no one knows
A writer once said: "There are stories that are the exception. Compared with more poverty, they are boring, without stories, without depth, and without poetry. The person who can move the hearts of city people is not the most Poor people, because they still have stories to sell." By the end of the film, a failed theft exposes this unknown family to the public, becoming media fodder and public talk. And all the secret and subtle things that happened before this, only the audience knows.
This may lead us to a certain kind of strange emotion, anger at the forces that are destroying this family. We may have forgotten that, if not in the movies, it is ourselves who make up those forces. Only when we can really go deep into life can we understand the wise saying of Teacher Miao Fu: Don't think what you think is what you think.
The grandmother, played by Shu Xilin, is the provider of the family venue. Grandma has her own selfishness and organizes such a family, just hoping that someone will die. She was abandoned by her husband, but took in her husband's stepson's daughter. And she hid all this from her husband's stepson, and visited every year like a no-nonsense person, charging some mental damage fees. She also hid it all from her stepson's daughter, and never took out the emotional damages she received. Maybe he wanted to leave it to that girl, or maybe he wanted to keep some coffin books, we don't know. Although she is such a selfish person, it is difficult for you to think that her feelings for her family are fake, especially the thank you she said at the beach.
Aki, a girl taken in by her grandmother, is both longing for and alienated from this family. The money she earns will not be used to supplement her family, but she takes nutrients from her family as a matter of course. She would complain about the wrong brand of shampoo that Xiangtai stole, and she also didn't believe that Zhi's feelings for Shindai were real. And after the head of the house was destroyed, she was the only one who revisited the old place.
Zhi is the only adult man in the family, but he is not the pillar of the family because of his cowardly nature. Zhi is a habitual thief, and he made the family into a family of thieves. The Japanese name of the movie is "Wan Yin き Family", and "Wan Yin" refers specifically to the kind of thieves who easily lead sheep in shopping malls and supermarkets, and the vulnerable groups among the thieves. He desires emotion, but is afraid of responsibility, and when emotions and interests conflict, he always chooses to avoid them. He was afraid of trouble and advocated sending the little girl Youli back, he was afraid of spending money and advocated burying his grandmother on the spot, and he was afraid that he would be caught and run away immediately after Xiang Tai's accident.
Zhi's love for Xiang Tai is far more demanding than giving. He did not send Xiang Tai to school, and lied that only those who could not learn at home need to go to school. He taught Xiangtai the stealing technique, hoping to train him to be a good partner. In the end, he didn't want Xiang Tai to know where he came from, because he was afraid of losing him. Therefore, even if the clever Xiangtai really recognized this father in her heart, she could not live with him.
Chief Jia has a famous saying: Adults talk about interests, and children can distinguish right from wrong. Xiang Tai is a child. Xiangtai's growth process is the process of gradually discovering the family's disharmony. At one point he took stealing for granted and not going to school for granted. But he gradually woke up. When Zhi Luan interprets the story of Little Blackfish, Shota realizes that going to school may be important. When the convenience store's grandfather tells him not to bring his sister to steal, Shota realizes that the theft may be wrong. In the end, Xiang Tai destroyed the family, of course he didn't mean it, he just wanted to protect his sister.
Sister Youli is an angel and a black sheep. Her intrusion illuminates the numb family. Let Xiangta have a sense of responsibility to protect her sister, let Aji re-believe in the feelings between people, let Zhi keep the stolen fishing rod, and let the family go on a seaside trip like normal people. Yuri injected energy into the family, and it was this energy that finally broke through this fragile family from the inside.
Finally, on the letter generation, she is the real pillar of the family. Xindai is like a sun, making people warm and afraid to approach. She killed her abusive ex-husband, threatened to kill her co-worker who blackmailed her, happily counted her private money next to her grandmother's body, and couldn't wait to take her grandmother's pension. It was also her who couldn't help but keep Youli behind, and because Youli lost her job, she hugged Youli tightly in her arms and told her what love was. And when the police asked the two children what to call her, she was speechless and burst into tears. I have to say, the scene of Shindai wiping tears was too shocking. The actor Ando Sakura gave a great performance, and because of Ando Sakura's performance, this bloated woman looked very charming.
All of the above constitute a dual perspective inside and outside the play. And when the family falls apart, how do we judge the happiness and misfortune of these people? As moviegoers, we might hope that this fragile family will last. The home is twisted, but it really provides warmth. And if we switch to reality, how would we feel if we saw such a family on the news? Will they be delighted that the children have finally broken away from the gang of thieves and returned to their happy families, or that they have gone to a government-run boarding school and received a real education? And the leader of the gang was also imprisoned, and everyone was happy.
