Everyone loves Christmas. When filmmakers encounter the theme of Christmas, they are also kind-hearted: have a big reunion, and then send you some truth, kindness and beauty.
If you want to say which city in the world loves Christmas the most. My answer may surprise you.
Maybe Tokyo.
In Tokyo, when the crowds of Halloween Shibuya festivities dissipate, Christmas begins. The battle was so big and lasted for a long time that it even terrified my European and American friends. It's like a beautiful dream that shrouds the whole city.
So what kind of soul-stirring Christmas movie will there be in such a city?
This movie is "The Godfather of Tokyo" .
However, this filmmaker is Jin Min , the animation god who has never been "kind and kind" - it is his treacherous visual expression and vicious social insight that make him a god.
How will Jin Min tell this Christmas story?
When I watched it, I muttered to myself, this is Jin Min?
After reading it, I can only sigh:
As expected of Jin Min.
The film doesn't focus on the good-time beauty of the city center from the start, but dives into a gloomy old church.
The priest on the stage gave a passionate speech.
The audience was full of dull-eyed homeless people who came here just to get free food.
Among them are our two protagonists:
The old uncle Ah Jinhe, who kept talking back and demolishing the stage, listened to Qi Qi with enthusiasm, and turned his head to scold his transgender Ah Hua.
After noisily getting the food, they walked up to the rooftop to greet a girl over for dinner. The girl just finished spitting on the street and is squatting on the ground to graffiti - her name is Miyuki, and she is the third protagonist.
This Christmas story happened to these three low-level homeless people living on the outskirts of the city.
Except for a free meal, they have absolutely nothing to do with Christmas, or even any normal truth, goodness, and beauty - within five minutes of the movie opening, the three of them have already quarreled in twos and twos.
It was also when Akin and Miyuki disrespected the old and loved the young, and they fought at the garbage station, an accident dragged them all into the Christmas "robbery": they found an abandoned girl in the garbage heap. infant.
The whole film can be summed up as the story of three homeless people who travel across the city to bring their abandoned babies home.
In the process, they tried their best to find the origin of a strange life, but they gradually moved towards each other, and more importantly, towards their own origin.
That origin was the reason why they were blocked from the joy of the city, and the reason why they fell into wandering.
Ah Hua regards the baby girl as a gift from God, and happily takes her back to the cardboard house where they live, and names her "Qingzi".
However, Qingzi kept crying, and it was Ah Jin, who had always been fussy, who skillfully changed diapers and soaked milk, which made her quiet. At this time, Ah Jin told Ah Hua his story for the first time:
He was a former cyclist who lost his livelihood by cheating on races to pay for his daughter's medical bills. After that, his daughter and his wife passed away one after another.
Miyuki, who is always unhappy, calls her mother "the one who gave birth to me", and often mentions that her father is wanting her. The clues in the words point to a shocking past in adolescence:
Miyuki has a cat named "Angel". One day, "Angel" disappeared. She clashed with her father and stabbed her father with a knife.
Instead of listening to the advice of the two, Ah Hua, who insisted on keeping Qingzi by her side, never knew what it was like to have a home. She is an abandoned baby herself, and she understands how tragic it is to be without the love of her parents since she was a child.
She has always longed to have children, but she has no mother's love and endures the pain that transgender people will never have children.
Seeing the situation of these three people, it seems that it is more appropriate to interpret the Christian system without talking about the Christian system.
"Breaking parting", "Resentment meeting" and "Can't ask".
Under such a hard blow, the three of them had long since become disheartened and turned into rogues, fighting alone and struggling to get by.
It was the arrival of this abandoned baby, Qingzi, that gave them a new sense of humanity.
So we found that Miyuki, who was not pleasing to the eye, squatted on the street and carefully studied the "Encyclopedia of Parenting", and whispered apologetically for spilling milk powder while changing diapers for Kiyoko by herself.
A Jin, who was most afraid of being dragged down and picked a child several times, was beaten to death by a hooligan, still thinking about the clues of Qingzi's parents, and protecting Qingzi in his arms at the critical juncture of the car accident.
