"Narayama Festival Kao": In the name of God,
Xie Zongyu combed human beings, and Shohei Imamura served
as an assistant to Ozu Yasujiro. Just like Ozu doesn't want to see Imamura, Imamura doesn't particularly catch a cold in Ozu. There was such a conversation when the two parted ways. After reading Imamura’s script "Pork and Warship", Ozu frowned and said, "Why do you always want to take pictures of people like maggots?" Imamura replied, "I will write about maggots until I die."
I have to admit. So far, Yasujiro Ozu is my favorite director. But this does not mean that I definitely don't like people he denies. As an audience, I am not repulsive of any style. As long as the director can achieve this style to the extreme, he is a great master.
It seems a bit risky to crown Masahira Imamura with the word "Master," because I only watched one of his movies: "Narayama Festival Kao". But even if he is not a master, "Narayama Festival Kao" is definitely a classic.
First,
let's explain the meaning first. Narayama is a place name, which generally refers to the place where humans live.
Festivals are rules, rituals, and customary habits. Narayama Festival, it is said that a long time ago, in a remote mountain village in Shinshu, Japan, once an old man lived to 70 years old, his family would carry it back to the mountain and dedicated it to the god of Narayama.
Examination is research, inference, textual research, record, and deduction.
After watching an exciting movie, my first reaction is to search the Internet to see if there are any film reviews that concern me. This time, I was disappointed again. The various film reviews can be summarized as follows: or "show that poverty is the root of all evil"; or "criticize the evil of human nature"; or "expose the animal nature of humans"; or "deplore the destiny of women being instrumentalized"; Or "dissecting the chaotic sexual hunger and thirst of humans"; or "praising the perseverance and broadness of motherhood"; or "presenting the harsh environment of human living."
I can't say that they were wrong. Certain plots in the movie can indeed deduce these causes and effects. It’s just that I don’t understand why they ignore the title? From the title, Masahira Imamura wanted to fully interpret the scenes from a certain historical period of the "Narayama Festival".
Why does Masahei Imamura want to perform and restore "Narayama Festival"? This is the focus of our attention.
"Narayama Festival" was originally written by the novelist Shichiro Fukasawa, and there is no historical textual research. This means that we can completely treat it as a ridiculous story, just like watching Zhang Yimou's "Three Shots". Comparing the horror when the movie characters were killed, "Narayama Festival Test" is not as scary as "Three Shots", but watching "Three Shots", we are always grinning; while watching "Narayama Festival Test", our fascination is more than a while , The back spine was cooler than for a while.
Why is this happening? Because we regarded "Three Shots" as a legend, but did not regard "Narayama Festival Kao" as a legend. We prefer to believe that the "Narayama Festival" is true, and it has existed somewhere in human history. It awakens a certain memory in us and overlaps with certain impressions in our minds. In other words, it resonates with us. The emotions of both fear and disgust towards the "Narayama Festival" are actually just our reactions after examining ourselves.
This is the real reason why Imamura Shohei wants to restore the "Narayama Festival". In his view, the "Narayama Festival" seems to be the context map of the development of human civilization. Although it is bloody, cruel, and ruthless, it is effective, practical, and convenient. Emotionally, no matter how we hate it, but in order for human beings to develop, we have to follow it intellectually. Like other creatures, on this lonely planet, are we not a group of helpless humble creatures?
2. The
"Narayama Festival", to put it bluntly, is the villagers looking for a high-sounding excuse for the abandoned old people to civilize the cold behavior of collective survival. No matter how high, far and mysterious the misty Narayama is, there is no god on it. The old people who were sent up could only suffer from hunger and cold. Then he sacrificed his flesh and blood to the crow, and left the bones to the wind and rain. The deification of Narayama is not only a way for the younger generations to buffer the spiritual shock brought about by the barbaric behavior, but also a compulsive self-comfort that the old man seeks to relieve the fear before going up the mountain.
Let’s figure out the beginning of the Narayama Festival. Suppose there is a villager who, on a certain winter day, took advantage of the dawn, carrying her paralyzed and blind old lady, saying that she went to seek medical treatment outside the mountain, but abandoned her in the mountain halfway through. When he came back, Narayama was described as unpredictable. He just bowed his head and drank, and the old lady disappeared. At this time, villagers came to comfort him, saying that his old lady finally got rid of the pain of the world and was taken to the sky by the mountain god to enjoy the blessing. Soon, someone followed suit. Looking back, Narayama was indeed a spiritual mountain, and his father disappeared in the blink of an eye. Gradually, this kind of abandoning behavior has become a common method for villages to relieve the pressure of survival. Then, it was retained as a custom.
