Otomo Keyang is certainly a big selling point of the film, but it is worth noting that in this film about a mad scientist building a steam city and realizing the utopia in his mind, it is scattered in Japanese films, especially Japanese animation and TV cartoons. The nostalgia of the times, all in one.
Is the dream of scientists building a utopia with a steam city also a collective dream of the Japanese?
"Steam Boy" is set in London, England in the 19th century, and tells the story of Rayleigh, a young man who likes to invent, and receives a steam ball from the inventor's grandfather, and this steam ball attracts a consortium to compete with the British government. Raleigh, who escaped with a steam ball, broke into the world's first World Expo Hall, met his father who should have died, and learned the secret of the steam ball. And this steam ball is closely related to the lifelong dream of my father and grandfather - to build a steam city and build a utopia with advanced technology.
The focus of the film is on Britain during the industrial revolution, so there are all kinds of machines in the industrial age. Even with the director's wild imagination, the industrial flavor is very strong, such as super-giant spaceships and submarines, steam-protected ones. Armor, Rayleigh's homemade steam bike, etc.
The Industrial Revolution is one of the most important changes in the process of human society. The most representative products of this era are steam engines, trains and coal. The characteristics of the machines are heavy, multi-gear, and hand-pulled engines. Emotionally, the cult of machines also peaked.
This time Otomo Keyang chose the most symbolic steam engine in the industrial revolution as the theme, but this is not just his yearning for the industrial age. The same feelings have long been seen in Japanese animation.
If you pay attention to Japanese animation, it is not difficult to find two elements: rural and industrial machines. This is particularly evident in Miyazaki's works.
In many of Miyazaki's works, you can clearly smell the feelings that are entangled with the industrial age. The common seaplane in "Flying Pig Man" is a product of that era. Whenever the male protagonist, who is translated as "A Lam" in Hong Kong, wants to take off, he always pulls the engine of the plane by hand. The wooden fuselage with the heavy engine, as well as the photos of the fighter after World War II, inadvertently reveal the author's feelings. There is also "Spirited Away", which won many foreign film awards for Hayao Miyazaki. I believe that all friends who have watched this film will not forget the arrogant boiler grandpa and the exquisite and lovely coal shit ghost in the film.
The machine controlled by Grandpa Boiler is basically a steam engine. By feeding coal into the furnace, various "soups" are produced to meet the needs of different guests.
In the new work "Howl's Moving Castle", the magical castle created by Hayao Miyazaki is also constructed entirely on the principle of steam engines, while the coal burning day and night in "Spirited Away" is replaced by fire demons .
In "Witch's Delivery Service", which describes Witch's Flying Sky, we can also find giant spaceships that are products of the industrial age. The high-tech cities in "City in the Sky" and the spaceships in them are closely related to the industrial age.
As another representative of the industrial age, coal often appears in Hayao Miyazaki's works. Even in "My Neighbor Totoro", which does not smell the slightest mechanical smell, the coal shit ghost also appears as a symbol of an era. Bringing out the Japanese nostalgia for the industrial age has long been integrated into life.
And the animated version of "Metropolis" based on Fitzroy's classic "Metropolis", the industrial city presented in it is a memory of the industrial age.
Not only animation, but even in TV cartoons, this kind of worship of the industrial age is also everywhere. The once popular "Galaxy Railway 999" will give full play to the imagination of the train, one of the symbols of the industrial revolution. Later, cartoons related to trains appeared frequently, such as "Transformation Train Man" and so on.
The attachment to the Industrial Revolution in Japanese films has long been ingrained. All of this stems from the advent of the Industrial Age after the Meiji Restoration, which shaped Japan's glorious history, especially the defeat of China, which it once surrendered to, and an important milestone for Japan to face the world with its head held high.
The brilliance brought about by the Industrial Revolution has since become an era that the Japanese are proud of, just as modern China always brings out the glorious history created by its ancestors again and again for self-satisfaction whenever it mentions China's scientific achievements. Same.
Due to congenital limitations, Japan's industrial revolution and rural industrialization are both integrated. Therefore, in many of the above-mentioned films, we can see the coexistence of rural scenery and industrial machines, which constitute the unique flavor of Japanese animation.
However, with the evolution of the times, when Takakura Ken's vicissitudes of face in "The Railroad Man" ushered in the helplessness of the town's railway station being closed, and the hand-drawn whistle would never stay in the town again, it represented an era of end. However, the prosperity and power of the past are deeply imprinted in people's minds. When it comes to high technology, it is inseparable from the era led by steam engines and the worship of machines.
The flying steam city in "Steam Boy" finally failed, but the mad scientist said that people have seen the most perfect science of the steam city, and they can no longer stop researching in this direction.
The Japanese have tasted the prosperity brought by the Industrial Revolution, and can no longer stop yearning for this era.
(Originally published in the "Sound and Light Perspective" edition of Hong Kong "Wen Wei Po" on July 19, 2005)
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