And A Hua, who is obsessed with Qingzi from beginning to end, can be said to be the spirit of this movie.
She is the most powerful and stubborn force protecting Qingzi, who dominates the plot. From deciding to raise her own, to agreeing to send it to the police station, to sending Qingzi to her biological parents, A Hua's swaying thoughts all ran through the same original intention: "What is the most important thing for Qingzi? OK".
Whenever something happens, Ah Hua is always at the forefront. Along the way, she will do anything for Qingzi, sometimes cunning, sometimes heroic. Her emotions always fluctuated like a child: in the middle of scolding someone, she would suddenly come up with a haiku; in order to boost morale, she would suddenly forget her love and sing; when she was anxious when she heard Kiyoko's cry, she immediately burst into tears.
In the animation, Ah Hua's expressions and movements are so rich and expressive that they are unsurpassed, and people can't help but sigh:
Ugly is really ugly, cute is really cute.
But you will also be surprised that she is the most self-restrained and the most humane one. like a real mother.
Ah Hua reminds me of the equally free, broad, and scarred transgender images of The Birdcage, All About My Mother, and Dallas Buyers Club. Their presence itself signifies a tragic, borderline tragic and human radiance.
This journey was never peaceful. In Tokyo, which is a model of public security, they actually experienced the assassination of the Mafia, the brutal beating of street gangsters, and the car chase where their lives were on the line. The characters of the three homeless people slowly come alive from their numbness.
In the quarrel and reconciliation, separation and reunion time and time again, the bond between them has quietly penetrated into it.
There is such a thing worth paying attention to.
In Miyuki's dream, the scene of stabbing her father was brutally repeated.
On the verge of collapse, she suddenly found that her mother and father had turned into Ah Hua and Ah Jin, calmly greeting her to prepare for dinner.
Instead of the cat "angel", it was Kiyoko who had grown wings.
With only a few pictures, their emotional position in each other's hearts at this time is self-evident.
If the will to promote the development of the plot mainly comes from Ah Hua, then the actual driving force for the development of the plot comes from the constant "nosy" of the three people .
When they encountered a fat man who was crushed under the car, a homeless old man who fainted on the street, and a woman who jumped into a river to commit suicide, they all shot without hesitation. This brought them trouble and good luck.
The so-called good luck is often a clue about Qingzi's parents. These clues continue to lead each of them to an elusive old friend and a past that has been cut off.
In this reunion, their wanderings are revealed again:
It turns out that all this is not as simple as suffering "suffering".
In order to settle Qingzi, Ah Hua had to go to the bar where she used to sing. In her conversation with her mother, Sang, we learned that she once lived happily with a lover for a while. But after the death of her lover, she lived on the streets and did not return to the bar. The reason is that she had had a fight with a customer in the bar, thinking that she had no face to see her mother-san again.
But Mama Sang laughed seriously: Problems that can be solved with money are not problems, as long as you are fine. Ah Hua was stunned for a moment, and she was about to burst into tears.
While searching for clues in the old house of Kiyoko's parents, Miyuki accidentally saw a short message posted by her father in the corner of the newspaper:
"To Miyuki: The angel has returned home."
She tore off the paper carefully and rubbed it in her hands all day. It turned out that his father didn't want him, he just wanted her back.
Even more surprising is that Akin is not a cyclist at all, and his daughter and wife are not dead. He was just a bicycle shop manager, gambled and drank to waste his wealth. Because of his shame and cowardice, he left his wife and children and walked away.
In the face of the disclosure of the new truth, it is necessary for us to make a new judgment on the origin of their wandering:
Rather than the three sufferings, it is better to say that it is the three poisons of "greed, hatred, ignorance", which make them irreversible.
Ah Jin is obsessed with the desire for profit and builds up debts, because of greed;
Ah Hua's resentment is difficult to control, causing a catastrophe, it is for anger;
Beauty is ignorant of the chronicle, and it is madness to engage in various evil deeds.
Their wanderings were never forced by fate or destined asceticism, but their own punishment. The world has not abandoned them yet, they have already wiped their place in the world with shame and shame, and just want to overthrow the game of life where everything is lost.
