Directed by Dutch director Michael Dudwitt, Father and Daughter won the 73rd Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film and the 54th BRITISH ACADEMY Film and Television Arts Awards for Best Animated Film in 2001.
The film tells the story of a warm autumn evening when a father and his daughter ride a bicycle together, crossing forest paths, riding through meadows, riding high slopes to the calm lake. At this moment, the father and daughter said goodbye, boarded the boat, and slowly disappeared into the sunset, the father did not return, and the daughter rode back alone. For many years to come, the girl came to the lake every day to wait, riding her bicycle back and forth every time, rain or shine.
After many years, her daughter is old, but she still comes to the lake day by day until the lake dries up and turns into a tidal flat. Finally she came to the small boat that was sleeping at the bottom of the lake, and lay in the boat, like lying on the warm arm of her father.
The film conveys to us a strong father-daughter relationship, which makes us quite shocked by the delicate portrayal of family affection in the film in addition to watching the film. When I first saw it, I didn't understand why my father never returned, but later I understood that the elders always had to leave us first. The daughter's ignorant thought that her father would return sooner or later, which implied that their sincere feelings for each other would never fade with time. In this article, I will explain the idea and value of the film from three aspects: the narrative structure, the symbolism and the inspiration conveyed to us by the film.
The film begins with the description of her daughter's childhood, and her longing for her father has never faded with time. This is one of the main lines of the film, when the father and daughter are separated from each other when they are young, even if the father never has a return date, the daughter is still looking forward to it, and slowly accompanies the daughter to grow up until she is old.
(1) Daughter from childhood to old age: The thought of her father surrounds her daughter's life
At the beginning of the film, the father leads his daughter to ride a bicycle together, the car rides very fast, the father looks back from time to time, and when he finds that his daughter is close behind, he is relieved to drive forward. When they came to the lake, the father and daughter put their bicycles on the side to enjoy the scenery by the lake. At this time, the father went down, walked for a while and then ran back to pick up his daughter, and finally put the daughter down, waved his hand to signal that he was leaving, but the daughter did not know, only to see the father into the boat and slide the oars to the distance.
The daughter was still dazed looking at the direction in which her father had left, but the boat had long since disappeared, but the daughter was still watching. In the blink of an eye, a long time passed, and the daughter thought that her father would not come back today, so she rode back alone.
Later, she often rode alone to the lake to look out, from infancy to youth, from youth to adulthood. Slowly, when she got married and became a family, she took her husband to the lake with her, and then she gave birth to children, and in the blink of an eye, she was old and became alone to look at the lake.
In the film, the daughter's longing for her father runs through her daughter's life, and she has never forgotten her father at any time. It is the daughter who spends her life waiting for her father's return, which makes the family affection precious.
(2) The lake water from surging to dry: even if the sea is full of mulberry fields, the thoughts are always the same
At the beginning of the film, when the father and daughter come to the lake, the lake is very surging and seems to be like the sea cannot be seen at a glance. As my daughter grew older, the lake slowly became less and less, and eventually dried up completely and flattened.
The lake is like a vast system of life, and it was never thought that it would one day disappear. The director's unique design here is to completely enlarge the deep meaning of family affection, even if the vicissitudes of the sea and the mulberry field, the stars shift, the emotion between father and daughter is still the same.
At the end of the film, the daughter is old, a lonely bicycle to the lake separated from her father, she is trying to park the car in the same position, but several times in a row the car fell, each time she supported it, and finally the car fell. Seeing this, I can't help but feel sad, my daughter's thoughts about her father are like a lake, but the lake has dried up, and the father and daughter have been separated for a long time, just like the annual rings of the bicycle, but they can't support it after all.
Looking around the lake, the water had disappeared, and I could no longer see the direction in which my father had disappeared. Vaguely seeing a small boat in the middle of the lake, the daughter made all her efforts to run over, and when she found out that this was the small boat that her father had taken when he left, she stroked and was surprised at the same time, and finally she lay down in the center of the boat, as if lying in her father's arms.
Although this ending is very sentimental, the drying of the lake reflects both the passage of time and the daughter's longing for her father that has never changed.
(3) The advantages of linear narrative structure are the role of conveying feelings in the film
The film uses a linear narrative structure to describe the entire content of the film, allowing us to follow the passage of time and the natural change to perceive the strong emotional connection between father and daughter.
In just a few minutes, the film records the daughter's watchfulness over her father's life, which contains all her life and contains all her emotions. In particular, the performance of lake depletion is to put the power of nature into it, although the changes in nature are not beyond human reach, but from the lake to dry up is also in line with the laws of nature, here is also the description of linear narrative structure.
Whether it is the daughter from infancy to old age, or from the lake full to dry. From the double effect of the epitome of life and the laws of nature, the affection between father and daughter in the film is pushed to a climax.
