This is a train that arrives on Christmas Eve and infiltrates the world of the sleepless. Its huge body docked in the gray-purple darkness of the night, roaring in the silence of the snow. The whistle beckons the next passenger, and those who are not drawn continue to swim in their dreams. The special train to the polar region only awakens children who are hesitant about the future and confused about the past. It likes to meet the face of certainty and questioning, because it will carry a journey of virtual and real, true and false, lack and fullness. The purpose of its existence is precisely to give people the opportunity to discover, face up to, and resolve contradictions. So it's both heading to the North Pole and growing up, and if you're looking for answers about life, you're right to get in the car.
Before getting on the bus, you can click on this song, which is the background music of our transition from youth to old age, and there is a gentle affection for the past in the grand ambition of moving forward.
At that time, we were at an age when we were constantly gaining knowledge but constantly losing faith. The fantasy-wrapped child's dream becomes a scientific principle that can be explained in the manual, imagining the world of masonry falling in front of figurative instruments. The genie who can pick up the teeth is fake, and the Santa Claus who can give gifts is fake. Monsters are no longer easy to hear in the dream, but instead the sound of shattered reality in childhood.
Growing insights also create desperate "atheists" in building erudite minds. Legends, fairy tales, fables are all lies, and we open our mouths to scientific theorems, but we forget how to tell a moving story for children. It is not possible to copy the picture of Santa Claus driving the whip to direct the reindeer, nor to depict the scene of the gift box bouncing on the dwarf's conveyor belt. The exhaustion of the imagination triggers a crisis of faith, and we question childhood, accusing that the years of drinking deceived us.
When the boy who is lamented by his mother as "innocently absent" is in the old dream and looks at the adult world, his faith in childhood often oscillates between the two. While collecting information about Santa Claus, he nervously searched for the traces of Santa Claus in the living room, and on the other hand, he showed a "sure" expression when the child's dream was punctured, hiding his disappointment with disdain.
Growing up should be so careful, to put away the expectation of dreams, in case the wheel of truth comes, we are too late to clean up the crushed hope. To avoid disappointment, we turn away from faith. Until a train approaches the window, calling us out of the predicament and on our journey to see the answers.
Where to go? Is it really going to the North Pole? Is there really Santa Claus there? The more questions we have, the more evidence we have about questioning the past and panicking about the future. On the contrary, boarding the train without hesitation, regardless of purpose, proves courage. What I used to believe in was false, and whether what I saw with my own eyes was true. In the journey of life where true and false are difficult to distinguish and virtual reality is in harmony, how should we calmly face the gifts and deprivations of growth and always guard our precious gifts?
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > train from "phantom" to "real"</h1>
The train roars through the town, and the protagonist's room shakes, but only he is awakened. The Polar Express came for the confused and needed guidance, when his childlike heart was still alive. So only he could feel the vibration of the bed and the flickering of the light. Like Ms. Rowling's nine and three-quarters platform, for special people to exist.
In order to match the protagonist's confused state in adult truth and childhood dreams, the existence of polar express is also difficult to distinguish between virtual and real. It subjectively presents spiritual power and objectively conveys moving scenery. By recording the complex environment of growth, the protagonist finds problems by recording the complex environment of growth, and forcing himself to find answers in situations that he has to face.
The protagonist did not buy a ticket when he got on the bus, but after sitting down, he pulled out a ticket in his pocket. It appears out of thin air and exists objectively, a subtle thing without a reason, but it gives the protagonist a journey of seeing is believing. The train heads to the North Pole to the land where Santa Claus is. There were many children his age seated on it. Trains that do not exist in the eyes of others are exactly the real thing in their place.
The conductor summoned the waiters in the restaurant, and they rotated their seats so that everyone would face each other and sit down as if they were ready to eat. Then shake the white tablecloth and fix it in a position that it clearly has no dependence on, becoming a hanging table, using magic to merge reality and illusion into one. But the more real illusion is the ghost sitting on the roof of the car. He prides himself on being the king of the Arctic, bold and cheerful, lighting a campfire on a cold night and boiling a pot of coffee that warms his stomach. He can come and go freely, flow like smoke, and can appear in the eyes of the protagonist in a critical moment to help him. He is an illusory being, but he has left a real mark.
In addition to creating "virtual things" that can be touched and felt, the film also creates some "fantasy plots" that will have a practical impact, connecting the scene elements that lack connection into a causal logical belt. The protagonist accidentally lost the ticket of the girl next to him, and according to the realistic style of the film and the desperate results, the ticket seems to be unable to return. But the ticket that fell on the snow field was taken up by the galloping wolves and re-rolled into the sky, it experienced the eagle's eating, the snow wrapped, the wind blowing, and finally returned to its original form and returned to the girl's hands. A series of realistic scenes that do not have magic, such as wolves, eagles, and snow, are connected to an exaggerated plot that can only be explained by imagination, so that the fairytale ending is born in the real scene.
This is one of the meanings of "Polar Express", to accept a mature and wise life, not necessarily to abandon the love of dreams and the willingness to believe. Faith is there, unbelief is nothing, growth does not make a conclusion about what to believe, what to doubt, of course you can be an old man with teddy in his arms.
Pure belief and extreme skepticism are false, and accepting their coexistence is true. The train makes the true and false communicate with each other, creating a connection, so that the protagonist can see the true face of life from the illusory experience: innocence is not incompatible with maturity, growing up is just growing up, not imagination and childlike fun to decline.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > emotions that sail from "false" to "true."</h1>
Since life is true or false, requiring both scientific proof and imaginary appeasement, the paranoid question of whether Santa Claus exists becomes less important. It doesn't matter if Santa Claus is real or not, what matters is whether you can feel the joy he brings you.
