Introduction: I am no longer a three-year-old child, I am a four-year-old big brother.
Released on November 6, 2020, the animated film "Future Future" is directed by the famous Japanese animation director Mori Hosoda, and the film tells the story of the second child in a new type of Japanese family from the perspective of Xiaojun, a three-year-old boy. In the film, Xiaojun has adopted a very personal expression from the initial resistance to his sister's future to the final acceptance, as well as the recognition of his family's past, and Hosoda's absolute paternalism in the film also makes the whole work have a very strong author's color.
Hosoda's family philosophy
As a film that unfolds from the perspective of a child, Hosoda continues his usual adherence to the traditional Japanese concept of a large family in "The Future of the Future". In his previous works, he has always been able to explore the concept of family from different angles, whether it is the reflection on the post-war reconstruction of the family between the tuandi buildings in "Digimon" or the large family located in the countryside in "Summer War". Hosoda always consciously or unconsciously integrates his understanding of the family into the family construction in the anime, and embeds himself as a paternalistic person in the observation of the film.
Such a unique perspective is reflected in "Future in the Future" from the beginning, and the first shot at the beginning of the film is a panoramic overlook, which is obviously unrealistic. The buildings neatly arranged on both sides of the street in the aerial perspective represent independent families, and the director's God-eye observation of these families constitutes this aerial lens. After the next aerial shot, which has barely changed in the frame, the only thing that changes in the picture is the protagonist's house, and the director efficiently completes the expression of the house renovation in the switch between the two shots, after which the story officially begins.
In "Future Future", the little boy Xiaojun learns about the past of his relatives in the family through time and space. In Hosoda's previous works, there is no lack of expression of space travel, the most impressive of which is the use of the ability to travel through time and space for the trivial things in life, and this ability to actively cross has become a passive acceptance of the consequences of crossing in "Future Future".
The little boy Xiaojun travels to the past and the future under the tree in his family yard, and after finally witnessing the existence of the family tree, he sorts out the relationship between the family members, and thus strengthens the identity and mission of "being the future brother". This narrative method of completing the cognitive completion of family members in the vertical historical space through the perspective of children is completely different from the previous way of filling the cognitive gap through the links of family members in the same time and space in "Summer Wars". It can be regarded as a breakthrough in Hosoda's own narrative style.
New Japanese Family Middle Parents
The way the film portrays the new Japanese family is also completely different from Hosoda's previous works. In "Future Future", Xiaojun regards the future arrival of his sister as an interloper in his life, and this feeling of crisis about the arrival of the second child in the family is a complex emotion unique to modern society, and the film completes the narrative through this contradictory emotion that currently exists between the eldest son and his parents. With the advent of the future, Xiao Jun's family status has declined, and he is no longer the whole in the eyes of his parents, and even begins to be ignored.
The film does not make a specific explanation for the reasons why Xiaojun's parents ignore Xiaojun's behavior, perhaps because of busy work, or because of excessive economic pressure (after all, they can only afford to buy the narrow building sandwiched between the two houses to transform themselves), but in the eyes of children, the lack of reasons for the parents' behavior is the real performance, because the young children sometimes can't understand the parents' behavior, so the film will appear in the audience's completely incomprehensible behavior. This is also due to the fact that the film unfolds from Xiao Jun's point of view.
The professional composition of Xiaojun's parents and the economic focus of the family are also different from the previous Japanese families, and this subversion of tradition from architectural style to family member identity is an important way for the film to construct a new type of family. Unlike the housewives in Crayon Shin and Doraemon, Kojun's mother has a stable job and is immediately engaged in work after giving birth, which also shows the attitude towards women in the Japanese workplace. In contrast, Xiaojun's father has a foothold in society with freelance occupation, and at the same time has a very high status, and this slash youth-style occupational composition gives this family a novelty that is different from the previous Japanese families.
The continuation of Japanese traditions in modern society
In addition to parenthood and family living environment, the film also expresses the continuation of Japanese traditions in contemporary society. After the sister came to the house, the old man immediately proposed to put up a "marriage doll" at home to pray for the marriage of the future growth, Xiaojun's parents listened to the advice and arranged the doll, but neglected to put the doll away on time. Only then did the sister future cross back from the future to urge her brother to put away the doll. Placing Japan's ritualized traditions in the modern family is also Hosoda's insistence on tradition.
As the climax of the whole film, Xiaojun's loss at the railway station is an author's expression of the director's personal consciousness, from the perspective of the scene construction of the railway station, here are full of trains from all over the world, there are also passengers from different places, through this scene to show the complexity of the identity of the person as an individual concentrated in Xiaojun's search for "home". In the process of finding his own positioning, when the relationship between himself and his parents that he had been relying on in the past could not maintain his identity in another time and space, Xiaojun accepted the identity of "I am the future brother", at this time the future future came to take Xiaojun away from the train station and came to the family tree, after understanding the scattered memories in the family, Xiaojun firmly believed in "being a good brother in the future".
epilogue
Such a shift may be a little too urgent for a four-year-old child, and even a little "adult" tendency. It is for this reason that the film received mixed reviews after it aired, with supporters believing that this was Hosoda's personal style and insistence on himself. Opponents argue that this extremely personal expression makes the film's pursuit of the picture extreme, but the loopholes in the plot are naïve.