"Confused" is a film made by Japanese film master Naruse Mikio in the 1960s, the story tells the love between Reiko, a widow in a small town in Japan, and his uncle Yukiji, not only involving Japan's post-war family life and social conditions, but also involving family ethics and morality, more rarely, in a male-dominated film, "Confused" meticulously portrays the heart of women, from this perspective, this is an excellent female film.
Perhaps for many fans, Naruse is an unknown director, but his status in the Japanese film industry is on a par with Ozu Yasujiro, and many directors such as Wong Kar-wai, Yang Dechang, and Hou Xiaoxian have great respect for his films. As one of his most classic masterpieces, "Confused" can fully glimpse the unique image style of this author-style film master.
Use the lens to portray the subtleties of character relationships and emotions
Although Naruse and Yasujiro Ozu are equally famous, their fundamental film style and the mood they want to express are far apart. Ozu Yasujiro's film themes are mostly family affection, which makes him good at absorbing the flow of time from blandness and mediocrity with fixed long shots, and Naruse Yoshio focuses on exploring the relationship between men and women, when the camera gazes at a pair of men and women whose emotions are entangled, he is good at conveying ambiguity and ambiguity by capturing the changing movements of the two when they talk, and in his scene scheduling, the emotions of the male and female protagonists are infinitely magnified, but they suddenly stagnate on the edge of touching each other.
It is precisely because Naruse's shots are good at capturing such subtle emotions between men and women, Wong Kar-wai, who is also interested in this aspect, lists Naruse's "Floating Clouds" as the number one movie in his heart, and it is not difficult to see the shadow of "Floating Clouds" in "Fancy Years". But more postmoder-than Wong Kar-wai's, Naruse's films are more restrained and depressing, gracefully moving towards destruction in a slow pace.
"Confused" is the same film as "Floating Clouds" about emotional and ethical struggles, in this film, Naruse Mikio shows us how to use the lens to reflect the relationship between the characters and the changing state of the characters' emotions in an instant. Reiko's husband died in the war, and Reiko single-handedly ran her in-laws' department store and took on the responsibility of caring for her in-laws. Eighteen years passed, the young uncle Yukiji had grown into a young man, idle outside, although the in-laws' sisters-in-law and mother-in-law did not say it, but Reiko could feel that the in-laws wanted Yukiji to manage the store. Yukiji claims that there is a reason for wandering outside, but what everyone does not know is that his reason is precisely the fear of squeezing out his sister-in-law's position in the family, and once he takes over the store, it means that the sister-in-law is dispensable for the family.
Reiko's first intimate conversation with Yukiji takes place when Yukiji has not yet revealed her true intentions, and the conversation between the two begins with Reiko's "exhortation" to Yukiji, reiko first expressing concern about Yukiji's current state of doing nothing, but Yukiji clearly does not care. When Reiko tentatively said that her mother-in-law wanted Yukiji to take over the shop, the two were cleverly arranged, and although the two were in the same room, they were cut into two spaces, with no door in the middle, but separated by a door frame, which seemed to hint at the struggle between love and etiquette.
After Reiko finished speaking, the camera turned to Yukiji, who said, "Daddy and brother are long dead, and this shop is yours." He prepared to go to the dish, and did not wait for Yukiji to do the whole action, the camera jumped to face Reiko, although it did not use too fast cutting, but the action that interrupted the previous shot of Yukiji suddenly jumped to the camera facing Reiko, so that Reiko who was facing the camera did not say a word, but felt her mood fluctuations at the junction of the camera and the camera. Even more cleverly, in this long shot, Reiko turns around and turns off the lights in the space where she is, so that the light from the space where Yukiji is located becomes the only light source to illuminate Reiko, hiding all foreign objects and exposing Reiko only to the light. The light of Yukiji Space is like a chasing light, which is not only Yukiji's affection projected on Reiko, but also can be seen as the exposure of Reiko's emotions after listening to Yukiji's words. Although the two are still talking about the parents at this time, there is still no ambiguity to speak of, but Naruse Has completed the subtle transformation of the relationship between the two through clever scheduling.