Or, in such a severe year, food cannot guarantee that all the villagers will survive the cold winter. The main laborers in the village gather to discuss countermeasures and decide to carry all the elderly over 70 years old on Narayama and let them fend for themselves. In order to strengthen the rationality of this cruel behavior, they promoted public opinion, saying that the old man is good and capable of divine spirits. Only when the old man is sent to Narayama will the god of Narayama turn a disaster year into a good year. As a result, the weather was smooth in the second year, food was plentiful, and people were happy. So sending the elderly to Narayama was preserved as a custom.
No matter what impression the "Narayama Festival" will leave on modern audiences, it has become the collective unconscious choice of the past generations of villagers in Narayama. In the era of A Lingpo, this custom has been deeply rooted in the hearts of the people. The villagers no longer have the ability to reflect on this custom. The barbaricity of the custom has been diluted by rituals, and its cruelty no longer has the power to harm the soul. Everyone will only be pious. Follow it carefully. Individuals who oppose it are treated as jokes instead. For example, Lingpo's husband, because he couldn't bear to send his old mother to Narayama, ran away. He was ashamed by the fifteen-year-old eldest son Tatsupei and shot and killed in a quarrel during a bear hunt. Decades later, when A Lingpo learned the truth, she comforted Chenping and said that it was not he who killed his father, but the mountain god who took his father away.
In A Lingpo's view, it was the mountain god who used his son to punish her husband who violated customs. It is this concept that has been deeply ingrained in her mind. A Lingpo, who lived to be sixty-nine years old, was ashamed of her extraordinary health. She could not help explaining to every villager, no matter how healthy she was, she was after this year. He must go up the mountain, without ambiguity. Even secretly knocked off two hard and powerful front teeth on the edge of the well to show his oldness. To her, living again is a shame more painful than death. Rather than live a few more days, it is better to die with dignity earlier. The conversion to ancient customs exceeded her survival instinct.
But in fact, A Lingpo is just a kidnapped grasshopper on a custom chariot. Her desire for death seems to be full of initiative, but in fact she is always passive. Because she has no choice at all, going up the mountain can't refuse, leaving her to choose is the attitude of going up the mountain. Is it going up the mountain calmly, or up the mountain crying in terror? She chose the former. It was this calm attitude to die that gave her the dignity of life.
"Narayama Festival" is the focus of the film, but Masahira Imamura obviously wants to show more than just "Narayama Festival". Borrowing from what happened in Alingpo's village before the mountain, Masahira Imamura intends to show that the "Narayama Festival" is everywhere. For example, after careful discussion, the villagers buried all seven or eight people in the rain house, which was often stolen, alive; Lingpo refused to let her eldest daughter-in-law accompany the younger son Isuke to sleep, but found Isuke to have sex with him in the village; Aya's husband died At that time, Aya was asked to give alms to every serf in the village to get rid of the evil spirits in the house; babies who don’t have enough food to feed, can only abandon them in the fields as fertilizer... All of this is not accidental , All have their inherent inevitability, and have become a certain custom or will become a certain custom.
We might as well look at the essence through the phenomenon and analyze the trivial matters of these villages.
Lingpo refused to let her daughter-in-law Ayu give her alms to Yisuke. On the one hand, she did not want to break the existing balance of the family. On the other hand, I am also afraid that Ayu will be pregnant with Yisuke's child. Isuke, who is naturally stinky, has become an evolutionary inferior product. From the perspective of survival of the fittest, he is no longer suitable for family reproduction. The eldest grandson Chaoji can reproduce for the family, but Chaoji's wife Asong is lazy and has the habit of stealing grain from her in-laws to give to her natal family. If the child is rashly given birth and two more foods, it is likely to drag the whole family down. So A Lingpo cruelly deceived Asong back to her natal family and made her a funeral for her natal family.
The matter of the world has never stopped. Before going up the mountain, Lingpo looked like she didn't have to look for sex objects for Yisuke. However, if Isuke’s sexual hunger and thirst are not overcome, Isuke, who destroys crops and livestock, is likely to threaten the balance of the village, and it may become the target of murder by the villagers. Although Yisuke is stinky and stupid, he is not suitable for breeding offspring, but he is still one of the main laborers of the family. Lingpo's help is not only a manifestation of maternal love, but also for the personal benefit of the whole family.
Aya gave alms to every serf in the village, expressly begging for the understanding of the evil spirits in the family, but secretly in order to conceive a child. Her husband died in the prime of his life. The husband wanted Aya to be pregnant, but didn't want to know who the father of the child was, so he came up with such a trick. Only children without a father can inherit the husband's surname and family business. For children without a father, all serfs who have an affair with Aya will take themselves for granted as their fathers, so as to secretly take care of them as they grow up. And Aya made her own claim to exclude Yisuke, not only because of his body odor, but also because he was afraid of being pregnant with his child.
