" "Non-stop" may be the story that we experience repeatedly or witness with our own eyes. This is a film about Japanese family relations today: soft images, dazed or helpless portraits of characters, and quiet dialogue scenes like lake water will always remind people of Ozu and his "Tokyo" while watching. Story". Undoubtedly, the release of Ozu's "Tokyo Story" in 1953 injected a sense of peace into the world film industry. People are also curious as to why such a quiet movie has captured the hearts of thousands of audiences, and even thirty or fifty years after the movie was released, there are still groups of fans sitting in front of the screen again. Enjoy this black and white movie, and feel sad again and again for the lonely father at the end of the movie. It is said that no one can match Japanese family-themed movies, and that kind of helplessness that slowly reveals in natural life scenes, maybe only Japanese people who pay attention to meticulousness can make it.
In Ozu's "Tokyo Story", what we see is a family tragedy in which children grow up due to the pressure of life and the growing gap between their parents, and this is also the most realistic portrayal of Japanese family relations in the Ozu era. More than 50 years later, in Hirokazu Koreeda's "Never Stop", this indifferent family relationship still has no essential change, but in addition, the plot of this movie is more complicated than "Tokyo Story" . In addition to the two-generation gap, the conflict between the old father's love for his eldest son (and this love became more intense after their eldest son drowned in order to save the drowning child) and the apparent dissatisfaction with the second son, Finally, on the day when the eldest son died, when the second son and sister brought their family to their parents' house in a remote town, it began to show little by little. The author has always believed that conflict is a key factor in the direction of the movie.
In this film, it is Hirokazu Koreeda who presents this kind of conflict in front of the audience little by little with subtle skills. On the one hand, many of the second sons, after returning home, through the dialogue of complaints with their father or wives, we felt this conflict for the first time: the father loved the eldest son Chun, who was excellent in every aspect since he was a child. Ping, a lot of second son but tepid. The eldest son, who was going to inherit his father's clinic business, was unfortunately killed in an accident, and the second son was at odds with his father and did not inherit his father's clinic business. Instead, he went to a foreign country to pursue his own painting dream. On the other hand, the estrangement between father and son has not eased because of the departure of the eldest son Chunping after many visits home because of his brother's death. In his heart, the father still hopes that the second son will inherit his career; but many of them are like a stubborn child who disobeys his father's orders again and again. Next, the director turned the camera, and in the conflict between the father and the son about the ideals of life and career, he reproduced the letter from the second son when he was a child who aspired to be a doctor with superb medical skills like his father. The highest conflict is not the conflict between people, but the conflict between people and themselves. Seeing this, the audience will naturally wonder why the second son, Liang Duo, who once dreamed of becoming a doctor, finally gave up his ideal?
The answer is finally revealed in the following episodes. The reason seems to be very simple. When the ideal becomes a responsibility that has to be undertaken, the desire for the realization of the dream may become less intense than before. The father, who had high hopes for the eldest son Chunping, may not have been so attentive to the second son. Stress-ridden. But after further investigation, it seems that the reason why the second son often violated his father's orders is not so simple. Imagine that since childhood, the pure-player who performed better than himself would receive more rewards from his father every time. Over time, the second son will naturally feel more and more inferior, and he once dreamed of becoming a doctor like his father. Desires will naturally become more and more diluted under this repeated blow. Finally one day, he completely lost the idea of becoming a doctor, but at this time, because of his brother's death, he had to take on the responsibility that his brother should have assumed. Perhaps such a burden is the real reason why the second son refuses his father's orders so many times?
Of course, apart from the contradictions and conflicts, what this film wants to tell us is the conceptual judgment of family relationships. I can never forget the scene in the movie where the mother longed for her son to drive himself once: the second son had no choice but to complain to his mother that he had not yet obtained a driver's license, and promised to drive his mother once when he got the driver's license. A few years later, his parents passed away one after another, and the second son Lianduo and his wife drove to the cemetery. At this time, the second son's inner monologue: So far, I still haven't been able to use the car to drive my parents once... Only a few words, no tears, only Pity.
The Japanese film is called "歩いても、歩いても", which is translated into Chinese, which means that the idiom keeps walking. But I always feel that the Japanese title is more meaningful. In Japanese, "ても" contains the meaning of "although, even though", so if the original title is literally translated, it seems to have a charm of "although I don't want to keep moving forward, but I have to keep moving forward anyway". In this sentence, there is responsibility, but also helplessness. And this is exactly what this film tries to convey to us about the director's own outlook on life: life is too short, if you choose not to turn back, you must bear the price that falls on you. This kind of price, at the end of the film, is that the second son is so many that "the son wants to be supported but the relative does not wait". After working hard for so many years, with a car, the mother could not wait for the day when her son drove him to carry him; after understanding his father, he could only face his father's tombstone silently in a daze.
Happy families are all alike, every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. In "Never Stop Walking", there is such a scene: after the death of his parents, the second son, many children, lead his wife and children home to pay homage to their parents. On the way back from the tomb-sweeping, the second son told his young daughter a legend about yellow butterflies: most of the white butterflies will die when the weather turns cold. And those butterflies that survived the test of the harsh winter will turn into yellow butterflies and fly again in the second year. The youngest daughter asked curiously the origin of this story. As for his father, he shook his head, but he couldn't remember who told him the legend. And anyone who's seen the whole movie knows that the same story was told by the second son's mother. It turns out that the saddest thing is not to leave, but to be forgotten after leaving.
Even if you have to be forced to move forward in the torrent of the times, please don't forget those who care about you.
Even if someone who cares about you has a big gap with you, please don't interpret this gap as hatred.
Even if you have lost too much because of your non-stop walking, please be sure to smile and say to yourself with tears in your eyes: 頑張って!
View more about Still Walking reviews