The most amazing ambiguous scene is that after Yukiji's confession, the two are silent about this matter but tacitly, the department store rings the phone, the two run from different directions to prepare to pick up the phone, Naruse Mikio did not directly depict the embarrassing situation of the two, but turned the camera to the other side of the mother-in-law who was also ready to answer the phone first, but the mother-in-law said: "You are here?" In a casual tone, but can evoke infinite words, the camera then turns to the two people who are confused around the phone, Reiko stretched out her hand to pick up the phone but finally turned around, and Yukiji also gambled and left a shadow to run away. Then she gradually transitioned to the thoughtful shot of Reiko lying on the bed, and the light source of somewhere only illuminated her pair of autumn water-like eyes, which looked very moving.
In this passage, the mother-in-law exists only as a warning, does not play any role in promoting the narrative, and her purpose of appearing on the camera is not even to witness all this (because Naruse does not give any result shots, that is, how the mother-in-law's expression is after witnessing the two running away), she symbolizes a certain order and discipline, and the horror of this ethic is not in what kind of result it can induce, but in its constant presence reminding Reiko to act according to the ethical code. Therefore, it does not matter how the mother-in-law's last expression is, the thoughtful etiquette lying on the bed is the real result of this silent "atrocity".
Trapped women
The female tragedy reflected in "Confused" is still extremely reflective and critical in today's era background. Reiko is undoubtedly a person with what Beauvoir called "femininity", in "The Second Sex", she reveals from different dimensions that the so-called "femininity" is nothing more than the result of women's "washing" and "internalization" under the discipline of "civilization", and its essence is that the "civilization" dominated by the male power is constantly exerting pressure on women, so that women wear cultural masks under the other and alienation, thus highlighting a certain system, thinking, knowledge and other social existence. Although the formation of "femininity" discussed by Beauvoir is based on the origin of Western culture, the process and result of its argument are universal.
As one of the representatives of Oriental culture, Japan is closely related to Chinese culture, and the feudal tradition's demand for women to abide by "virtuous and virtuous" is reflected in the obscure but glaring in "Confused Feelings". In the film, Reiko has taken on the burden of her in-laws' life for eighteen years, and without complaint, Naruse deliberately skipped everything that Reiko had sacrificed herself in the past eighteen years, setting the beginning of the story in a crisis, that is, the department store was affected by the supermarket, and Reiko's in-laws hoped that Yukiji would take over the rectification of the department store. The brilliance of "Confused" is that it does not intend to reveal the process of beauvoir's so-called "women are formed", but to directly attack the ultimate tragic result of a woman who has long sacrificed herself to maintain her family, thus completing the composition and call of women's self-awareness.
The tragedy of Reiko is also that the limitations of the times can not break the patriarchal culture of "women are a rib in men", whether it is her mother-in-law or her sister-in-law, they all believe that she should remarry and rely on a man again, and even try to help her find a partner, and her ability to run the department store alone has not been truly recognized by them. In the film, Reiko is almost always placed within the frame of the door frame and window, reflecting that Reiko, regardless of the long-term psychological immersion of civilization or the social discipline of the body, requires her not to "overstep".
The trauma of war
The background of "Confused" is placed in Post-World War II Japan, on the one hand, the economic take-off, and on the other hand, the psychological trauma caused by the war, and the small people at the bottom are almost victims of both. Reiko's husband died in the war, and her sudden intrusion into the town's supermarket forced Reiko to leave the department store she had run. All this is as Reiko said, the husband who died in the war will not be written into "history", and the fate of the little people under the economic take-off will not be written into "history". This is both a reflection on The Japanese war and a concern about Japan's rapid economic development.
The film was filmed in 1964, when the new wave of Japanese cinema was in full swing, and the confusion and madness of post-war youth were vividly outlined, pointing to the pain of society. At this time, Naruse Mikio was entering the late stage of his film creation, "Confused", "Chaotic Clouds", "When a Woman Walks up the Stairs" are all works of his period, in this creative stage, the relationship between men and women in the film continues his previous gloomy and desperate tone, in the sense and emotion towards destruction, compared to the Japanese film New Wave directors of the emotional catharsis, Naruse Mikio does not seem to have so many angry flames, but "Love Confusion" Riyukiji's final and sudden death reflects some of his attitudes with Japanese New Wave directors: the trauma of war will continue to the next generation.
Naruse's childhood was very tragic, which may have been the reason why his films are always full of despair, but the center of his films is not some kind of negativity, but when composing a sad song, the aftersound points out the path that people's emotions and desires should really take.