Movies, first of all, are about the art of dreams. The dream is the expression of simulacra.
"Spirited Away" is not only a bizarre dream of a girl breaking into a foreign land with her parents, but also a warning dream of a generation of Japanese elders entrusting young people.
I was thirteen when I first watched this movie. At that time, I couldn't understand why this movie could win so many laurels.
There are no great heroes of martial arts, no scenes that can be called grand. The gods do not have the dignity they deserve, and they are not even beautiful enough from the original painting settings to the plot. Except for the kindness and unremitting efforts of the little people that are moving, everything seems to be lackluster.
But what if I am a Japanese who is the same age as Hayao Miyazaki, or over 30 years old? Will it bring adult self-righteousness and despise it as an insignificant fairy tale?
This gift that Hayao Miyazaki wanted to give to young people was to create a work that would resonate with ten-year-old girls; he also hopes to guide and inspire those young people who will face society directly.
Perhaps it is because Miyazaki has placed too much trust on this work. From my perspective as a young man facing the society, it is not the ten-year-old girls and young people who resonate most easily with this work; it is the last century. The generation that experienced the rise after the war and the bubble economy in Japan. Just like Andersen’s fairy tales, it is more suitable for people who have experience in life than children.
This bright and lively work, even a dramatic metaphor, is another humiliation after the Second World War in Japan-its defeat in the economy. Since then, Japan's economy has been in a slump in the past two decades. This is mentioned in the work itself. Chihiro lost his way with his parents. There is a "stone shrine" on the side of the road. Although there is a risk of being over-explained, the desolate scene is indeed a metaphor for the ruined building after the bubble economy in Japan. Chihiro asked her mother: "What are those like houses?" And the mother replied, "That is the "Stone Temple" is the residence of the gods." And then, we will see the so-called "gods" in the movie, what kind of characters are most of them. Chihiro and his parents lost their way to a vermillion gate. The plaque reads a soup house, but the entrance is a deep corridor; this usually has a mystic meaning in literature, even a religious "Cavern-feeling" (Cavern-feeling). ), behind the cave means a different world with a different cave. After being baptized in a different world or special experience, the protagonist transforms and returns to the world. It is the typical template used in this movie. After passing through the tunnel, Chihiro's father also recognized: "This is the site of a theme park. In the 1990s, there was a lot of construction work. After the bubble economy burst, this place must be one of them." This line is for people who have never experienced a bubble. Economic people are not sensitive, but for Japanese children, it is an impression that is buried in the memory of Tanaka. When they receive history education in the future, they will have a fairytale memory of that period of history awakened and reconnect with knowledge. The opposite side of the corridor is the entrance to the secular world. The plaque on the door says "Fu Le" and the clock tower have a close-up. Judging from the plot development that is about to go dark, the time on this deserted clock tower actually coincides. And in the vision that Qianxun kept looking back and looking forward to, we could find that this end and the other end of the tunnel did not correspond in space. Although the average child around ten years old will not be able to observe such details, the film still presents a Japanese-style perfection. The dried-up river bed made the Chihiro family effortlessly enter the "other shore" by mistake. This is not the metaphysical other shore of philosophy or religion, but the "fragmental reflection of the world", which is a fictional mirror image of the opposite in literature to criticize the world. The classic technique.
The Chihiro family walked to a ruined commercial street, but there was plenty of food. People who have been to Japan or have eaten Japanese people may notice that Japanese people have weak purchasing power and moderation in eating and drinking, and they are surprised by the richness of food in Chinese hosts, even those who have neither experience nor experience. It can also be noticed that the classic representative of Japanese food is sushi, which is exquisite but small in size, but it is also a microcosm of Japanese food. The scene of big fish and meat in the movie must be absurd in the eyes of the Japanese. But this is an expression of simulacra after all. It implies that Tokyo could buy the entire United States in an era. At that time, the most common company in Japan could also issue half a year's salary as a year-end bonus, and even ordinary people could enter and leave Ginza. It is a high-end venue, so that at the end of the year, you must book a seat half a year in advance. Chihiro's parents think that if they have money, they can pay without the owner's consent (the verbal contract has not been reached), and they can wait for someone to come (money is power consciousness), and even the act of asking for cash and credit cards without limit corresponds to bubble consumption. ; The posture of gluttonous food has been seen to deviate from rationality. Until sunset, the mysterious power of the other world began to appear, and Chihiro's parents became pigs. The metaphor of the pig in Japan is not only lazy and stupid, but also implied recklessness. In the movie, it is likened to a livestock waiting to be slaughtered. It's easy to understand the Kanu and the reckless bubble consumption around us.
