A movie review that isn't a movie review, just some wild thoughts.
Note: In addition to "City of Souls", there are also some spoilers for the Japanese version of "The Three Musketeers" and the sci-fi film "Moon".
I don't remember watching the Japanese version of the cartoon "The Three Musketeers" when I was a few years old, when it was still a small black and white TV. Some thoughts have been lingering in my mind ever since, and still do today, more than a dozen years later.
In "The Three Musketeers", D'Artagnan and Constance fell in love, but Constance lost his memory in an attack. After waking up, Constance no longer remembers everything with D'Artagnan, and even faced D'Artagnan was terrified. In the end, D'Artagnan did the king's service, and the king said he could meet any request. At the time I thought he definitely wanted Constance, but he said he wanted an elephant to take back to the country. Also, the reason why he left the country at the beginning was because he was arguing with his friends about elephants that no one had ever seen.
Ever since then I've wondered why D'Artagnan left Constance.
When you love someone, what you love about him or her. Physical (look, body) or internal (character, mind)? Or a combination of the two? Or what makes him (her) unique? What determines that he (she) is the one you love?
We usually say that it is because of some inner things, such as character, cognition, etc., that we fall in love with him (her). But whether it is personality or thinking, the formation of these things is very influenced by acquired experience, that is to say, influenced by memory, almost all his or her thinking and cognition are also based on the accumulation of acquired experience and knowledge, so that Values and worldviews formed at a certain stage. If a person loses his or her memory, what is left of him or her. When a person's memory disappears, what will happen to him or her? Is he (she) still the same person?
Perhaps for D'Artagnan, the former Constance has disappeared, and there is only another stranger who looks the same. To her, he was also just a stranger.
Therefore, memory is the DNA of each of us, and memory determines what kind of person we are. But is this really the case, if a person is implanted with another memory, does he become another person? What determines who you are.
That's what the aliens in this "City of Souls" want to know. They want to know how memory works, they want to find out where a person's soul is. Of course the aliens failed in the film, but have humans figured it out?
"Why do you have a feeling of deja vu?" "Maybe we do know each other in another life." Movies always love this kind of bridge. At the end of the film, the male protagonist strikes up a conversation with the female protagonist who has a new memory. The female protagonist invites the male protagonist to go to the shell beach together when she turns to leave, so human beings have won, human beings have love, they have souls, and souls give everyone a certain destiny , whether I remember you or not, I will always fall in love with you, whether you are Emma or Anna, I will always fall in love with you. Love makes humans higher than aliens.
But what if the female protagonist did not invite the male protagonist but left alone? Everything will no longer make sense. Everyone, including the new God John, can only survive by relying on false memory and false cognition. Maybe it doesn't matter to the townspeople who don't know the truth, but how sad it will be for John who knows the truth. If there is no soul, if memory determines everything, how should human beings recognize themselves, and what is the meaning of survival? If the heroine left, leaving behind a dazed John, and the camera was pulled to a lonely and tiny artificial town in space, then this movie would be a masterpiece.
In addition, let's talk about the low-cost science fiction masterpiece "Moon". When Sam Rockwell finally communicated with the earth, he found that his youngest daughter, who had been thinking about it for three years, had grown up, and found that he missed his beloved wife. Died and found that he was just a clone implanted with someone else's memory, this desperate clone burst out with a shocking "Enough!" on the lonely moon. His memories belong to others, whose emotions are his? Who is this clone?
What determines you are you?
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