(Text: Catching the Wind and Catching Shadows)
"Kikujiro's Summer" is Kitano Takeshi's autobiographical film, the story is Kikujiro's uncle with a masamune to find his mother, in a way, Kikujiro and Masao, the goal is to bridge the mother-child relationship. For Takeshi Kitano himself, Kikujiro is the name he calls his incompetent father, and in real life, Kitano and his mother are always in a superficial battle. So combined with the time of the death of Kitano Takeshi's father and mother, this movie is his best review of family and affection, and it is also the beginning of his real maturity from the family!
The most amazing thing about Kitano Takeshi is that the title is Kikujiro's Summer, even if we follow the perspective of the little boy at the beginning, worried about his journey of finding relatives without knowing the outcome, we don't care who Kikujiro is, until the end, suddenly realized, it is not the uncles who play with the little boy, but the little boy warms the uncle's heart. And what is even more intimate is that according to Kitano Takeshi's brother, their father really did such a thing, obviously taking the children to the park to play, and finally became the children playing with Kikujiro, and his father Kikujiro always played with it.
"Kikujiro's Summer" as a whole is a road movie for the purpose of finding relatives, and the most interesting part of himself is the two people on the road, a middle-aged uncle, a little boy, the uncle is poisonous and strong, the little boy is silent, with the progress of the journey, the relationship between the two is more and more harmonious, and the father and friend.
The films are mostly still shots, using the movement between single shots or the contrast between language and action to create a different sense of humor, just like the quiet mood created by simple haiku, but this single-shot combination is unbearable. In addition, there are also large moving scenes with a wide field of view, which are slowly pulled apart, contrasting with the previous small scenes, and the effect is still to create different laughs.
A group of several single-shot combinations, to create a laugh point, so the group of laughter point settings, will also remind people of Kitano Takeshi's other identity manga master Peter Takeshi funny way, the difference is that one is to present the picture, one is to create with language.
The soundtrack of the film, Hisaishi Jean, a soundtrack master who can freely wander the world of Hayao Miyazaki and Takeshi Kitano, the whole film is a light and comfortable variation of "summer", the appearance of background music, which sets the tone of the entire film, although this trip has sadness and accidents, but it is full of warmth and heals two lonely hearts. The atmosphere created by this soundtrack was brought to the extreme in another film he and Takeshi Kitano did without dialogue, "That Summer, The Sea of Tranquility."
If the real father Kikujiro is really as unworthy as Kitano Takeshi's book "Kikujiro and Saki" said, the profession is very undignified, does not earn much money, loves to get drunk and fight, then Kitano Takeshi will not create such a mixed but cute uncle!
However, the difference in relationship with his mother, although there is not much ink, but he can see his deep meaning, if there is no fighting with his mother, he may really not be able to become a talent, and kitano Takeshi, who seems to be vicious, is actually the most similar to his mother. This movie is a release of the mother who always said bad things about herself in the past, how the personality is so, but the mother's love is always the mother's love, and the family affection is even more affectionate.