The original force majeure encounters family affection and becomes fragile, and the director's unique detail description is the interpretation of the supremacy of family affection, and the emotional tone between father and daughter is therefore raised, which is the role of linear narrative structure on the film.
The frequent appearance of the lake and the bicycle in the film is the maintenance of the film's emotional transmission, and the director has given them the ultimate meaning.
(1) "Lake water": The thought of the father is like water, the gentleness is still the same, and the thought is the same
In the film, the lake water carries her father's boat away, and the daughter knows that her father must return as well, so she looks at the lake in the distance every time she waits for her father.
The lake carries the departure of the father, and also carries the daughter's hope for the return of the father. Here, the lake is calm and calm, and there is no turbulence of the sea, which means that the daughter's soft thoughts about her father are missed. The lake is a huge carrier, and it also implies that the daughter misses her father as she has always been.
Even if the lake eventually dries up, but the daughter's thoughts are not like the lake, even if the lake is no longer there, the daughter is still waiting for the return date of the father as scheduled, it can be said that whether the lake is depleted or not can not block the deep affection between the father and daughter.
(2) "Bicycle": The years under the wheels, full of thoughts of father
Driving exists from the beginning to the end of the film, which is also the memory of the common existence of father and daughter. Even decades later, the daughter still rides her bicycle to find her father.
The wheels of the bicycle are deliberately enlarged in the film with close-up shots, which is the trace of the passage of time, and also contains the helplessness of the daughter who cannot wait for her father. Even so, she still stubbornly rode a bicycle waiting for her father, and the bicycle carried her daughter's deep thoughts about her father.
Cao Wenxuan mentioned in the "Novel Gate": "In Eastern philosophy, time is often seen as circular, like the operation of a wheel. "
Whether it is "lake water" or "bicycle", they are the witness of the emotion between father and daughter, rolling forward wheels, symbolizing the passage of time, but also symbolizing the cycle of life. Forward and looping are both characteristics of the wheel and of time. It's like an annual ring, a circle every year, symbolizing the passage of time. The back-and-forth of the lake implies a great change in time, but no matter how it changes, it still cannot change the full affection between father and daughter.
My daughter's lonely figure is often obliquely swayed by the wind blowing by the lake, especially the weak figure in her childhood and the background of her old age, which makes me feel sentimental at times when watching the movie, and sometimes feel sad for her. At the end of the film, I understand that our parents can accompany us for a period of time but cannot accompany us for a lifetime, and perhaps it is precisely because of this that we feel more and more precious about family affection.
The film uses "Father and Daughter" as the title, it is precisely because we do not want us to forget who our daughter is watching in loneliness, she is watching over her father, and she is full of love with her father. Therefore, when we watch the movie, we must think more and apply the ideas and perceptions conveyed by the film to our real life to the greatest extent, which is the greatest value and significance.
(1) Cherish the time spent with your loved ones
The lonely watch of the daughter in the film, from one person to two people to four people, and finally only herself is left, in fact, this is the scene of getting along with her relatives.
Fathers are always older than us, and it may take a long time to grow up, but it only takes a moment to grow old. We can't let time stop, but in the face of family affection, can we cherish the time we spend with each other and keep each other in mind at all times, maybe so that we will have fewer regrets in the future.
The loneliness of her daughter is not that she does not feel the preciousness of her father's love, it is that she feels precious and will feel cherished, and I think this is also the emotion conveyed to us by the film.
(2) Time is like flowing water, cherishing time is cherishing life
The idea that people will eventually grow old and the lake will dry up in the film is to make us cherish time, and time is life. Some emotions will not change after a few times, but time will eventually make us old, and the scenery we once liked may one day cease to exist.
We cannot compete with time, much less the forces of nature. But whether we can cherish what we have, even if it is a memory, even if it is not important to us in front of us, maybe one day we will miss it, and thinking represents loss, so don't wait for loss to know cherishing, don't wait for thoughts to say that it is too late.
(3) Accumulate happiness and use it to taste slowly when needed
Although the daughter in the film can't wait for her father, her father's hug is always in her heart, so even if she sees the boat at the bottom of the lake, she still feels that there is her father's embrace there.
Like an object, it implicates an emotion, even if there is a day when the person is no longer there, but as long as the object is still there, it seems that the emotion is still the same. Therefore, happiness is accumulated, and the more you accumulate, the less you spend, and the more happiness you have.
The emotion conveyed to us by the film "Father and Daughter" is very strong, although the emotional tone is gentle, but the huge time difference and space difference make us feel that this father-daughter relationship has existed for a long time. The emotion it conveys is even more touching and very moving, and the power of family affection is expressed just right in the film.
The film allows us to feel the power of family affection, is to teach us to cherish time, no matter from any aspect of the value of this film is huge.