However, they exiled themselves to the extreme, but they pushed others back on the right track time and time again. Because of the hell they have entered, they know what people will do when they are desperate; they know that the behavior of scumbags can also be understood; they know how happy it is to have a home.
These tiny fires, handed to others, cut through their own ghosts:
When you cut yourself off, people may have already forgiven you.
No matter who it is, it only happens once in life.
Although wandering is because of the broken past, it is an escape, not a face. For Ah Hua, who was born to be wandering, the "hatred" towards the whole world can only be dispelled in the process of facing herself.
As the journey continues, Ah Hua is no longer obsessed with questioning Qingzi's parents why they left their child. What she wanted to do was to apologize to Qingzi's parents - what she cared about was how anxious and regretful the child's parents would be when she took Qingzi away.
This is also Ah Hua's journey from hatred and resistance to compassion and understanding towards the parents who abandoned her.
Reconciliation with all her origins is the only way for Ah Hua to get rid of "suffering" and "poison".
In stark contrast to the homeless who help people to cross the river despite their own difficulties, it is the masters of this city that are justifiable. Different from the complex and lively expressions of the three people, the portrayal of these group performances is simply "sprinkling water".
They tend to be this look.
Or this expression.
At most this expression.
One of the scenes, I vividly remember:
In the crowded tram, everyone covered their noses silently, enduring Akin's stench and Qingzi's cries. Finally, the crowd began to shake off the secret curse of unknown origin. In the end, everyone watched Miyuki open the window and jump out of the car.
I can't help but shout, this is too Tokyo!
When walking on the surface of Tokyo, you will realize how cold and forbearing the people you pass by are. That degree goes far beyond the usual characterizations of other metropolises and becomes a spectacle.
In my impression, they follow their own path calmly. When any abnormality occurs, they will immediately alert. The only wish is not to be disturbed, and the only bottom line is not to cause trouble.
They carefully maintained their place in the city, developing a deep-rooted passive autonomy.
Neighboring auntie said it was all gossip to satisfy her desire to spy; office workers dared to yell at Ah Jin and the others when they were drunk; the taxi driver who was involved in Ah Hua begged to be let go with a depressed expression.
So tens of thousands of people, together with the city of Tokyo, were spinning safely on their own.
The picture shows the skyscrapers and bustling streets of Tokyo countless times. Against the background, the figure of the three of them carrying the baby forward is too small.
The fun is someone else's, and Christmas is someone else's. The Christmas atmosphere that belongs to the homeless, only the 1225 storage box in the station, the taxi with the license plate 1225, and the fare that cannot be paid by 12,250 yen.
On a cold snowy night, they were sitting in a convenience store. Customers can't wait to stay as far away from them as possible.
Ah Hua helplessly asked Ah Jin, "What do they think of us?"
Akin replied:
They are eccentrics who have no ability to keep up with the rhythm of the city's rotation and exude insecurity around them.
However, does "The Godfather of Tokyo" really want to criticize Tokyo's indifferent nature?
Jin Min's animations were never made for children, not even the approachable "Tokyo Godfather". Here, things are not black and white. The flip side of standing idly by is never intervening. People here are willing to give others the greatest freedom on the premise of protecting themselves.
The Tokyo I know is a kind of cold generosity.
All kinds of life styles that seem to be incompatible with each other can also be peaceful and wonderful here. This city is a vanity fair for elites and a hub of culture, but it also acquiesces to the homeless to roam freely, to encircle a plot of land in parks and streets without owners, and to play kings to the fullest.
If it is not the God praised by the pastor who "creates the living space for the loners", it is definitely not just the loners themselves. At the very least, it should also include strangers who don't care and don't evict them.
And in this story, the strangers even conspired unintentionally to succeed.
Akin, Ahua, and Miyuki must go their own way—whether it is to protect Kiyoko or to redeem themselves.
