I just finished reading " Six Moments in Ah Q's Life " written by Wang Hui today and wanted to write something. I also feel that Wang Hui's book discussing Lu Xun seems to be very suitable for Oshii Mamoru, especially "Air Killer", a so-called work for young people. Then put it here as a movie review, because I like Mamoru Oshii.
Oshii himself mentioned in the documentary that when he was in high school, he thought that the war would break out (should refer to the revolutionary atmosphere of the year), so he had no intention of going to school, and waited every day for the war to break out and the time to really start running. Unexpectedly, the war did not come, the revolutionary atmosphere gradually faded, and he even went to university. Don't know what to do in school, just immerse yourself in movies day after day, thinking that's the only real and interesting thing. In other words, the reality of peace is false.
The false peace is constantly repeated in Oshii Mamoru's works, and this theme has become more and more obvious recently, and it has become more and more obvious. At the end of "Tokyo Stateless Girl", a big dream wakes up and is on the battlefield. Zhe Zhicai, who deliberately caused war in "Mobile Police: Peace Defense", is more like the incarnation of Oshii Mamoru.
To pierce the false reality of peace, is it to simply pursue war? Is Mamoru Oshii a militaristic war madman? This possibility cannot be ruled out, but only the answer of the work "Air Killer" is not the case.
Break the peace, not for war, but because peace is false. Is a fake war acceptable? Yuichi answered in the negative. The reality of life is the only theme of the film.
The tamed body, the pilot who can't grow up, the memory is repeated over and over again. Even if one dies, there is another self who can replace him immediately. The whole order is so perfect that it has long since wiped out all meaning of "self".
Oshii Mori believes that such a world is also a realistic social order, and young people no longer have the possibility to grow up. Just growing, learning, laboring over and over, and then being replaced when something goes wrong. You can go to a bar to indulge, you can go to the wild to see the blue sky and white clouds, but these are all set pastimes. You can fall in love with others, but even if you have children, you still can't grow up. The "teacher" who symbolizes authority is always stable, and it is hopeless to challenge it.
Normal, but lacks the realism of life.
The word reality of life is really disturbing, often feeling as if I have grasped something, but it slips away in a flash.
Mamoru Oshii wrote in his creative notes about "Innocence" that humans are ugly because they have self-awareness. Animals and dolls have no self-awareness, so they have beauty. Yuichi also has self-awareness. He feels that he is a pilot, has superb skills, and repeats routine tasks every day. Self-consciousness, however, is not for self, but for order. That's the real reason it makes humans look ugly, I think.
Ah Q is the perfect presentation of self-awareness, and the spiritual victory method based on self-awareness allows him to not fight back even if he is beaten, and swallow his voice when he is bullied. This consciousness does not serve him, but serves the Weichuang social order in which he is trapped. Ah Q's ego is empty most of the time throughout the book, but his self-consciousness keeps circling and twisting, making him consciously and carefully maintaining this order, and making his body tolerate all injustices.
Wang Hui wrote: "Ah Q is a man who can never think with his own thoughts. He lives forever in hallucinations, constantly weaving stories about himself, others and society as a whole. He has many stories, some Much 'consciousness' about himself, but no self. So these moments cannot be found in his consciousness, self-consciousness, but in his subconscious or instinctual."
The real sense of life, I think the key lies in this. When we really realize that life really exists in front of us, that we are alive and exist those moments, we are never aware of it. It is based on instinct, based on intuition and subconsciousness, in other words, from a repressed, tamed body.
Shelley's "The Skylark," cast off dusty self-consciousness, is filled with indescribable joy. Blazing fire and blue sky, passing through the blue sky. That's what language can express, the state that comes closest to the reality of life:
Teach me that half your heart must be the familiar joy, Harmony, fiery passion will flow out of my lips, And the whole world will be like me right now - listen.
Passion comes from instinct, not from consciousness. Just like the few moments when Ah Q couldn't be overcome by the spiritual victory method, humiliation, hunger, sexual desire, rebellion, these are very positive emotions in Lu Xun's context. It is also a reflection of the reality of life.
Come back and look at "Aerial Killer", the first half of the film, Yuichi, who lives in a normal order, is so lacking in these realities. There is no humiliation of failure, no desire for a lover, and even lack of appetite, and several times out for fun, friends are dragged to go. Such a person, such a life, is false.
How to do it?
My heart is self-purifying, and I have no desires and no desires. Did I bury myself before I was born?
In the film, the solution given by Oshii Mamoru is as follows: "Even if it is the same road, you can settle in different places. It is because of the same road that there are different scenery - is this not enough? - Or Say, because of this, isn't that enough?"
The most interesting part of this sentence is, what is the reason for the different scenery? The road is the same, so it does not come from changes in the external environment, so there is only one possibility for the different scenery. It is the inner change, the vision is looking in different directions, the memory has different memories of the road, or it is falling in love with this quiet path and hating this unchanging and boring road. No matter which one it is, the purpose is achieved, different scenery is produced, and the real sense of life can be grasped.
Lu Xun's sincere thinking about life is a fable of revolution. The truth of Oshii Mamoru, what he wants is not war. War is the moment when the stupid instincts of human beings burst out, but it is also the moment when order and self-consciousness (the form of nationalism) are strengthened to the extreme. What he was looking for was the memory of past revolutions. In that era when college students were busy seeking self-change, in that era when they wrote poetry, armed themselves, and someone was always ready to leave family and country for a decisive battle.
Therefore, Yuichi at the end of the film did not go to the decisive battle with the "teacher" as a member of the war game. He's doing stupid things and challenging the order of the whole game. Using anger and passion to direct the action of the body.
This is the story of the revolution.
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