-Takahata's "Kaguya Ji Monogatari"
Chen Yan (Eye)
A young man who longs for the sky, a girl who is obsessed with the earth.
These are Ghibli's two annual masterpieces this year, Hayao Miyazaki's "The Wind Rises" and Takahata's "Kaguya Hime Monogatari". The two works were originally scheduled to be released together in the summer file, which gave everyone a double shock. However, in February, the official said that Kaguya Ji had not yet completed the later stage, so the release was postponed to autumn. For me personally, Kaguya Ji's story is more suitable for autumn, whether it is for not protecting the box office or not, and watching it after "The Wind Is Up" is even more touching. The two masters of Ghibli, in different ways, show us their common doctrine that Ghibli has always been-"This world is worth your visit."
○8,14,40,55——8
years of dreams that have traveled through half a century . It was produced in 8 years and cost 5 billion yen. Since the promotion of Kaguya Ji Monogatari last year, this set of figures has made people full of curiosity.
14 years. It has been 14 years since the last work "Yamada-kun next door" directed by Takahata himself. What kind of story will this work that can be called a 14-year sharpening of a sword tell?
40 years. Kaguya's story prototype "Taketori Monogatari" is similar to the TV anime "Girl in the Alps" released nearly 40 years ago. The work of Takahata and Hayao Miyazaki that year was adapted from the 19th-century Swiss writer Johanna Spiri’s German novel "Heidi". It also tells a pure girl who originally lived in the countryside. The story of life in the city. It is said that Director Takahata once said, "I really want to present a Heidi (also translated as Xiaoren) on the stage of Japan" after the production of "Girls in the Alps".
55 years. Half a century ago, Toei Animation was still in charge of masters such as Uchida Tome. At that time, there was a plan to make the oldest fairy tale "Taketori Monogatari" in Japan into an animated film. At that time, the script was solicited from the employees of the company, but Takahata's idea died when the initial proposal was made. He said, because he didn't actually write the main story of the story, but the "prologue"-before Kaguya Ji was sent to the earth, she had a conversation with her father and king in the moon palace. The story of "Bamboo Tale" is a familiar fairy tale even in foreign countries: an old bamboo cutting man who lives in a deep mountain found luminous bamboo in a bamboo forest one day, and he took a closer look at a baby inside, so he brought him home and raised him. , And repeatedly found gold in the luminous bamboo, so the family gradually became wealthy and moved into the city. Kaguya Ji, who grew up as a young girl in only 3 months, has attracted the admiration of people from all over the world because of her peerless beauty. The nobles of various palaces come to propose marriage with their own unique tricks. Even the heart of the emperor is captured, but Kaguya Ji did not fall in love with any of them. Later, it was discovered that Kaguya Ji was a princess from the Moon Palace, and was temporarily demoted to the world because of the "crime". In the end, no matter how everyone prevented it, and how reluctant Kaguya herself was, the people of the Moon Palace took her back. Originally, this story, like Little Red Riding Hood, Mermaid and other fairy tales, made people feel very distant. After listening to it, it was treated as a legend and did not think deeply, just like no one except the youngest child would ask why the wolf eats the grandmother and swallows it. It's not like chewing and swallowing. However, Takahata Hoon has always had doubts about this story. He is always curious like a young child who asks questions to the storyteller. "What crime did Kaguyahime commit to be demoted? The human world? Why can the price of committing this crime be repaid after living in the human world for a while? And why is Kaguya Ji unwilling to return to the moon where she lived? And in the final analysis, what is there in the immortal and immaculate moon palace? Can a crime be committed?" In this way, half a century ago, based on his own imagination, he composed the conversation that took place in the moon palace before "descending to the world", and gave a kind of answer in his mind.
And now, the time to share this story in my heart with everyone has finally come, fulfilling a long dream of the old man who is nearly old. He heavily wrote the subtitle of the movie-the princess's crime and punishment.
So, what is the answer that has been thought about for a lifetime and accompanied by director Takahata for half a century.
○The princess's crime and punishment
A story that everyone knows, how to re-tell it, and how the story is different from the original one, are all "key points" that can interpret the director's "consciousness". For example, in Takahata Hoon’s story, Kaguya Ji did not come from bamboo, but from bamboo shoots, and she was born in the form of a young girl at the beginning. She was born in bamboo shoots to imply her amazing growth rate afterwards, and she was pavemented by her initial human form. Being demoted from the Moon Palace makes this narrative more reasonable and easy to accept. In addition, the description of the environment and neighbors in the mountains where the old bamboo cutter lives, the description of how Kaguya Ji grew up miraculously, the description of the change in the old man’s concept after getting rich in gold, and the change in the lifestyle of living in a mansion. After the description of the family, etc., Director Takahata made some choices to make these unexplained details in the original story plump up, so that Kaguya Ji is no longer a cold fairy tale protagonist, but a little princess with flesh and blood and personality. .
I won’t go into more details, but here is just one important “arrangement”.
Watching the full movie, what echoed in my mind for a long time was a nursery rhyme that repeatedly appeared in the play: "Birds, insects and beasts, grass and flowers". And, it has two versions of tones. Living in the mountains and playing with the same young friends, the brisk, vital tone, and the melancholy tone that sings to the moon alone, mixed with a melancholy semitone. This stroke was made by director Takahata Ho, and even the tune was written by him himself. These five things were once Kaguya Ji's most important companionship when she was living in the mountains and playing with her companions. After going to the city to live in the mansion, the gifts presented by the five dignitaries who pursued Kaguyaji were slightly adapted, and they corresponded to these five things: the bird to the swallow and the worm to the dragon head. Jade (the correspondence between dragons and insects is not the focus of this article, so I won’t explain more here), wild beasts against fire rat fur, grasses against Penglai jade branches, and flowers against a wild flower picked on the way to Buddha. However, the five things this time made her see the ugly side of human nature. Later, she remembered that the reason why she would remember a pitched version of this nursery rhyme and cry when she heard it, was because she had heard the goddess singing in the moon palace and had been to the earth, and she was full of things in the song Since I can’t help myself, I was demoted to the world to experience why this song is "sorrowful". However, after walking through the world for a while, she understood that the sorrow of the goddess was not because of the good and evil of these things, but the unwillingness to abandon the "famous feelings" with others...
