It's a warm and healing movie for a quiet viewing on a winter afternoon with a steaming cup of tea and curled up on a soft couch.
Kobayashi Winter and Spring is an adaptation of the work "Little Forest" by Japanese manga artist Daisuke Igarashi, and before that, "Summer and Autumn". Each season is photographed into an independent unit, different plants, different landscapes, different cuisines. The four seemingly loose units are connected to each other because of the growth of the heroine Ichiko.
Compared with the "Summer and Autumn Chapter" released a year earlier, "Winter and Spring Chapter" chooses two seasons of the year to represent the end and beginning of the year to describe, implying the farewell of Ichiko and the past, as well as the change of rebirth.
The film uses food as a medium to explore the topic of life and life. Each season divides the movie into different lengths and lengths with seven different foods, just like the chapters that are listed separately when reading a comic.
The ingredients of the food vary over time and the seasons change, but they are all planted by Ichiko himself or collected from the countryside. The film explains and edits the production process of each food in detail but not tediously, simple and common natural ingredients, with smooth and familiar processing techniques, coupled with warm and bright color collocation, so that the original ordinary food becomes more healing.
It is also because of the display of a series of food that is appetizing, especially the satisfaction of the protagonists in the film when enjoying food, so that the audience jokingly called the film "Japan on the tip of the tongue".
The film tells the story of Ichiko (Ai Hashimoto), a girl who returns from the city to the countryside, and lives alone in her hometown, "Komori".
Spring ploughing, summer harvest, autumn harvest, winter Storage, the cycle of reciprocating throughout the year. Every season is accompanied by good food, either full of memories, soothing or just calm.
In this calm and busy and fulfilling life, Ichiko gradually broke away from the mentality of escaping from life, and slowly became dare to face herself and face life.
This is similar to the popular Internet celebrity "Li Ziqi" at home and abroad in recent years.
<h1>Komori and her residents</h1>
"Komori" is a small village in the mountains, and under the lens of the director, this originally unremarkable place has become a beautiful paradise of peach blossoms.
At the beginning of the film, Ichiko describes Komori's monologue:
Komori is a small village in a village in the Tohoku region.
There are no shops here, but if you buy necessities, you can go to the center of the village where the official office is located, where there is a small supermarket opened by the farmers' cooperative, and there are several shops.
The way back is basically downhill, and the bicycle takes about half an hour, but it takes more time to return.
In winter, because of the snow on the road, you can only walk, if you are not in a hurry, you have to walk for an hour and a half.
But most residents go shopping at the large out-of-town supermarkets in neighboring towns, where it takes a day to go back and forth.
Komori is very remote, and there is basically no commercial and modern atmosphere.
Mountains, farmland, streams and simple houses, as well as the variety of wildlife that appear from time to time, are a picture of people and nature living in harmony.
The residents who remain in Komori live a simple and simple and busy life, working at sunrise and resting at sunset. This is a group of hard-working, down-to-earth, lovely and kind people.
They cultivate wasteland and turn woods into rice paddies; they develop new dishes and share them with each other in their spare time; they go up the mountain to pick fruit and go into the water to fish, and they beat rice cakes together to make sticky rice dumplings. They take their day-to-day lives seriously and enjoy the days from the bottom of their hearts.
<h1>Mom and the letter she sent</h1>
Five years ago, when Ichiko was still in high school, her mother Fukuko quietly left Komori one afternoon and has not been heard from since. Ichiko is dependent on and misses her mother, so Fukuko appears in her memories many times in the film.
From the fragments of Ichiko's memories about her mother, we can see that Fukuko is a character with a distinct personality and has a major impact on Ichiko's growth.
Fukuko's past is a mystery, and there is not much information given in the film. But it can be guessed that she must be a person with a story, and she has a very different temperament from the other residents of Komori, as if she were just a passer-by, a short stay.
She has read many books, cooks a lot of dishes, and is often immersed in her own thoughts—past, present, future, about the direction and trade-offs of life.
The picture of Fukuko on her side smoking on her side on the day she decides to leave in the film is the starting point of her other life journey.
Five years later, in the fall, Fukuko sent a letter to her daughter, Ichiko. This letter is Fukuko's inner monologue about life and a catalyst for Ichiko to "take an important step forward".
The letter reads:
"When I fall somewhere, every time I look back at my previous self, I find that I have fallen in the same place every time. Despite the hard work, I always draw circles in the same place. Wandering to the end is just a return to the original point, which is very disappointing.