In the protagonist's dialogue with the ghost on the roof, he confesses that he is willing to believe all this, but he hesitates and fears that he has been deceived. His emotional dependence on things is based on authenticity. If it is true, it will believe in it with all its strength, and love it to the fullest, and if it is not true, it will reject and forsake it. The clear and resolute attitude of "breaking away" has deprived him of the ability to use emotions to verify the true identity of things. Santa Claus, who once brought him unlimited hope and happiness, wanted to turn around and leave because he had been exposed as a lie. Only seeing can be true, and if the eyes cannot see, the mind cannot feel, which is narrow-minded, stubborn, and blind.
The journey allowed him to see the truth, and he had the opportunity to feel the warmth with his heart without relying on his eyes. The Ghost is the Guardian of the Polar Express, with a fierce face and sloppy clothes. Why not glorify the image of the protector? Like the girl's reaction after hearing the conductor say "something": "Is it an angel?" ”
Because since it does not matter whether the object that can transmit emotion exists or not, it does not matter whether his face is dirty or pure, rigid or soft. The appearance is the same as the body, which needs to be invisible, through their absence, to make the eyes close, so that people can observe love and feel warmth with their hearts. So the protagonist asks the train conductor, "Do you see what he looks like?" In fact, it is an expression that he is still entangled in phenomena rather than essence.
"I don't see it, although sometimes I see it, but sometimes the most real things are invisible." The conductor replied to him. Yes, the human shell is visible, the emotions hidden in it are invisible, and measuring the authenticity of Santa Claus with the eyes is as unreliable as using the eyes to guess the depth of affection. So when the show-off boy with glasses found the protagonist returning to the carriage, the first thing he said was: "You didn't see it, we rushed down the dangerous slope..." He saw the absence of the latter's figure in the carriage, but did not notice the difficulty of him rubbing shoulders with the danger outside the carriage.
After the danger, the protagonist understands that the ghost that comes and goes is invisible, but has a heart and will always help him. He also saw the girls take the hands of people who were different from their beliefs and interests and sing the same song. The truth and difference of appearances are not important, and the goodwill and sincerity under the cover of false sacs are the truths worth maintaining.
After arriving at the North Pole, the protagonist and the girl invite the lonely boy to join them in the carnival, saying: "I don't care if Christmas means anything to you, but today is Christmas Eve, you don't want to stay here alone!" He left the false form behind and saw the real meaning, which was the original intention of Christmas about love and reunion.
< h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > grow from "lacking" to "full"</h1>
The children on the train have their own tickets, and the conductor will type two letters for each person according to their growth experience and personality characteristics, and when they return, he will add the missing parts to them. The letters represent something missing from the ticket holder, which is filled at the end of the journey, implying the triumph of growth. The children in the car receive a gift that is more scarce than tangible objects— a revelation of growth from "lack" to "fullness".
The journey is always the end of the journey, that is, the growth of the whole, when the end comes, each child will learn to use the word they got to fill the original imperfect self. The girl is the most warm person in the film, she always remembers when others forget, pays attention when others ignore, she has a pair of eyes that can see the strong and the weak, and her broad and thoughtful vision comes from her position - the position of leader.
She lost her ticket and was supposed to be denied the opportunity to share equal rights with others, so she was taken out of the carriage by the conductor. But where did she go? Went to the cab of the Polar Express, which was small and dark, but superior in power. She ostensibly lost the right to sit on an equal footing with others, but in fact she was "promoted."
This reinforces her leadership aura, but the story makes her suffer twists and turns, showing her "deficiencies" in the process of leading herself and others.
When the protagonist asks her "Are you sure?" "When the girl habitually turns from confidence to hesitation, she loses her way in questioning. So her leadership path was passive, and when the glasses boy warned her that it would be illegal to leave the carriage without permission, she hesitated to stand where she was until the conductor defused the crisis for her. When it was time to pull the brakes, she covered her face in pain, not knowing which pole to move, until the protagonist accidentally hit and successfully broke the siege...
But when the Polar Express arrived at its destination, the girl's image as the leader gradually became clear. As she walked in front of the line, she would still lose her mind and stagnate, causing her followers to lose their balance, but this time she was able to move on, free from the help of others. On the next flying machine, she decisively pressed the button, symbolizing the beginning of her leader's life.
Not only did the girls complete their metamorphosis, but so did the other children. The words on the tickets were what they were missing and what they ended up reaping on their trip to the North Pole. Girls get real "lead". The protagonist is often caught up in doubt, so he gets the letter "believe". The glasses boy is full of knowledge but lacks patience and modesty, and his letter is "learn", which means that no amount of learning is worth showing, and there is no end to learning.
On the way back, the children waited restlessly for the conductor to fill the letters on their tickets, just as they waited for an adult to verify their transcripts. The Express sailing to the North Pole not only arrived at a place, but also used the journey as a testing ground to help them move closer to a life of full marks.
The protagonist asks Santa Claus for a bell as a Christmas present. The swaying attitude of sometimes firmly believing and sometimes suspicious made him see the polar express for a while, and for a moment he did not hear the sound of the bell, and only when he made the oath of trust did the crisp and pleasant sound of the bell reach his ears.
If you believe, you have it, and if you don't believe it, you don't have it. In the ears of parents who have already seen through the "lies" of childhood, the bell is quietly silent, and the bell is getting thinner and thinner in the sister who regards "eliminating superstition" as a natural step in growth, without doubt and hesitation. Only the protagonist still has a childlike heart, no matter how long the years have passed, he can hear the sound of the polar special roar that night.
"The point is not where we go, it's whether you get in the car or not." The conductor's words penetrated the barriers frozen by time and often echoed in his ears. Determination is more important than the result, whether the train will go to the North Pole or not, he will harvest the truth, affection and growth he wants at the moment when he has strengthened his will to get on the train.