Finally, at the moment when she put on the Yugong Yuyi, she regained the "sacred" expression of "worry-free" and was forced to forget this period of "disturbance". And the "leader" who came to greet Kaguya Ji was portrayed as a Buddha, which more directly pointed out the Zen in it.
"Birds, insects and beasts, green grass and flowers" is a reassuring nature, but under the reflection of complex thinking and vanity, it can also be a bewitching monster. There are joys and sorrows, gains and losses, fulfillment and regrets. This kind of taste in the world is the greatest temptation of the world. But are we going to deny life because we despise these filth and fear the evils? I am afraid that the bliss of the Moon Palace without these also has its paleness. Perhaps this is the answer given by Director Takahata. Due to the limitation of space and my level of interpretation, perhaps this work has more meanings hidden in it, so I will leave it to you to feel it yourself. In short, Director Takahata’s most direct touch to the audience is that after listening to the story, he was not surprised that there was such a thing as painlessly, but sighed in sympathy, “It turned out to be such a thing.” .
○ "Sounding" ceaselessly-
after watching the feature film behind the production , I came back to check and learned a few lace news about the production of this film. Here is also to share with you.
First of all, the most surprised, the voice actor Takeo Jii, who dubbed the old bamboo-cutting man, died in June last year. Many people know that pre-dialogue recording (プレスコ) is often used internationally in order to seek the authenticity of facial expressions during animation production, but Japan is more accustomed to post-dubbing. This time, "Kaguya Ji Monogatari" adopted the early dialogue, so we can still hear the voice of Grandpa Chii, who completed the recording in the summer of 2011. It is said that when he saw the script, Grandpa once worriedly asked Director Takahata Hoon, "Is this a film that denies the earth?", but the director immediately replied, "On the contrary. This is a film that affirms the earth." After hearing this, Grandpa started his work with peace of mind.
In the selection of Kaguya Ji's seiyuu, it is said that it is also a lot of trouble. At the beginning, I couldn't find a suitable candidate, because "I haven't found a voice like Kaguya Ji that is not resigned, but has his own will." It is said that Asakura Aki, who finally won the role of Kaguya Ji, thought at first that he was unsuccessful. When he went home, he cried while walking. The director heard the "cry" and thought it was "very good", and then filmed Come off the board. Since it was an early dialogue, Kaguya Ji's face looked very similar to the 22-year-old girl with a round face in the end. Now that I think about it, the feeling that this princess has been seen while watching the movie may be because of this.
In addition to voice actors, I have to mention the music part. I mentioned earlier the episode "Nursery Rhymes" and the tone-shift version "Song of Goddess" composed by director Takahata himself, and the clean and bright tone of the singer of the theme song "Memory of Life" came from an active monk Nikaido Kazumi. It is said that after listening to her album for the first time, Director Takahata appreciated it very much and bought all her albums in one go. And in March of this year, after the birth of the theme song, Director Takahata, who was initially shaken after 311 on whether he could interpret the film well, listened to the demo of "Memory of Life" and even swept away that layer of hesitation. . Recently, this song has been playing in a loop on my mobile phone, and the sound really has a kind of calming down, and I continue to believe in the power of life.
Hisaishi Joe can be said to have collaborated with Takahata Hoon as a director for the first time. The reason why this master is now regarded as a master and adds to the many classic works of Ghibli, originally originated from "Nausicaa" 30 years ago. At that time, as the producer of the film, Takahata found Joe Hisaishi, which can be said to be a good story between Maxima and Bole. In fact, this collaboration was almost impossible to imagine because of the overlap with the schedule of "The Wind Rises". Fortunately, the release time was delayed, allowing Hisaishi to co-act with the "Benefactor" he had always wanted to collaborate with.
In addition to the plot, sound and other elements, what moved me most was the style of "Kaguya Ji Monogatari". I heard before that after Takahata and the producer negotiated, in order to realize that the background and the characters act like a picture on the same level, the Ghibli 7th studio was specially established, and the work was carried out with Oga Kazuo as the center. The background drawing in light color style perfectly blends with the characters drawn by Osamu Tanabe. Especially the landscape depiction inside, after actually seeing it, I finally understood why Director Takahata said, "This is an animation about insects and grass."
Moreover, the lines on the big screen reveal a sense of intimacy inside and out. Perhaps it is this kind of attempt that reminds me of old Chinese animation. Hmm... if you think about it carefully, maybe it's the ink and wash animations, "Little Tadpoles Looking for Mother" and "Shepherd Flute" in the 1960s, and "Deer Bells" and "Landscape Love" in the 1980s. Although the age is long, and I have seen these works on TV-sized screens at most, the so-called "character and background are integrated" state, I feel that it is not lost to the "latest" that Ghibli has worked hard to research. technology". Thinking of this, I suddenly felt sore in my nose, and my heart started to hurt again. I'm better to do my own project now, because let us also let others know what we once had and what we unfortunately lost, and one day we can see it on a big screen like a movie theater under the premise of facing ourselves squarely. Our own good work that allows me to write such a long article is the meaning of my current research.
(After watching the current screening in Tokyo on November 6th)
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