The story is simple.
The man wandered to the isolated island and tried to leave many times, but each time he was stopped by unknown creatures in the sea. In the end he discovered that the saboteur was a red sea turtle, and he helped to crawl out of the sand hole one night on the island. Baby turtles who want to enter the ocean. The male protagonist who fell into the water with the damaged bamboo raft thought his life was unsafe, but the turtle did not hurt him. That night, a sea turtle climbed up to the island from the sea. The male protagonist, who had repeatedly destroyed the fruits of his labor and hoped to be rescued, killed the sea turtle with a bamboo pole in a desperate manner. The dead turtle faded away from its empty shell and transformed into a woman, and the male lead took care of it due to guilt. Later, the man and the woman fell in love and gave birth to a son, and the family enjoyed themselves well. One day a tsunami suddenly came and the island was destroyed. The son rescued his father who was washed away by the sea. Afterwards, the family of three rebuilt the island and continued a peaceful life. But the son grew up and began to long for life outside the island. Leaving the island under his gaze. The two continue to live until the male protagonist dies, and the female protagonist turns into a turtle and returns to the sea.
The biggest highlight of this film is the picture, removing all the extra details, and only retaining the most core imagery. The painting style is refreshing but not superficial. On the contrary, the empty background and single subject are often the most oppressive and deep composition. Looking back at the topics contained in the story itself: nature, life, reincarnation, choice, and human beings are two of the most important Emotion (love and family), and only such a composition can contain such a story.
A freehand animation without any dialogue in a whole film naturally has many ways to interpret it. But the simplest and most straightforward interpretation is our most ordinary life.
Men want to go out and go out, either for fame or for profit or for a completely different way of life. The woman wants him to stay, either for protection or greed, or because the sea seems calm and wide, but the undercurrent is surging in danger. Who is wrong? nothing. Men want to chase what they want, women want their lovers to stay. Two harmless things put together can produce a fatal conflict, which eventually causes the man to almost kill the turtle in his anger.
At night, the man dreamed of a turtle facing up to the sky, and its soul gradually lifted into the sky as if it was about to sink into the stars in the dark night. The man wanted to catch it but could not reach it anyway. The suddenly awakened male protagonist hurried to the beach to try to make up for his mistake, but he lost the strength of his anger and was unable to turn the turtle over again. Some mistakes and injuries in life are irreparable.
Fortunately, being silent naturally gave the man another chance. The turtle became a woman and gradually recovered. In the end, when the woman put the tortoise shell into the sea and let it go with the waves, the man also pushed the unfinished bamboo raft into the sea and chose to stay on the island forever. Love is a game. After fighting, they lick each other's wounds and hug each other tightly in the lonely island of the dark night. This is so similar to the core of "The Phantom Sewer". The only way for Reynolds to gain love is through his fragility. The gorgeous and elegant clothes are nothing but condiments, and the poisonous mushrooms are the most irritating aphrodisiac. The only way for a sea turtle to keep a man is to destroy the bamboo raft he has worked so hard to make, and a man can only make up for the damage he has caused by staying. But all this is not only about the selfishness in human nature or the guilt in the kind nature, because these two evenly matched opponents got the love they want in the lively dance with the waves as the background.
Life on the island continued peacefully, and love brought them a child and many happy days.
If not for the subsequent tsunami, this would probably be just a story of the red turtle spirit repaying favor with the strange style of Liao Zhai.
The tsunami made his son discover his ability to travel the world (the turtle son can really swim very far), and eventually caused him to leave the island. But in fact, he had this intention long ago, and the director has given enough foreshadowing. The glass bottle his father brought from the civilized world made him dream about the strange world since he was a child, and swimming in the sea with turtle friends also made him believe that he has enough ability to cope with the uncertain sea.
So he finally chose to leave.
Life goes round and round. At the same life juncture, some people choose to stay and some choose to leave. In the end, the movie didn't tell us where our son went, whether he was doing well, and whether the choice he made was correct or not. Life is a broken story, and you cannot know the ending of everyone who appears in your life. He left, and the bond between parents and children ends here. But in the end, will the parents really be surprised and puzzled by his departure?
"The learning of heptagram language will change my life. It is precisely because of this incident that I met your father and learned language B. The two together gave me the opportunity to meet you, right now, It's in this yard, under the moonlight. In many years, I will break up with your father and separate from you...
From the very beginning, I knew the end. I chose the path I wanted to take, which is the only way to go in the future. I follow the path, full of joy, perhaps full of pain? My future, is it minimized or maximized?
These questions flooded my mind. At this time, your father asked me: "Do you want a baby?" I smiled and said, "Yes." I pulled his arms away from me, and our hands Hold hands, walk into the room, make love, be you. "
-"The Story of Your Life"
"I know the ending of this story very well, and I think a lot about this story." All of this is poetic, romantic, and with faint despair. But in the end, I chose to watch you leave calmly with a smile on my face.
At the end of the film, the woman snuggles next to the man who has passed away, gently touching his palm with her hand, and gradually her palm turns into tortoise fins. This is the final farewell. It is said that the life of a sea turtle is generally 150 years. She spent half of her life with him on an isolated island. After returning to the ocean, how could the remaining 75 years not be full of thoughts and sorrow. Those who go first are lucky, this is true.
The forest that was completely destroyed after the tsunami has regained its luxuries, and there is no trace on the grass where the father and son played. The green bamboo forest is still swaying with the wind just like when the man first landed on the island. Has the catastrophe that destroyed everything ever happened? Has the kid’s laughter ever existed? Maybe everything that has happened since landing on the island many years ago is just Nanke Yimeng?
The sea is eternally silent, and no one knows the truth.
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