"The mask lives on your body every day.
A face that can be taken off.
A world without family, friends, or enemies.
No crime, because there will be no criminals.
No one will desire freedom, because we will all be free .
No one will run away because there will be nowhere for them to escape.
Loneliness and friendship will be one.
There will be no duty of trust between people, no guesswork and betrayal."
Above is the Doctor in the tavern The dialogue, I started thinking about playing from here (the director's background is irrelevant).
First of all, there are three groups of characters in "The Face of Others":
1 Okuyama himself + mask Okuyama + Okuyama's wife (beauty)
2 Doctor + doctor's assistant + doctor's wife
3 Little beauty in white (really beautiful) + little beauty's
brother Okuyama and Xiaomei Burning the face (neck) is a direct metaphor for the Japanese horror of World War II: Tokyo's incendiary bombing in 1945 and the atomic bombs of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This after-effect is also evident in other scenes, such as the old soldier attacking Little Beauty in the mental hospital, the German bar singing German songs... But the way Teshigahara (and many Japanese postwar directors) reflect on it is distinct from that of Western directors. different. For example, compared with Samuel Fuller's direct exposure of the scars of the Korean War and the self-rotten capitalist social mechanism through the role of a veteran in Shock Corridor, Teshigahara is more inclined to be a post-colonial product, with Japan's unique digestion, rejection (admitting mistakes), (willingly) abused. This can also be seen in his soundtrack and images. Of course, I personally eat his compositional configuration in this film, including close-ups, stills (like La jetée?), a set that is both modern and less "Japanese" ("The Lady of the Sand"). But on the other hand, this change is also a proof of the M (Japan is the largest M in the universe) voluntarily or passively holding the mouth gag.
In the film, the doctor and the assistant who had a leg said this sentence: "One of the three people is always going to die." This is super spot on. Of course, it's also very symbolic at the same time (but it doesn't matter, the whole film is very good).
That's right, each of these three groups has someone to die.
Group 2 died of a beautiful girl, group 3 died of a doctor, and group 1 Okuyama and the mask were combined like "loneliness and friendship".
Pretty girls are going to die because this is in Japan. All she can do is her own brother. Of course, incest is nothing new in Japan, but she has always had expectations in her heart—love and war—that are as pure as her white dress, as if it could give her a new life. But thank you, this was impossible in Japan in 1966, and there was a way to combine: being engaged by a war veteran—of course she escaped; then for a woman like her with facial burns, this kind of expectation It is not allowed, and it can even be said that it exceeds the moral law of Japanese perverted society. She has to die - just as sumo wrestlers can't be in porn.
Doctors must die too. Because he wants the so-called freedom, has the ability to create this "freedom", and more importantly, he gave up this "freedom" when he could choose. If he doesn't die, the beautiful girl will not appear on the scene.
As for Okuyama... This is a typical Japanese man I don't like, I'm too lazy to say it... He doesn't love his body at all, and he doesn't know how to love it, and he doesn't even think it is necessary to love - this is similar to the kamikaze commando There is no difference.
The narrative prevents us from equating Okuyama's loss of face with a loss of identity—everyone recognizes who he is, even in bandages; he doesn't really socially erase his identity until he finds a mask to put it on himself . And his heart abandoned the conscious body as early as the moment he was bandaged, and he had no courage at all-this feature is directly connected to the post-war reflection on Japan above: You can ignore even the flesh and blood , where does human nature exist? He/they are always their other from the moment they pay homage to the emperor.
So he doesn't have to be "executed" anymore.
The space setting of each group can also support the choice of death method.
Group 1 is autumn and winter (coats and gloves), and group 2 is spring and summer (small skirts by the sea). Both groups are social spaces, with the possibility of contingent events.
Except for the doctor's going out, the three groups were all in the sealed laboratory/treatment room of unknown address, or in the doctor's mind, which was controllable and completely rational.
The chick died for her space - society. Japanese society will not take the initiative to lend a helping hand to anyone who is silent, and there is no turning back to this day. Her brother who was howling by the window didn't even have to open the letter. And the sea - the fucking symbol - takes on the baptismal function of the ritual, trying to explain the logical order of this society rather than the natural order. Here are 2 shots for comparison: the prosthesis thrown into the container (the middle of the water) and the full screen of the sea.
Doctors can't die in their own space, that's outside the purview of power. It seems that Okuyama's killing him is a crime, but in fact it is law enforcement for the society-doctors cannot live outside their illusions. In fact, the doctor himself knew this. In the scene in the bar, he personally said to Okuyama: "That kind of world (freedom) cannot exist." people.
What is the hope of seeing the last film?
Of course it won't be Okuyama-kun, at least I don't think it's this guy who has no sexual pleasure in his life after 80%. He said: "Freedom is often lonely" and ends/starts his own journey, but never becomes a "hero". What the film doesn't make is the failure of his own imagination of "freedom" that he will find in the future.
Simply because he has no sense of responsibility. If we dare not face our own physical death, all we can do is escape—and there is no boat to cross the other side, and the other side is all fantasy.
So which is the hope?
I like his wife.
She doesn't hide the fact that she uses makeup/masks, and she can't stand to pretend a mask is real.
More importantly, she chose to have sex with Okuyama wearing a mask. She is the source of all evil, the reason why the seasons return and the life and death change.
I am also optimistic about the little girl who plays yo-yo, she represents possibility and diversity.
Finally back to the mask.
A mask is a uniform, a totem, and a refuge to dissolve all classes and contradictions.
In fact, Teshigahara never made me feel like the main character, Okuyama, had changed his mask, because in my opinion, he didn't need it at all and never wore it.
Like the Faceless Man who flooded the streets at the end of the film, Okuyama has no real personality of his own. We always say we hate people who wear fake masks - luckily, you're lucky to meet them. They are cookie-cutter and easy to deal with.
The funny thing is people who don't need a mask (like the yo-yo girl) because they have a mind; even if they wear one, these people admit it (like Okuyama's wife) - and of course, they are also the most dangerous.
As for what kind of people a society considers to be hopeful and needed, it depends on what kind of society it is.
Or rather, it determines the landscape of this society.
One sentence: you are not wearing a mask, you are the mask.
ps. The identity loss/identity that Teshigahara mainly discusses in this film is secondary to me. And I personally feel that he is not so clever at this point, and it is not the focus of the film.
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