Sexual desire is one of the driving forces of human development, but before the invention of contraception, excessive sexual activity will inevitably lead to overpopulation. When Chao Ji and Asong were dating, he touched her belly and said this sentence: "If it's a boy, kill it, if it's a girl, then sell it for money." The treatment of the surplus population can be done from this statement. Have a glimpse. This is the real reason why there are dead babies in the fields after the winter snow melts.
All of this has become a custom or is about to become a custom, in fact, it is related to the survival and reproduction of the race. From the perspective of Masahira Imamura, we found that the initial formation of all the customs endowed by humans with civilization is basically not related to the good moral sentiments of human beings, but only related to the survival and development of human beings as a whole. What kind of custom is conducive to the survival and development of the population in this area, and what kind of custom will be formed and followed by human beings. The civilization and morality of the custom were later added by people, and its purpose is to soothe the hurt and shadow of the individual's soul caused by the cruel custom.
When moral civilization and customs are completely integrated, the barbarism of customs is diluted, and its legitimacy and legitimacy are thus manifested. Precisely because of this, Imamura did not take a critical attitude towards the "Narayama Festival", nor did he use derogatory shots on A Lingpo's uphill behavior.
Chenping surpassed mountains and rivers, went through hardships, and sent his mother to Narayama with almost pilgrimage-like devotion. But Narayama has no gods to greet him, only chaotic rocks, bones everywhere, and jackdaws crying sadly. The ultimate dilemma of mankind is thus highlighted. Chenping finally realized that the so-called "Narayama Festival" was actually a whitewashing of the behavior of abandoning the old. It was forgivable that my father did not want to carry his grandma up the mountain. Now he didn't want his wife to starve and freeze to death in the mountains and forests. But A Lingpo stopped his weakness and "drived" Chen Ping away with stern eyes and gestures.
At this time, the heavy snow drifted, and A Lingpo sat under the green cliff like a Buddha, among the bones and jackdaws. Her calm, solemn, solemn and open-minded face penetrated the hearts of all the audience in an instant. A feeling of reverence that swelled up in everyone's chest. Naturally, it also includes Tatsupei who went back and forth in the film. The sudden fall of the heavy snow fulfilled the ancient rumor, and Chen Ping, who was soaked in customs, thought he had received a magnificent sign.
Lingpo's calm death made every audience who knows how to survive will only shed tears of admiration for her self-sacrificing tragic behavior, and will not cast contempt at her for her bad habits. This is obviously not the audience's self-selection, but the director Masahira Imamura first made the choice for the audience with the lens. In many cases, the audience is just a puppet of the director's emotions and ideas. This time it is.
three,
Imamura's choice is undoubtedly fair. For "Narayama Festival", if he adopts a critical attitude, then this movie is definitely not a classic. Nietzsche once said that life is meaningless. As a human being, the best thing is not to be born, and the next best thing is to die as soon as possible. People live without any value. However, since they cannot die immediately, human beings have to use artistic and moral means to make sense and value the way of self-survival.
"Narayama Festival" seems to be a ritual of individual death, but it is also a way for humans to sacrifice individuals to preserve the collective. Imamura's attitude towards "Narayama Festival" is exactly what modern people should have towards "anthropology"-being rational, calm and respectful. You should know that the emergence of any human custom is inseparable from the local living environment at that time. If you move from place to place, you will meet it yourself, and you may not be the most stubborn supporter of this custom. For anthropology, any criticism that transcends time and space will flow into the superficiality of whiplash scratching. The reason why Imamura Shohei wanted to "upply" A Lingpo's death was actually because humans had to beautify the meaning of life after being well acquainted with the nihility of existence, in order to comfort his soul, which is a hundred times richer and a thousand times more sensitive than other creatures. "With the help of Sun God's reason, we can see the ugly truth of life, and then with the carnival of Bacchus, we can put an artistic veil on life." Nietzsche, who said this, was a genius.
Many creatures on the earth are evolving all the time, but since the race is fixed, it seems that there is no sign of evolution anymore? From the movie "Narayama Festival Test", I suddenly discovered that the human body and skin color may no longer evolve, but the chaotic mind of human beings has been changing up and down. And custom is the most direct tool to change the mind, and it is also the most obvious proof. Human beings are scattered in all corners of the earth. Different environments have created their different ways of living, leading to their different life customs, and nurturing their different outlooks on life, values, and the universe. This is the evolution of the human mind. The diversity of the human mind is actually as important as the diversity of species. Even in modern society, any words and deeds that accuse others of the way of life and customs based on one's own values should be cautious. For example, Russia encourages childbirth, while my country promotes birth control; the United States opposes abortion, and my country encourages abortion. These are all normal reactions of different living environments on human beings. Although the concepts are completely opposite, there is no right or wrong.
