".
<h1>3. Space in animation</h1>
Animation is very subtle about the handling of space, and we will try to do a little simple analysis below.
First of all, the space where the story is launched is the school where the male and female protagonists are located.
In animation works, the school is often the place where youth love is sprouted, and it is a space of everyday nature.
But soon, at the suggestion of the male protagonist, he and the female protagonist decided to skip class together and go to the beach. At this time, they fled not only from schools and classrooms, but also from everyday spaces.
Then, the space they were in shifted to the road outside the school world.
After experiencing a series of things such as police chases and interceptions by the rioters, he finally arrived at the beach as he wished. The whole process gives the animation a "road movie" flavor.
The seaside means another new space.
On the one hand, it is a representation of a non-everyday space as opposed to the campus;
On the other hand, we can also see that in Watanabe's animation, the sea is treated as a kind of existence that approximates the edge of the world.
At the beginning, the male protagonist proposed to be wayward with the female protagonist, "use up all the money, and go as far as you can go";
When he really arrived at the beach, he said with a gloomy look, "Just like that, just escape to somewhere."
However, the heroine said the sad truth:
"Can't go anywhere, we."
After going through a walk-and-go trip, after escaping from everyday space to non-everyday space, he and she had to return to everyday space.
The spatial composition in many places in BABY BLUE is also very interesting.
For example, when showing the relationship between the male and female protagonists, with the change of the mood of the two people in the animation, different angles of shooting shots will be used.
One of the shots is shot from top to bottom, and just so that a handle hanging from the roof of the tram visually separates the two people, thus forming an excellent metaphor for the two people's own hearts and minds.
<h1>4. That brilliant fireworks</h1>
Fireworks themselves are a contradictory image.
It is ephemeral, intangible, but often used to symbolize an eternal promise.
We believe that the male protagonist has always loved the female protagonist, but this love is buried deep in the heart, and no one knows except himself.
The female protagonist also sincerely admired the male protagonist, but in the end she still became someone else's girlfriend.
There are many "misses" in a person's life.
In the anime, because of the youth of youth, they miss the love they should have;
And because of the ridiculous omission of not bringing a lighter, they missed the fireworks that had been planned that night.
However, things don't seem so sad.
The man told the girl that he asked her out to tell her that he was about to leave the city because of the move.
"At seven o'clock tonight, don't send me."
The car started. Through the car window, he saw fireworks swaying over the grass.
She finally came, with that promise about fireworks, silently sending him off.
Man is an animal that is good at forgetting.
At the seaside in Shonan, the male protagonist said to the female protagonist:
"Anyway, I'm gone, and everyone will soon forget about me."
At the same time, man is also an animal that does not want to be forgotten.
What I don't want to forget is like the unspoken feelings of my youth, like the fireworks under the night sky that day.
Watanabe told us such a unique story in just 14 minutes.
Whether it is the control of rhythm, the rendering of the atmosphere, or the configuration of the music and the performance of the picture, "BABY BLUE" can be said to be almost perfect.
In particular, the group of slow motion shots about fireworks at the end is a stroke of genius.
To fully appreciate the charm of this short film, you may wish to see it for yourself.
Trust me, you'll love it.
PS: resources have been collected, small partners click here genius can see ~ ~