Takasaki and Yamashita are inmates. They both went to jail for killing their wives and were released on parole at the same time. Takasaki chanted Prajna sutras all day in honor of his wife and mother-in-law, thinking about how to rape Katsura in his head. Yamashita tells others that he is divorced from his wife, is reticent and does not deal with others, and only talks to an eel. Fish caught under the mountain will be released, and they don't like the bloody method of spearfishing. However, it was this kind-hearted mountain who pierced his wife's chest with a kitchen knife, bloody and bloody.
Takasaki and Yamashita are a huge metaphor in the film. Those who have watched the film can easily understand the meaning of the eel. If you look closely, you will see what the alien is, and of course you can also get a glimpse of the sickness and madness: Masaki, who is waiting for the alien, commits suicide. The unsuccessful Watanabe, Watanabe's mother who seduce her daughter's lover while chanting Buddhism...Of course, Yamashita was the most sick one. However, if there is no plot of murder and imprisonment at the foot of the mountain in the first half of the movie, and just looking at the back, we would think that this is a taciturn man, restrained and clean, gentle and reliable. Let alone Miss Guizi, a woman would be attracted to such a man. Of course, if there were no nightmares at the foot of the mountain, no conversation with eels, and no illusions, the foot of the mountain would be the most normal person nearby.
It was the appearance of Takasaki that made everything change. Takasaki looks unreliable in the unreliable, drinking and touching a woman's ass with a prayer bead, wearing red tight-fitting pants, sloppy, talking nonsense, and pasting small notes indiscriminately.
But Yamashita was afraid of him.
Even if he came to a completely unfamiliar place, the mountain still couldn't escape everything in the past. This is an unchanging truth, and no one can escape anything that happened in the past. In absolute terms, as Freud said, it was certain experiences in childhood that caused all kinds of spiritual problems in the future. What's more, an adult with a memory has done such a profound thing.
The difference between Takasaki and Yamashita is that Takasaki is jealous that there is a Miss Guizi at the foot of the mountain. Miss Guizi deliberately and Yamashita, but the mountain shirks in every way, so Takasaki will never leave. Finally one day, the two faced each other. This scene is the climax of the entire film, and the conflict is at its peak.
Come and take a look at their conversation:
Takasaki: Stupid, don't pretend!
Yamashita: It is you who pretends to be, what is that string of Buddhist beads? Isn't it just mere appearance?
Takasaki: For those who have no money or work, what should they eat without asking God to worship Buddha?
Takasaki: It's so funny. He looks withdrawn, but can have children. Childish autistic guy.
Yamashita: Why do you always haunt me? Annoying guy!
... (Take each other’s necks to each other, Takasaki uses prayer beads, and Yamashita uses his hands that killed his wife.)
...
Takasaki: Seeing his wife having an affair, making love by herself like a hairy boy, seeing the old hand fucking his wife on the bed, except for his wife. You haven't met other women... (No wonder that I saw my wife and lover in bed at the foot of the movie, but I can keep watching. I probably never gave my wife this kind of happiness, so apart from shame, I was jealous. Burning.)
Takasaki: Yamashita. You think jealousy is wrong, right?
Takasaki: Even if you pretend to be jealous, you are just a person. (Takasaki is an honest man)
Takasaki: I am more mature than you, so I have the idea of rape. (Follow the primitive animal desires to mature, or avoid it to restrain your own maturity?)
Takasaki: Can no longer live in this naive society (this pretentious society, even rape is not allowed!)
Takasaki: I will commit rape again Entering prison, reading the Prajna Heart Sutra under the warmth of a woman.
Takasaki: Goodbye, childish boy!
Yamashita reluctantly watched Gao Qi go away singing "Lose is Empty".
Maybe the relationship between Yamashita and Takasaki has not been fully seen here. Then after the film, when Yamashita released the eels, Takasaki's phantom jumped out of the water. He said: There is no belief at all, that is a fantasy created by your jealousy...
So Yamashita put an eel, accepted Watanabe's child, and accepted himself.
Therefore, for Yamashita, Takasaki is another self in Yamashita's heart. This he is lurking under the subconscious, it is animalistic, primitive, but honest and true. But the conscious mountain tried to suppress the subconscious Takasaki, so he pinned himself on the eel who "only listens to him but can't speak". Obviously, the director told us that this is never the solution to the problem.
So Yamashita couldn't forget his dead wife, couldn't look directly at the eel caught by the harpoon, and couldn't accept Miss Guizi's feelings. Imamura Shohei will not allow us to live in a world where we pretend to be like this. So if Gao Qi comes out to laugh at you, you will be afraid at first, then angry, then accept, and then face your true self. This one has the weakness, jealousy, and desires of human nature, but there is also love.
The obvious metaphor of the eel came into play. This slender female fish that swims 2000 meters to the equator to lay eggs, accepts the eggs of an unknown male fish, and raises the little guy who does not know his father until it grows up and swims 2000 meters back to the river water in Japan. Another cycle of life.
Eel doesn't know what love is, but she uses her life to prove what love is. This is the so-called animality.
God must have moved his hands and feet when he created things, so these creatures are so cute at the same time they are hateful. It is the animalistic desire that derails Yamashita’s wife, it is also the animal’s jealousy that makes Yamashita kill people, and it is the animal’s weakness that makes Guizi seek death... If humans simply live in accordance with animality, they will definitely not work, and sooner or later they will be killed. Naturally eliminated, so man has another great invention: reason. It is reason that makes people learn to exercise restraint, which undoubtedly has played a huge role in promoting the development of human society, but reason also allows human beings to learn to hide and learn to pretend.
Freud believes that the result of suppressing my subconscious mind is to cause various mental illnesses, so there are so many pathological characters in the film. The Japanese especially know how to exercise restraint, so Japan has the most formal etiquette and the most developed pornography industry. You know, everything goes to an extreme, there will be terrible consequences. Therefore, as a Japanese, especially Masahira Imamura, who is tirelessly exploring Japanese society, he advocates a kind of animalism, that is, less repression, less pretentiousness, more truthfulness and sincerity.
Love boldly like Guizi, and wait foolishly like Guizi.
You know, the odds of waiting for a good man to be an alien are almost the same.
Therefore, the desire is indeed terrible, and even more terrible is the denial of desire.
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