"油" in Japanese and hot spring "湯" share the same pseudonym "ゆ", so in some translations, "油婆婆" and "油屋" have been translated as "Yupopo" and "Yuya". Not only Japan, people with geographical conditions have a hobby of bathing in hot springs. Soaking in hot springs is a high-level enjoyment of bathing. The primary function of bathing is to wash and heal. But in the movie, the "soup house" is a "secular paradise" that highlights the function of entertainment and enjoyment, and even a small society where money is supreme. Although all the gods come and go, it is in line with the motto: The appearance of man created man, but man created "God" in his own appearance; attention to sensual and sensory enjoyment is the imbalance of human nature in which spiritual development lags behind material development, which is expressed in the movie as the secularization of gods. Granny Tang’s personality is complex: she possesses powerful magic, manages the contract of the soup house, and can turn people who are unwilling to work and lazy to be slaughtered into livestock or soot (meaning low-level laborers); she is greedy and snobbish and superficial. : Misunderstood the god of the river as the god of decay, and as the god in charge of washing and healing. At first, he rejected the god who needed to bathe and heal. He put rice on the bridge and sent the god of the river like a beggar. Later, when he couldn’t refuse. He didn’t sincerely bathe the god of the river, and even blamed Chihiro for using a high-grade medicinal bath. All this has been a portrait of a fallen god. Her meaning is to express: if the god once misunderstood the "Wealth of Nations" "Producers provide production and service providers provide services, not out of duty or morality, but only wanting to profit for themselves, but they can be led by an invisible hand to realize a society that he does not intend to achieve at all. Interests are often better than those of creators who really want to realize social benefits.” The theory loses its original divinity and becomes a vulgar slave who uses money to measure his own value; and his own children are lost. Not found, this is rare for animals. Although not Nietzsche's so-called superman between animality and divinity, it is an abstraction of some "secular superman" in our real world. She also represents a generation of irresponsible parents who have broken away from traditional farming work: they spoil their children in the preparation of spacious, bright and hygienic greenhouses, adequate food and toys, and other material fertilizers, thinking that children can be indifferent like plants. Grow naturally on one side. But they forget that even plants need to be cultivated carefully.
Granny Tang deprives people of their names, and the meaning of dominating them is that the name is a contract for oneself. When people make a covenant with the god of appetite, they often neglect the contract with oneself and lose oneself. A typical example in the movie is Amber Lord (Bai Long): "I heard that he is usually outside, helping Grandma Tang to do bad things." It represents a social elite who has lost himself but has a conscience. One of the characteristics of Japanese culture is that there are multiple pronunciations of a character and family traditions (some surnames have their own pronunciation of the family). People cannot immediately read the pronunciation of the name by seeing the name. Be sure to ask the owner of the name. It is quite rude to speculate on someone’s name without authorization, and it is quite rude if you pronounce it incorrectly; out of politeness, Japanese people often take the initiative to state their name when they meet for the first time. Therefore, the contractual function of the name is strengthened in such a culture.
The appearance of the crucifixion image of the river god retains Hayao Miyazaki's consistent attention and appeal to the natural environment and ecological balance. Rivers originally had the function of washing and nourishing, but under the blind pursuit of profit by humans, the gods with washing ability have no time to take care of themselves. Even go to the soup house to seek washing and treatment. Helplessly, Mrs. Tang did not take her own duties and morals as a matter, only because of the other party's strength, she could not forcefully accept this guest. The function of the river god's meatballs is also to clean, to clean out the curse of the Lord Amber, as well as those lusty people and filth eaten by the faceless man.
The faceless man does not have a consistent personality in the plot, and his style is different from the faceless monsters in the Japanese tradition without facial features. In Greece and Rome, where theater is popular, the etymology of character in Greek and Latin is mask; on the oriental stage, the pattern of facial makeup is also closely related to the character of the character; but in the movie, the "mask" of the character is itself Character image, and his image is a shady body under a mask with no distinctive features. He has no personality because of his sexuality. He is neither a metaphor for the market nor the invisible hand proposed by Adam Smith, but a "feedback force" and a tent in a big market that is so big that traders do not meet each other. The better the simulation model of the system is constructed, the more chaotic the prediction results obtained. This power leads to incompetence of long-term prediction and blindness of vision. And this blindness indirectly leads to bubble trading. The source of its power is mass, so it has no face. When no one was involved, the faceless man did nothing. It was Chihiro who opened the door for him (goodwill). He found that Chihiro needed a brand, and as a (goodwill) feedback, helped Chihiro get a brand; later found that people were eager for gold, too. The feedback was given to Jin, but when people showed greed toward him, he again reported that greed swallowed people. The character of the engulfed person was merged into the character of the faceless man, and he fell into this kind of feedback power. When the people caught in it are all gluttonous gluttons, his attitude of gluttonous food is even more than that of Chihiro's parents, and the feedback of strength is to eat more people. And when people find that this kind of power is eating people, or can't continue to feedback, it is the collapse of the system. "No snowflakes think they are responsible during the avalanche."-Stanislaw J. Lec. One of the meanings of a faceless man just means that any participant is responsible for the incident. Robert J. Shiller called this a "natural Ponzi scheme" in "Irrational Exuberance." But it cannot be counted as a commercial or financial crime, because no one can plan all this, and everyone is involved in a part of it. The effectiveness of feedback power depends on the participants, and it does not have the attributes of positive and negative good and evil.
