01
"The Oil of the Toad" is an autobiography written by Akira Kurosawa when he was 64 years old. It is not the same as Ingmar Bergman's "Magic Lamp". "Magic Lantern" laid out a large number of inner monologues to explain Bergman's behavior that might be misunderstood in front of others. And "Oil of the Toad" helps readers understand the director Akira Kurosawa by describing the surrounding characters and the background of the times.
The book talks about how he practiced martial arts since he was a child, how he went through the abnormal censorship system after he started his career, and how he was influenced by traditional arts such as Noh drama. So it is natural that Akira Kurosawa should shoot such historical and dramatic works as "Zushiro", "Rashomon", "Spider's Nest", "Ran" and "Kagemusha". So when you see the name "August Rhapsody" and its poster shows a few modern-dressed children playing in front of a waterfall, you may hardly imagine that this is Akira Kurosawa's movie.
02
Suddenly there was no armor, katana, big vision, and intense drama conflict. The old audience was surprised and thought it was a colorful version of Ozu Yasujiro's movie—family, house, daily life, country. Although it doesn’t have the same tone as in the movie, but the clean and tidy wooden floor, the long corridor, the small scenery outside the sliding door and the lush trees appear in front of your eyes, you think, yes, this is Japan, this is summer. This director, called "The Emperor", made a movie about summer. Is it refreshing? Very fresh.
It is incredible that a director who photographs human nature and society suddenly has such a soft perspective. But when this movie was made, Kurosawa was already 80 years old. In the 20th century, an 80-year-old Japanese old man experienced the Great Depression, the Second World War, and the nuclear explosion in the textbooks. He watched the young children grow up one after another, and watched history being emptied into textbooks. There are disgusting knowledge points, but they don’t want to preach. Probably "August Rhapsody" was born like this.
03
Movies with bitter and deep hatred are quite unpleasant to the audience. After all, movies are entertainment for most audiences, and there is no need to go to the movie world to continue to be tortured. Doesn't the suffering fail to appear in the movie? Directors who pursue art certainly don't think so. But it's not that the director is trying to pretend to be high-level non-shooting suffering, they just want to shoot the essence of reality, but the essence is tragedy. But what if you want to film reflections on history and war, but also want to win the audience?
Then you can't be Xianglin's wife. Kurosawa knew that people must be forgetful, indifferent and selfish. But as long as something involves oneself, even if it is very small, people have the ability to empathize. Avoiding topics that are easily politicized, Kurosawa gently told a story that took place in Nagasaki in August from a child's perspective:
A group of children disliked their grandmother in every possible way and tried to use her grandmother to achieve the purpose of vacationing in Hawaii. In the process of trying to persuade their grandmother, the children discovered that the grandmother was an old man who had experienced the nuclear explosion in Nagasaki. The grandfather died in the fire immediately after the nuclear explosion. The grandmother, who was 10 kilometers away from the mountain, lost her hair on the top of her head because of the radiation. My grandmother did not want to go to Hawaii because she still had a grudge against the United States in her heart. But the war and terror were over, and my grandmother finally knew that it was not the United States that caused her to suffer, but the war itself.
04
Pain gave birth to works, so there were a lot of great movies about World War II. For example, "Red Sorghum", "Pianist", and "Schindler's List" which show the suffering of the oppressed nation, "The Dawn Here is Quiet", "Saving Private Ryan", "August Rhapsody" which directly expresses the war "As a Japanese anti-war film, it may not be considered a great, and it seems particularly abrupt. Of course, this movie does not mention war at all, nor does it express left or right thoughts. It tells you that there is such a group of civilians who were suddenly bombed by an atomic bomb unprecedented in mankind on August 9, 1945.
They are civilians, but they are civilians in fascist countries. Are they worthy of sympathy? This is a question, but to answer this question is too easy to be labeled (so whoever dares to talk about it). The root cause of all such problems is still war. If there is any non-instinctive tradition of mankind that can be inherited consistently for thousands of years, it is war. This is a particularly absurd thing. As an activity with the highest cost, the most damage, and the least effect, war can be provoked for various strange reasons.
And all ridiculous wars, if you think about it, are they essentially launched by a group of power holders to satisfy their inner desires? Isn’t it part of the reason for the development of World War II because of the aggressive wars launched by politicians in order to divert internal conflicts so that their political careers can be accounted for? The most absurd thing is that ordinary people don't know anything, they are taught to hate imaginary enemies, and they are encouraged to join the war. The result was defeated, and no one was inside or outside.
05
Of course the war will continue. On the one hand, this is the fact that the Second World War has brought such a great trauma to all human beings on the earth, and peace will not exceed 5 years by 2020. On the other hand, people always lose their minds, so do society and the country. They lose their minds, and their emotions and instincts are in the upper ranks. What else to negotiate and contend with? You just get a weapon.
Do you say history is a mirror? Yes, but humans don't care.
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