T.S. Eliot once said, "Writing poetry is a matter of turning blood into ink." Poetry, by virtue of its purity, has the power to reach the soul.
But adapting a poem into a movie is tough. Poetry is a stack of intentions, while film is a complex mechanism of emotion generation. It relies on a complete narrative structure and a storyline with ups and downs. However, Japanese director Yuya Ishii, who is widely known for "The Chronicle of the Boat", presents another possibility for viewers with an experimental video language.
2019・Yokohama Museum of Art・Machiko", "Exhibition of Poetry"
The 2017 film "The Night Sky Always Has the Greatest Density of Blue" is based on the poem "Night Sky はいつでも Maximum Density の青だ". As one of the most outstanding contemporary Japanese poets, Mochiko constantly tries to break through the original forms of expression of poetry and explore new boundaries and possibilities. The visualization of poetry is one of them.
This film also topped the list of the top ten annual films in Japan's "Movie Shunbun" in the year of release.
Movie posters
<h1 class= "pgc-h-center-line" > "the moment you fall in love with the city, it's like suicide."</h1>
"How are you, are you alive?"
You live alone in the city. You okay? Still alive?
Set in Tokyo, the film depicts the emotions that float around in the modern city: loneliness and anxiety, confusion and restlessness. In cities where the population is measured by tens of millions, life falls like a star every second, and people live with their own "ominous premonitions".
And this is the true portrayal of people who are generally uneasy after the 3.11 earthquake.
Loneliness is the blue moon in the city.
The film unfolds in a monologue by the girl. It was an emotionless, watery monologue:
"When you feel pitiful, in the moment of not being loved by anyone, just hate the world to the fullest, and because of this, there is no love on this planet." 」
Mika, who is a nurse during the day and works in a bar at night, always treats the world with a posture of resistance. As a nurse, she is accustomed to life and death, always repeating a mantra: "It doesn't matter, anyway, I quickly forgot."
Always escape the beauty of the fragrance
But in her heart, she could never let go of her mother's death. The sense of abandonment brought about by her mother's suicide has created her cold and avoidant personality, which has gradually become her protective color. Because of the fear of abandonment, they indifferently reject everything. In a nihilistic way, do not believe in the meaning of anything. Just live step by step, neither rejecting nor investing.
Shinji, who can only see half of the world due to an eye disease, works at a construction site. He always verbally avoids the word "death", but his side is filled with the shadow of the god of death. The sudden death of a co-worker, the death of a neighbor, the loss of love of a friend, the separation of a friend... Sadness fills the sky over the city as nothingness. Shinji, who was originally neurotic and liked to talk about a person, became increasingly silent.
Neurotic prudence II
The real life of ordinary people, in front of the movie, often seems too trivial and bland. Life is just a heap of meaningless moments, the life of camp service, the self is consumed, and the boundary between life and death is increasingly blurred. In the corners of the city, the so-called daily life is just a dilemma between the gap between hope and despair.
The hardships of life are engulfed by the night sky of the city, and the inner voice of each individual is buried by the noise of the city's street corners. The moment you fall in love with the city, the ego is dissolved, as if committing suicide.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-center-line" > "gravitational, lonely force."</h1>
"Gravity is the force of attraction and loneliness between the universes." --Shuntaro Tanigawa
The verses in Toshitaro Tanigawa's "Loneliness in Two Billion Light Years" reflect the two most frequent images in the pen of The Most Fruitful: Death and Love.
In films strung together by verses, the plot is weakened. On the contrary, through the lens language and editing method, the emotions and psychological feelings of the characters are infinitely magnified.
We follow the director into Tokyo under the blue night, the entrance to a lonely city of silence and melancholy. It is isolated from the daily human fireworks under the sun, hiding the wounds and tears in each of our hearts.
"I don't really want to die, but I still want to die."
"Mobile phone bill 9200, gas bill 3261, electricity bill 2380, water bill 3000 ..." When Shinji lay alone in the room, a large bill fell and drowned his face. The feeling of suffocation brought about by the pressure of survival comes to the face.
This sense of repression of survival is reminiscent of "The Train of Hard Labor", which is also a film about the life of the underclass of Tokyo society, and "The Train of Labor" portrays a typical struggle dilemma with no way out. This film, on the other hand, depicts another kind of purification after utter despair, detached from death and suffering, loneliness and misfortune.
The "purification of despair" stems from the gravitational pull of the universe, which draws us to each other as lonely.
In a sense, Mika, who is cold and alienated and lives in the absence of inner thought, and Shinji, who is neurotic and can only see half of the world, are "strange people" living on the edge of society. But when we wander alone in the silent night and swallow a candy called "loneliness", who is not a foreign object in this huge urban machine?
"I'm a weirdo."
"Oh, me too."
The dialogue between the two in the film, many times, is not just an exchange between two people. It's through the lens, with the audience who is watching the movie. And those who, from time to time, in their hearts also make the exclamation of "I am the same".