As the doctor said to the grumbling Arkin:
When a city is gathered by countless individuals, its background is the individual's philosophy of life - a philosophy that is not romantic at all, but is always useful. In many fatal moments, people have nowhere to rely on and hide, and only by pulling themselves hard can they be saved.
This is the loneliness that the individual has to face.
However, like Camus' Sisyphus, the meaning of life is to accept fate and go beyond it. The film "Ah, Wilderness", which is shrouded in loneliness, also tragically declares this meaning.
The intricate threads woven from individual to individual are more delicate but more beautiful than the inherent loneliness.
Therefore, we are moved by the characters in so many movies who are so small that they are about to be removed from the name of the times, including these three unpromising homeless people.
With the spread of urban coldness, aging and unmarried situation typical of Tokyo, we see that in the Japanese film industry, the unnatural relationship between people has become more and more the focus of creation. In the past five years, films such as "The Virgin in the Bathroom", "The Thief's Family" and "Idiot Taro" have also touched on the possibility of marginalized people escaping their original families and reorganizing their intimate relationships. In this way, "The Godfather of Tokyo" seems to be a forerunner.
Like "The Godfather of Tokyo", these films depict the touching bond of warmth with strangers on the one hand, while mocking its temporality and fragility in the presence of raw family affection.
These ambiguous presentations may reveal to us such a message: in today's time when "shared family" has become a real social phenomenon, this complex issue is far from being finalized.
Speaking of which, "The Godfather of Tokyo" should be regarded as a down-to-earth warm story. In Jin Min's universe, it seems to be an anomaly: there is no brain hole that shocked the jaw, and there is no profound meaning of the turbid world.
Then why do I say "As expected of Jin Min"?
Because he still creates a dream for us in a unique way.
Only this time, Jin Min seems to have made up his mind to set it up: do n't be afraid, don't be afraid, it's a good dream.
In fact, "The Godfather of Tokyo" has its own low-key but ubiquitous magical color. Although the festive atmosphere of Christmas is not for our homeless trio, you will hear Ah Hua shouting over and over again:
"Qingzi is a gift from God!"
"Qingzi is the messenger of God!"
"So lucky! Kiyoko!"
Their successive turnarounds and coincidences are nothing short of a Christmas miracle.
One of the most surreal was when Ah Hua fell down a tall building in order to catch Qingzi, and there was a sudden gust of wind, allowing Ah Hua to land safely at the quiet sunrise.
Jin Min, who has always been ruthless, even jumps into the cliché of "good people have good rewards".
This time, the seamless script and wild imagination are no longer the weapons that will shock you. He just wants to carefully draw out enough "time and place" to embrace that "people" and make you feel at ease.
Of course, he doesn't want you to be so comfortable that you don't want anything. I still have to stab you with my elbow every now and then, hey, you can tell it's all fake, right?
There are actually many embarrassing passages in the whole movie, but they were all carefully deconstructed by Jin Min.
The old homeless man "didn't rest his eyes", but got up and took an extra sip of wine; Ah Hua's lover died because he stepped on soap in the bathroom; Lao Jin handed over all his belongings to see Ah Hua's doctor, even the blessing printed on the banknotes Yukichi also curled his lips aggrievedly.
Jin Min quietly took away any room for grief, just like Mom Sang who couldn't help complaining "Why are you crying so scary" when he saw Ah Hua crying, he couldn't see the audience's cowardly look.
If you can't laugh in the impermanence of life, you can't cry or laugh.
The story of "The Godfather of Tokyo" uses a unique process of Kon-Min-style to a Christmas-style perfect ending.
At the end of the film, the solemn high-rise buildings and Tokyo Tower in Tokyo are twisted in an unorthodox manner accompanied by an ode to joy that has been changed to a glib tune.
"You and I are unrelated strangers.
Come and have a drink of rum in the Caribbean
Don't think we live under the same roof
Come and smoke enough in the Caribbean"
At the end of the year in Tokyo, large groups of people flocked to churches to watch Mass and shrines to pay their first visit.
When the tide dissipated, everyone took their place, and in the scorched days of each day, people found that,
It's not God, Buddha, or eight million gods who hold fast to yourself.
Who is that?
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