"Although you can't see the future path now, please don't despair, don't be discouraged, your future is like a blank piece of paper, just because it is a blank piece of paper, any kind of painting can be drawn."
Everything is in your own hands, you have unlimited possibilities, and I sincerely hope that you can burn your life without regrets. "——— to the nameless
Directed by renowned director Ryuichi Hiroki, the film "Nanaya Relief Grocery Store" was released in mainland China in February 2018 and is based on Keigo Higashino's novel of the same name.
Although the mainland release time is slightly later than the domestic version of "Relief Grocery Store", the Japanese version of the film is still earlier than the domestic version in terms of creation time. Previously, the cross-cultural adaptation strategy for the same text caused by the film "Manslaughter" was very hot, and similar adaptation problems also appeared in the use of the original novel text of "Relief Grocery Store".
After comparison, it is not difficult to conclude that due to the different degrees of control over the environmental and cultural background of the story, the Japanese version of the film has a natural advantage in both the overall control of the era context and the understanding of the content of the original work. It is mainly reflected in the creation of grocery store intentions and the selection of time nodes.
The story in the film revolves around the "Langya Relief Grocery Store", where the owner writes letters every day to answer people's questions and help everyone solve their troubles.
These include childlike brain teaser questions such as "How can I get a perfect score without cheating" or "Can a cold muffin still be called a muffin", as well as confusion from adults about dreams and reality, between insisting on self and going with the flow.
The boss will answer one by one, and when he encounters a reply about privacy, he will put the letter in the milk carton at the door and wait for the guest to come and pick it up.
Judging from the time of the story and the decoration style of the grocery store, this is a shop full of Showa style, and in recent years, the intention of the Showa style grocery store has been used more and more, and it has appeared frequently in various works.
This kind of shop has a certain commonality, through these commonalities, we can grasp from the commonality of what kind of image Langya's store in the film appears in the social environment of the film. Geographically, such grocery stores are generally in the countryside, and the reason why they are rural is to create a gap with the urban discourse in the narrative.
When telling the story of Lady Puppy, the film deliberately shows that she has been living in a luxury apartment in Tokyo after success, but will return to the countryside when visiting relatives, and the relief grocery store is also one of the rural scenes of Japan's Showa period, and like the elderly who stay in the countryside, it has become a kind of entanglement in the hearts of young people who go to the city to work hard.
In terms of the overall image, such grocery stores have the characteristics of relatively compact space and daily necessities of goods varieties, and the large stores that appear at the beginning of the film focus on the sale of vegetables and fruits, which together with the grocery stores constitute a complete system of rural shopping. In terms of business strategy, such grocery stores are generally run by elderly people in the countryside, who are designed to be kind and kind in art works.
In order to cater to the social background of the economic take-off at that time, the image of young and middle-aged children was always absent in the family, generally going to the big city to work. The film's shop meets all of the above characteristics, so it has become an "old place" in the mouths of children. Such a grocery store in the countryside is not only a place for daily shopping, but also a medium for information exchange.
Because the story of the original work takes place in Japan as the background, the Japanese version has a unique advantage in the understanding of the original book when shooting "Relief Grocery Store", whether in the restoration of history or the construction of the scene, or even the selection of actors, which effectively avoids the dissatisfaction of the original book in the process of adaptation and lays the foundation for the success of the film.
Being compared with the original work is the fate that all adaptations cannot escape, and compared with literary works, the length of film and television works of art is limited, and often all the details of the original work cannot be shown without any mistake.
Therefore, in addition to avoiding dissatisfaction, the trade-off of length is another problem that creators need to face. The film "Langya has a grocery store" mainly tells three stories in the original book, namely the fish shop musician, the puppy lady counterattack, the little three mothers save the child, like the 100 points boy in the original book is only taken by a few shots, this article does not analyze.
Thanks to the wonderful narration of the original book, although the film tells three scattered stories, it cleverly uses the location of the orphanage at the end to complete the narrative unity, and the time gap between the inside and outside of the grocery store is no longer separated through the connection of letters.
The separation of time inside and outside the grocery store is a major secret of the film's narrative tension, the first time the film will be passive for decades of time difference to make a dizzy turn, in fact, as long as the two main time nodes in the film are determined, understand the time difference between the inside and outside of the grocery store in these two time nodes.
In 1979, when the owner of the store, Mr. Langya, was hospitalized, the letter outside the store was sent to the timeline of 2012, but the day before Mr. Langya's death in 1980, he had already asked his son to announce the resurrection of the grocery store after 32 years, but he received a letter from the store in 2012, when the time in the store was 1980 and the time outside the store was 2012.
In other words, three young people in 2012 have closely linked their fate to the grocery store while helping Mr. Langya reply to the letter, and Mr. Langya has also made a wish of his own before his death.
People who have seen their own letters have indeed been helped. The story is complete, whether in time, space or narrative.
Despite the closed loop in the narrative, the film's editing is too fast-paced, and it is easy for viewers who have not seen the original to miss the director's elaborate plot.
In addition, the film does not present enough details of the beauty of human nature in the original work, such as the details of the little three mother saving the child, the original work shows the situation under which the little three mother interjected in the love affair of others, after the birth of the child she has been working odd jobs, the thinnest weight is only a pitiful thirty kilograms.
The strong mother image created in the original work is only briefly mentioned in the film, and the lack of expression for internal behavior motivation has become the internal wound of the film.
In the film "Langya Relief Grocery Store", the owner of the store, Mr. Langya, has been using words of encouragement to motivate people who come to ask for help, because he believes that the person who asks the question has already had an answer in his heart, but only needs an encouragement.
But the 2012 youth trio questioned the people who came to consult in an almost critical tone, solving problems for people with the creed of "good medicine is good for the disease, and advice is good for the ear and good for the ear".
If Mr. Langya served people a bowl of chicken soup, the young trio undoubtedly added a handful of pepper to this bowl of chicken soup, making this film a little more spicy and nutritious and tear-inducing at the same time.