The dissolution of loneliness stems from the connection we have with another person, with the world. When we look inside and find the part that overlaps with others, when we can naturally say, "Me too." A force called "hope" will begin to emerge in the heart.
Even in such a city, shrouded in loneliness and death, the individual is still unconsciously inextricably linked to others and the world. Shinji lay on the floor and lit a cigarette, and the red flame at the end of the tobacco connected a patch of red neon at night in Tokyo. The bento produced in the assembly line factory flowed to Shinji's construction site and also to Mika's hospital, and the two people ate the same food at noon.
As Mika and Shinji approach each other in one encounter after another, the two lonely star orbits begin to overlap.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-center-line" > "to like a man is to kill him gently."</h1>
Love will make people mediocre, love will make people lose themselves. To like a person is to kill a part of the other person in the name of love.
"Rent 65,000, Syria, terrorism, meals 25,000, girls' bars 18,000, earthquake, death of Chi, 56 deaths in Iraq, medical malpractice lawsuits for AIDS infection, antiperspirant spray 750, security bill, elderly and childfree ... Want to see you..."
When Shinji sat up and counted the bills and worldly sorrows against the blue night sky of Tokyo, the big "I want to see you" began to appear in the center of his blue night sky, which was only half of the world.
Love may not be meaningful, but at this moment, the throbbing in the heart cannot be stopped. Life is full of sadness and confusion, but at this moment, I want to see you. Being in love may make people mediocre, but I still like you.
Starring: Ikematsu Shoryo Ishibashi Shizukawa
Nietzsche once said: "Life is a mirror, and the first thing we strive for is to identify ourselves from it." When we have the courage to face real life, when we have the courage to love, we also have the means to know ourselves and fight against the nothingness of the world.
In the first half of the film, Shinji always repeats meaningless words incessantly to hide his inner uneasiness. But in the second half, the roles of the two are reversed, and Mika begins to speak continuously, and Shinji falls silent. For Mei Xiang, this is more of an attempt to explore her heart, and she begins to stop closing herself off and face the shadows and fears in her heart with an open attitude.
In a world full of nothingness, the anxiety and inner entanglement of the two protagonists who constantly seek some certainty are finally gradually becoming clear in their proximity to each other. Two alienated souls begin to truly face their own hearts, and real life.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-center-line" > "If death is regarded as misfortune, it is impossible to live well."</h1>
"Life and death are irresistible, and we can only enjoy a period of time between the two. The dark curtain of death will bring out the brilliance of life. "--Santayana
The blue of Tokyo's night sky is unreal, it is the alienation of the city that turns into air, enveloping every lonely soul. When you can walk into a dark night, you will have the courage to wait for the dawn in the darkness.
In the film, Mika and Shinji go to Mika's hometown together. There, the two experienced the black night of the countryside together. A natural and authentic night should be black, because black can wash away the loneliness and sadness of blue.
When the two return to Tokyo and stand side by side on the streets of Shinjuku again, different lights and shadows begin to appear in the camera. The slow motion that had previously filled the picture disappeared, the light turned into natural light, and the language of the shot began to tell the truth. The so-called real life is nothing more than: when you get up in the morning, say good morning; before eating, say I'm going to start; raise a turtle together; walk side by side in the city together.
Earthquakes, wars, the stresses of life... In this city, every second there can be something bad happening. But people who live restlessly day after day sometimes forget the simple fact that in cities where it is not surprising that nothing bad happens, it is also possible that incredible good things will happen.
Stay up the night together and usher in the dawn
In a city where people die every second. Today, at this moment, there are also people who are smiling and living somewhere.
Life and death, in fact, are always born in the city, and the cycle begins and cycles. It is like the scene in the film in the form of animation: the puppy that was pulled to the disposal of the protection agency is cremated. White ashes drifted from the chimney of the crematorium, which eventually turned into cherry blossom petals and spilled on the site where Shinji worked.
Shinji's construction site
Death is always a part of life. The existence of death does not mean that we need to deny life itself because of it. On the contrary, it is precisely because of the existence of death that we should embrace the life in front of us more vigorously.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-center-line" > "You're somewhere, your heart is beating."</h1>
"Even if I don't see you, you will always be somewhere, like water, like spring, and your eyes are always somewhere."
It's a poetic film. Poetic, sometimes meant, it is very close to your soul. One of the most fruitful original intentions of writing was "to present a lens-like text" and "to express the emotions that originally existed in the human heart."
And this movie is the embodiment of the inner voice of every lonely soul in the city. In the blue night sky, everyone's inner struggle and resistance, powerlessness and confusion, depression and disappointment are condensed. It also releases gentle encounters, eternal waiting, and endless hope.
When you feel lonely, don't forget that there is an eternal gravitational force in the universe. Lonely patients in the city looking at the blue moon, please accept this gentle prescription note.
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