The generation of Japanese who have experienced the bubble economy will find a sense of deja vu in this scene. The loss of society, greed and madness, the negative human nature, the catastrophic consequences are dramatized in the faceless man's farce, and nightmares reappear. However, he did not use the plots and scenes that are not suitable for children as an excuse to evade this. Instead, he took the initiative to extract from history, dared to face his own shortcomings and mistakes, and showed the metaphors to young people in fairy tales. This may be the most sincere self-examination, an exhort to young people, and hope that they will not make the same mistake again. It is one of the key factors for national self-strengthening.
And money is the eternal supporting role of the financial crisis. Granny Qian, who looks the same as Granny Tang in the movie, does not allow the audience to easily recognize that she is the god of money. She seemed to have nothing to do with money except that she was jeweled like Grandma Tang, and there was money in her name.
She lives in a pristine rural village, not a bank or a commercial city that is more luxurious than a soup house. She possesses powerful magic but does not like to use it. Not only does she have ancient tools such as spinning wheels, she also knits sweaters by herself. Such an image is not only in constructing the intimacy of Mother Qian, but in the pantheism of East Asian shamanism, divinity is embodied in the primitive and simple character. Her secluded village also implies that she is located at the coordinates of the source and destination. These two endpoints also usually mean the fulfillment of divinity. Just as in the Bible, the true body of God also appears. Now the original creation and the final judgment (the rest of the appearance is interpreted as the appearance through the angels, which is also coincident with the appearance of Granny Qian in the soup house through the incarnation instead of the real body in the movie.). And the countryside is not only the beginning of human civilization, but also means the closest border between human society and nature, the settlement of the soul and the return of the journey of life, and the place where life inhabits. Granny Tang’s soup house and the commercial streets connected to it provide not so much another form of dwelling for life as it provides a journey for life’s pursuit. In the process of quest, the soul not only gains It's easy to lose yourself if you don't settle down. The extreme performance in the movie is the compulsory deprivation of Tang Po. Mother-in-law Qian said that Mother-in-law loves to follow the fashion, which also shows that there is a kind of blindness in the jurisdiction of Mother-in-law, instead of having a consistent purpose or criterion. When people perceive the confusion caused by this sense of loss during the journey, they arouse a sense of returning to the countryside. This is reflected in many people in modern city life. The representative in the play is Xiaoling talking about leaving. If the soup house goes to the village.
What Chihiro entered was not the real god's world, but the reflection of this world. Therefore, the gods in this cave universe will not be the gods in metaphysics, scholastics, and godfather theology. The mother-in-law Qian, who is full of obscure sacred symbols in the movie, is just as her name advertises: "Money is the god of the world." ───The
difference between Simmel and the traditional superficial concept in the past is that the movie not only instills the evil of money Awareness, which ugliness Granny Qian, she is much more kind than Granny Tang. She is even a "god" who obeys the rules. This is what I personally think of this movie. I also admire the author. Even though I have experienced the bubble economy in Japan and suffered such a big loss in money, I have not demonized money. But sincerely introspected: the problem lies in their own social loss and depraved enjoyment.
Traditionally, people's superficial view is that money is Daimon who tempts people to fall. It is still deeply rooted in the hearts of the people to this day. But in fact, the reason why money is referred to as Daimon is not only because money is a tool to measure prices, it is a securities exchanged for commodities, and it has a monopoly in large-scale social transactions; money is also like a mirror, which makes people desire and value. Ideas can be directly and objectively expressed. The irony is: when we hate mirrors, does it mean that we also think our desires and values are abominable?
After realizing this, Granny Tang and Granny Qian are clearly opposed to each other, just as the origin of the mirror image projected in the mirror is opposed to the mirror.