But every time I accumulate experience, whether it is failure or success, it is no longer the origin. Well, it should not be called "circle", but "spiral". From a certain point of view, it seems to be going around in the same place, but in fact, it will be a little higher or lower. If that's the case, it's fine.
Perhaps man himself is a "spiral", going around in the same place, but different each time, up or down or extending horizontally.
The circle I draw is getting bigger every time, so the spiral is getting bigger every time. Thinking about it, I felt that I should still try harder. ”
Telling some chicken soup in a bland tone is not dogmatic, but inspiring.
When Ichiko read the letter, it was also the time for her to face life again.
<h1>The choice and change of the kitchen lady Ichiko</h1>
Ichiko had two experiences going out and back from Komori, but the causes and outcomes of both experiences were completely different.
For the first time, Ichiko graduated from high school, and like most komori young people, he chose to leave this remote and desolate place to work and live in the city. But the young Ichiko can't handle the relationship with others and can't adapt to the life of the city, so she chooses to escape and escape back to the familiar Komori.
The second time, Ichiko has more time to precipitate and think in Komori's monotonous life day after day. And under the influence of the simple and industrious villagers and friends around him, he has a clearer understanding of the shortcomings of his own passive escape. The letter sent by her mother was an opportunity, a spiritual motivation for her to walk out of Komori again.
And this time, I left for the sake of a more obedient return in the future. Ichiko returned to Komori from the city many years later, but this time it was no longer because she had nowhere to go, but because she chose to take the initiative with a positive mindset.
Ichiko in the film grew up in a single-parent family, will have more dependence on her mother, and unconsciously there will be a lot of imitation. And the mother's non-farewell is a very big blow to her, although the film does not focus on depiction, but imagine a high school girl who needs to live and grow up independently in the countryside, you can know the hardships and difficulties involved.
Ichiko is like the "grass" in the movie, weak and small, but strong and full of vitality.
"The earth is weak and life, and it is resolutely facing the sky."
Although the original Ichiko lived independently and strongly in Komori, she looked very powerful on the surface, but in fact, she was just using "effort" to cover up her own "escape".
In the eyes of her girlfriend Yoshiko, she still does not get along well with people and only says beautiful things.
In the eyes of her apprentice Yuta, she is always evasive, hidden, and self-deceptive about important things.
So when did Ichiko stop hesitating and become a person who "once you make up your mind, pat your ass and leave"?
It's a subtle process of growing up, hidden in a spiritual dialogue with plants, with food, with friends, and with mothers who aren't around.
Maybe Ichiko found "the book he wants to read"; maybe he learned to stop being impatient and know how to look after things; or maybe he understood that only by facing life seriously can he enjoy life.
Ichiko leaves Komori for the second time and returns five years later, and the film doesn't describe this part, and we don't know what she experienced in five years. But this is not important, and the brilliance on Ichiko's face and the confidence in her eyes when she finally dances the god dance is the best proof that she can bravely face life.
<h1>About the stars and the food and beauty in the movie</h1>
The protagonist of the film, Ichiko, is played by Ai Hashimoto, with a small and strong figure, as well as a healthy and rosy complexion, although there is a lot of gap from the real farmer, but after all, it is an art form, and it cannot be too demanding. It is not easy for many farm jobs to be able to do it yourself.
Ichiko's girlfriend Yoshiko, played by Matsuoka Moyu, is cute and willful, willful, willful, a bit poisonous, and the character image is very popular.
Yuta, a young man who returns to Komori from the city, is played by Takada Miura, a "tall boy who loves to cook chicken soup with light clouds and breeze", with wheat-colored skin and simple clothes, completely a country youth.
More impressive is the actor Kirishima Kaori, who plays Fukuko, although he does not appear many times, but he looks like a "woman with a story".
What is more interesting is that the small actor Shinogawa Momoyin, who plays the childhood Ichiko, has a cute and funny expression when watching her mother's foreign friend perform magic, and her face is unbelievable.
The film is known as "Japan on the tip of the tongue", and there are many ordinary and beautiful foods, to name a few:
Black Rice Pumpkin Cake:
Natto glutinous rice dumplings:
Frozen radish and dried persimmons:
Onigiri bento:
Noodle soup:
Indian crepes with chicken curry rice:
Wild Vegetable Tempura:
Wild garlic salmon pasta:
Dry fried vegetable cake:
Cress potato mashed salad:
Komori's scenery is also very charming, leaving aside the story of the film, these scenery alone are also worth seeing.
winter:
spring:
The movie received a high rating of 9 points on Douban, and sure enough, the food and beauty can most capture and soothe people's hearts.
Only by loving life and facing life seriously can we truly enjoy life.
(End of full text)