But we saw more, saw Shindai's unstoppable tears, saw Aji returning to the old house, saw Zhi chasing the bus madly, saw Yuri looking out of the balcony helplessly... saw leaving In this family, everyone's situation has actually become more miserable. And people think that their imagination of being out of the sea of misery is just to satisfy their own wishful thinking.
But can it be said that Hirokazu Kore-eda provided us with some kind of warmth? It doesn't seem to be. Like he doesn't shy away from the ugly and selfish side of everyone. Rather than saying that Hirokazu Kore-eda is expressing, it is better to say that it is presenting. He had no attitude towards the family, just showing their living conditions, watching them like a wildlife biologist. If we thought it was Hirokazu Kore-eda that was warm, that would be somewhat wishful thinking.
small black fish
Xiang Tai asked Zhi, why did the little black fish form the big fish? Ji Huran replied, because that's how you can eat tuna. Shota was baffled by the answer, which made him suspicious of Zhi's claim that "only children who can't learn at home go to school." Of course, the stalk of the little black fish is not only to promote the plot, it also tells why this group of people formed this family.
During the Cannes Film Festival, a reporter interviewed Hirokazu Koreeda and asked what preparations did you have when writing the script? Hirokazu Kore-eda replied, "We once went to a children's shelter to interview children who were abused by their parents. That day, I happened to meet a girl who was leaving school with a schoolbag. I asked her, what did you learn today? She took out her textbook from her schoolbag and suddenly started reading Leoni's picture book "Little Black Fish" aloud in front of us. The image of a little girl reading a picture book has been lingering in my mind, and now I understand, "The Thief" Family was made for the girl who read us Little Blackfish."
The allusion of "Little Blackfish", I originally read it from the article of Tang Xinzi, a writer living in Japan: a little blackfish called Swimmy who lives in the sea, because he is very weak, so many small fish in the little blackfish family, They were all eaten by big fish. Only the little black fish was left on the dark seabed. Later, the little black fish finally found many companions who were also small fish. In order not to be eaten by the big fish, the little fish thought of a way: they regularly Arranged in the shape of a big fish, they swim together in unison - these little fish are no longer afraid of big fish, because they unite and become the largest "one fish" in the bottom of the sea.
This is of course not just a fable, this is the survival law of many weak fish and birds in reality. When we watch "Animal World", we often see many small fish in the ocean getting together to advance and retreat together, and the scene is spectacular. It is also often seen that many birds dance together in the sky, covering the sky and the sun. In fact, they are not really powerful, just intimidating predators with a seemingly powerful posture.
The story of the little black fish was selected into the textbook, perhaps precisely because this survival strategy of huddled together for warmth coincides with the "commonality" of the Japanese people. Tang Xinzi explained: "The biggest 'fish' in this seabed is a Japanese-style 'community'. Everyone is a member of this 'community', and in such a 'community', everyone should follow the agreement as a matter of course. Some established public order, or some unwritten code of conduct. If there is some ignorant guy who wants to break this order, or wants to deviate from the code of conduct, for example, he wants to swim faster by himself It's not welcome to have to be a little bit sharp, or try to swim in the opposite direction uncooperatively."
For this thief family, they are a group of little black fish huddled together for warmth. It is difficult for each individual to live alone, and it is easy to be swallowed by the big fish "society". But if they get together and are marked with some kind of common brand (thief), they may be able to fight against the big fish and survive. But like those little birds and little fish, it's all just self-deception. And this combination of interests always challenges and challenges the emotions, just like Yaji doesn't believe in the feelings of Zhizhi and Xindai. People seem to respect each other, but they are separated from each other. Even if they express their hearts, they can only express them silently when the other party cannot hear them.
A friend of mine said: "When I watched a movie, I was full of belief that the child should stay in that family, and when the summer breeze blew, I would understand that this is not the case. That family seems to be warm, but in fact it is cruel, and the child may not grow up there. It's a good thing." This warmth is relative, just like winter in the south, winter in the south is also winter. The migratory birds fly over long distances, just because the winter in the north is colder.
A good movie is that it is open enough in itself and has rich meanings to interpret. But if you want to find the emotion of this movie, the answer given by Hirokazu Koreeda himself is: this is a work born of anger, and the emotion of anger may come from the sense of disobedience in this society. As for whether there are any emotions other than anger in this movie, such as warmth or sympathy, that belongs to the audience's blank.
For me, this movie is not warm, and how do I have the luxury to sympathize with people? The writer Jia Xingjia said: "On the narrow road of 'living', there is no need to have a clear perception and memory of hardships, and 'experience' is enough. When we live in the world because of destruction and kill each other, we endure The hardships I don't deserve."
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