At this point in the article, it is natural to talk about the topic of "universal value". Universal values have now become a sensitive word in China. Whether universal values should be promoted with fanfare is currently one of the focuses of debate among Chinese intellectuals. I don't want to join the argument here. I just want to remind everyone that universal value is actually a universal "custom". Universal value is not always there. It is the product of the development of the social environment and the product of technological progress. The advancement of science and technology has diluted the geographical environment of human existence and assimilated the social environment of human existence. Only when the human living environment is roughly the same can it make sense to talk about universal values. If there are still villages like Narayama on the earth, the spring breeze of universal value will definitely not blow there. In other words, the promotion of universal values should complement the transformation of the living environment, and neither advance nor lag is the right move. The promotion of universal values can only be spring-like, and any "crude" promotion behavior and overnight thoughts are all whimsical.
4.
If many customs in the world are similar to the "Narayama Festival", then many customs in Japan are almost similar to the "Narayama Festival". For example, the Bushido spirit of always striving for the first place and dying if you fail, if you look at it with universal values, its cruelty and savagery really match the "Narayama Festival".
Significantly, why is "Narayama Festival Kao" the work of a Japanese director and not someone else? Why did the legend of "Narayama Festival" happen in Japan and not in other countries? In fact, upon seeing "Narayama Festival Kao", our subconscious mind takes it for granted that the story is only appropriate if it takes place in Japan. Japan's natural environment is harsh and living resources are scarce. "Death and resurrection" is the purpose of many of their customs. The more cruel the custom is to the individual, the more conducive to the reproduction of the whole. The harsh geographical environment has forced the formulation of the Japanese system and the formation of customs to develop in the direction of "refined troops and simplified administration" and "short, flat, and fast". On the one hand, we can maximize our personal potential, and on the other hand, we can eliminate social burdens as much as possible and reduce unnecessary consumption. If the history of the development of human customs is really the evolutionary history of the human mind, then the Japanese mind has evolved toward the most direct "strong survival, weak death" jungle law.
From this point of view, although Masahira Imamura filmed "Narayama Festival Kao" based on the objective reality of anthropology, he also cleverly concealed his identity and selfishness for the customs of his own nation. This is a bit alarming. Of course, there is no right or wrong of customs in anthropology. We cannot deny certain Japanese customs based on our values, but we must be deeply aware of the terrible potential of certain Japanese customs. If we don't pay attention to them, they can swallow the entire planet. What they didn't do with guns in the past, now they are trying to do it with money (economic).
If Japanese customs are "prosperous", then Chinese customs are "death-prone". For a long period of time in history, many customs in China have developed in a direction that is beneficial to the elderly and the dead, and the social welfare system has almost always been tilted towards the elderly. Age is the magic weapon for the Chinese to defeat the enemy. "A wife who has been married for many years becomes a wife." This is the truth. In famine years, it is a common custom in Chinese history to change children and eat, but the phenomenon of easy old age and food is very rare. Since the beginning of the history, the Chinese people have no more regard for death. The powerful not only buried a large number of gold and silver treasures in the curtain, but also used young and strong slaves, wives and prisoners of war as burials. In order to hold a decent funeral, the poor went bankrupt and even sold themselves to bury their father or mother. Although this custom is the exact opposite of the "Narayama Festival", its cruelty and barbarism are on the same level. A story similar to "Narayama Festival" finally became a model for respecting the elderly in China. It was about a father who asked his son to help and carried his old mother into the mountains. When he was about to throw her down the cliff with the basket, the son suddenly stopped and said that he should keep the basket so that he could use this when his father was old. Luokung carried his father up the mountain. After listening to the cold sweat, the father hurriedly carried the old mother home, and served with good food and food, hoping to set an example of filial piety for his son, in exchange for his happy old age. Thinking about it now, the premise of this story is that there must be good food and food in the family. In addition, while providing good food and food to the old lady, we must also ensure that we and our son will not starve to death. If this mode continues, it is hoped that everyone will reap a happy old age. Therefore, this far-reaching folk tale will only happen in China, which is rich in natural resources, and not in Japan, where thalassaemia is scarce.
Obviously, the formation of the "death" custom is not only due to China's vast land and resources, it also has far-reaching reasons, and this short review will not discuss it. If a scholar is interested, he can treat it as a special topic and write a thick book. In the end, I just want to say that if China does not change this "death" custom, no matter how rich we are, we may once again be defeated by the Japanese under the "prosperity" custom. In a sense, custom is the root of a nation’s destiny, just as character is the cause of personal destiny.
View more about The Ballad of Narayama reviews
