"See You Again Nara" pokes your heart with something

Author: Chen Xihan

The movie "See You Nara Again" is probably the one that brings the most surprises on the screen in March. This story tells the story of the Chinese adoptive mother who went to Japan alone to find the missing Japanese orphan adopted daughter Chen Lihua, and got the help of the second generation of Japanese orphans Ozawa and retired police officer Kazuo all the way, so that many viewers who watched it did not hesitate to praise. With a mirror refraction style, it has become a unique temperament in anti-war theme film works.

The team of "See You Again in Nara" cannot be ignored. Jia Zhangke and Naomi Kawase are the executive producers of the film; the director of photography is Cai Mingliang's royal photographer Liao Benrong; the editing of Chen Bowen has his masterpiece "The Juvenile Murder Incident on Muling Street" and "Yiyi"; the soundtrack Keiichi Suzuki, the movements in "Tokyo Godfather" and "Humpback City" are all from his hands. Driving this luxurious team is the Chinese director Pengfei, born in 1982. His works are not many, but they are all remarkable. The film tells the heavy legacy of war history, neither self-pity nor too strong criticism. A large number of details of life shine through history like a mirror, and shooting tragedies in a comedic way is a high-level expression that requires a certain amount of skill to achieve. From the perspective of film creation, the audience has always had expectations for such a local director, but unfortunately, the box office performance of "See Nara Again" has only 4.67 million so far, which is doomed to be missed by most people and this work.

The film is about the aftermath of a brutal history. Japan, which was defeated in the war, must withdraw from the "reclamation group" that migrated from Japan to the northeast of our country in that year, stipulating that children under the age of five are not allowed to be brought back to China and abandoned on The territory of China, resigned to fate. These children who remained became orphans in Japan.

The film uses a cartoon to "lightly" explain this heavy history in just three minutes, and at the same time let the audience see the growing environment of the orphans, such as being bullied by children of the same age, being pointed out by adults, and it is the Chinese adoptive parents who adopt them who care and love (in the cartoon, Lihua is told that she reached the age of study, and the adoptive parents sold the cattle used by the family to cultivate the land in order to send her to school). Decades later, with the restoration of Sino-Japanese diplomatic relations, these grown orphans were able to return to Japan to find their lost relatives. This movie unfolds in such a situation.

The journey of searching for relatives in the movie is not about the process of orphans searching for relatives in Japan, but the process of Chinese adoptive mothers missing their missing adopted daughters, relying only on a few correspondence and photos, thousands of miles to Japan to find relatives. From the beginning to the end, the searcher "Chen Lihua" never appeared, because she did not know her Japanese name, and the process of finding her was full of twists and turns. Name is the foundation of a person's life. Home is a place of peace for a person's heart. A country is a state that carries a person's home and name. Chen Lihua in the movie, all three things were lost. Although she has an adoptive mother who loves her, after returning to her "hometown", she cannot find a home for her body and mind.

Even so, in her letters to her adoptive mother, she told them over and over again: I am fine, I am good. Because, in China, she "can't go back." After years of searching for her relatives in Japan, Lihua suddenly lost her voice. By chance, Grandma Chen, the adoptive mother who came to Japan to find Lihua, and the second-generation orphan Ozawa and retired police officer Kazuo traveled all the way to find her whereabouts. Here, the film borrows the paradigm of a road movie, through the search journey of three people, little by little to piece together the original appearance of Lihua's previous life: standing on the land of Japan, she is a "foreigner", can not speak Japanese, can not integrate into mainstream society, can not find a decent job... Someone rushed to and from the doughnut shop where she worked, and the lady boss was the first to suspect her.

At the same time, is it only Lihua who has disappeared? As the film quietly peels back the cocoon, we can tell that it is not only about the disappearance of post-war orphans, but also about the "disappearance" and "secrecy" of each of the trio of people looking for people.