Obviously, it is not only our traditional ideas that cannot identify them. In the movie, Granny Tang’s children can’t tell. In Chinese dubbing and subtitles, he is generally called a fat baby, or baby. In the list of voice actors, his name is the word "fang" on his belly. It should mean "fangzhu", that is, brother son. He is simulating the appearance of a giant baby, and this expression cannot be more straightforward, that is, the personality stops in the infancy; it is not the Christ Jesus-style holy baby, but the universal sin (religious) mentioned by Augustinus in the "Confessions". The baby of moral sin) is just like, because this "fang" does not even have Augustinus's belief that "the purity of a baby is nothing but the immaturity of the limbs." Therefore, after he was turned into a mouse, he was actually given the virtue of a baby, i.e. childishness, under the appearance of being deprived of a baby.
The seemingly superior living environment may still be regarded by some "children" as a "dream" of "life", but it actually makes him live like a living specimen in a vessel, the pillows that protect him and bury him, Doesn’t it look similar to the germ he is worried about? Excessive protection is also excessive restraint, which suppresses his personality growth at the moment of overprotection. With Chihiro breaking into his small greenhouse and Granny Qian's magic, she was able to break the original peaceful vessel life.
Although there are not many lines in "Fang", the body language is quite full. He expresses his growth "silently" beside Chihiro. Compared with Chihiro, who is a half-year-old child, the baby's situation can more commonly cause people to worry about the future. This is true even when he possesses a generous "living" environment and yokai abilities. If there is no interference from Chihiro, we can imagine that his future is very likely to be the rich second generation in our daily discourse. He and Chihiro are the only two "minors" in the film. Although they belong to different social strata, they both appear with the disgusting personality of the author. I have to pay attention to the author's worries about the future, and it is reported that the generation of elders who have emerged after the war in Japan are generally dissatisfied with the modern Japanese youth, which is also reflected in the only two minors in the play.
In Miyazaki’s previous works, it’s hard to see the protagonist appearing like Chihiro, lying lazily on the back seat of the car, holding a bouquet and still not knowing how to thank him. It is normal for people of our generation, but in the eyes of a stern Japanese parent like Hayao Miyazaki, it is an annoying child. However, this setting also prepared a contrast for her growth. The growth of mediocre people will always bring us exciting hope.
The mediocre little people in the present world accidentally break into the different world and become the savior of the plot frame, which is not new today, and even in Japanese works, it is still a bit old-fashioned. But in most of those works, the protagonist’s ability in another world has been improved accordingly, as a rationalized explanation that the original mediocre person can save the world. But in this work, the opposite is true. In another world, Chihiro’s hardware capabilities appear to be even smaller. Unlike the protagonist in those works, she becomes the center of the world. On the contrary, as a human being, the social structure of the other world is at the extreme edge. However, without involving any violence and supernatural behavior, he did what the monster could not do: in the process of completing self-saving, it also helped others to save. Under the general environment, the subjective initiative of the small person is sincerely affirmed. At the same time, he was able to reach an unobtrusive moral judgment on the members of the entire social structure at the very edge of the social structure.
This way, it avoids clichés and makes sense, making it unique in the big framework of similar plots.
The character of Chihiro actually hopes to connect certain extremely anxious "parents" of the rising generation after the war, and certain extremely "degenerate" young people of the younger generation. Not only the Japanese, but many young people in the world today are facing a rapidly changing era, society, and background. At the same time, they have no confidence in their own small subjective initiative; first deny their own subjective initiative, and then This denies one's own personal and social responsibility. Especially after Japan experienced the bubble economy, the rapid development of electronic technology and the rapid obsolescence of electronic products made the "Japanese quality" that once made the Japanese proud lose its original value. The introverted and self-disciplined national character further suppresses social emotions, and the confusion caused by this makes some young people easy to fall. This may be a fact in the minds of some generations who emerged after the war that they believed that it was more humiliating than the failure of World War II, the bubble economy, and the falling prices of "Japanese quality", because it embodies the decline of their proud national spirit. In the adversity after the defeat of World War II, it was also an era of rapid changes with each passing day. The international situation was complex. They did not deny their own subjective initiative as a small person and rose rapidly. Why is Japan now with a more superior foundation? What about it? As a result, some people focused their contradictions on young people, causing dissatisfaction among "parents." And the hope that Chihiro's personality growth presents is to comfort certain anxious "parents" and to guide certain "degraded" young people.
Of course, it is unrealistic to expect a movie to change Japan's adversity. But such "uselessness" does not negate the quality and achievements of this work in the field of art.
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