Retired old police officer Kazuo goes to the izakaya every day to drink, drunk home always do not forget to go to the mailbox to touch a hand, he looks forward to the daughter who went to work in the big city to write a letter to the old father, join the "team" to find Lihua so that he found the sustenance of his old life, for which he did not hesitate to lie that he had seen Lihua. When he went to ask his retired police friend for clues, he found that the old man was lonelier than him, drunk and dead, and finally had to be rescued by an ambulance. This made him see clearly that he would face a deeper and deeper loneliness and a helpless future. In the context of Japanese society, where the aging phenomenon is very serious, this highlights the "disappearance" of the elderly group in the social context.

Ozawa works on a persimmon processing line. As second-generation orphans, her parents returned to China after returning to Japan. She chose to stay in Japan, but she was also not accepted by Japanese society. Kind, she kept saying goodbye to the factory, accompanied her grandmother who was not a blood relative all the way to find an adopted daughter, and finally even lost her job. But that work is also the lowest level. She had changed a lot of jobs before, but they were all convenience stores, izakayas... There is a detail in the first half of the film, Ozawa continues to paste the handmade flag after work to earn some pocket money, stick 100, and get four dollars. Grandma said, "It's the same as we used to paste the paper box." She lives in a cramped snail house, even if she is fluent in Japanese, because of her status as a second-generation orphan, even if she is in love with a Japanese, she is not allowed by the other family.

With the deepening of the search, the fate line of a generation of orphans is revealed little by little. When the news of "Lihua is dead" came, Ozawa cried bitterly in the car. She cried not only "Aunt Lihua", but also herself, but also all the orphans and their descendants.

In this way, a movie stringed together three generations. It seems like a simple journey to find relatives, but why isn't everyone looking for the missing part of their own life? In this sense, "See Nara Again" actually goes beyond the theme of "anti-war films" and touches on a broader level of expression. It is both the creator's voice for history and the expression of man's inevitable fate: loneliness. It is valuable because it did not let such a story fall into the cliché and slide into anger. When you think it's a tragic film, it has a lot of scenes that make people laugh from time to time; when you think it's a comedy, it clearly tells you that behind the screen is a "mighty river", rushing here, and all horses are in unison.

Peng fei's excellent use of silence in the film to present the internal dramatic conflict brought about by cultural barriers and language barriers, rather than relying on deliberately weaving plots. For example, Grandma Chen, who has just arrived in Japan, went to the butcher's shop to buy meat, did not speak Japanese, and could only learn the sheep call to indicate that she wanted to buy mutton, and it was interesting that the clerk (director Pengfei himself appeared on camera) also responded with the cries of cows and horses. Two people didn't say a word, one "beep" and one "beep moo". The humorous atmosphere brings out the strangeness of people in a foreign country, and the loneliness and dazedness that arise from it. There are many more clever tricks like this in the movie. There is a scene where Grandma Chen and Kazuo sit under a maple grove, because of the language barrier, they can only exchange photos of their youth for clumsy communication; the scene of the sacrifice ceremony at the end, like two insiders, with an uninformed person, attends a funeral of her favorite person together, there is a kind of thunder explosion in the silent place; Ozawa finds that the camera that Grandma took all the way is actually not loaded with film, suggesting that "white photo" means "white search".

This is a smart man who knows that silence can sometimes play a more important role than language. "See You Again Nara" vividly shows the natural advantages of the film to capture the action through the lens to narrate, and the audience who has seen the film must be impressed. In a sense, from "The Taste of Rice Blossoms" to "See You Again in Nara", Peng Fei has faded the style he inherited as an assistant director of Cai Liangming, and gradually found his breathing rhythm in front of the camera.

Finally, the film ends slowly in Teresa's singing voice. The old street at night is empty, a long shot is always following the three people walking non-stop, the background music sounds Teresa Teng singing the Japanese version of "Goodbye My Lover", and the life situation and emotions are all hidden in such a long shot and soundtrack.

Here is a reproduction of one of the film's major features: blank space. A truly good work cannot only present cruelty, but also leave compassion, it must leave some hope. The three people in the film have all gained and grown on this journey, the mother has fulfilled her daughter's wish, Ozawa has re-examined his identity, and Kazuo has also received comfort from strangers. And the silent us sitting below, at that moment, more or less felt the strong recoil of this work, this force nailed the audience to the seat, and "could not" get up and leave for a long time after the end of the scene. (Chen Xihan)

Source: Wen Wei Po