[Mani in Memory] is an animation I found from my memory. Three or four years ago, when I was running in the gym, I accidentally saw a clip of this animation. At that time, my German was not good, and I couldn't understand the lines above. I only vaguely remember the clip of a little blond girl rowing a boat in a dark wetland. . . This short clip was almost erased from my memory, but today I accidentally turned to this anime movie on Netflix, and I was sure that the clip I saw three or four years ago was actually it!
Everyone has a memory similar to a dream, it seems to have occurred, but it seems to have never happened. When I finally find the truth one day, I will suddenly realize that this is the case. [Marnie in Memories] is such a story. An orphan who lost all his relatives at the age of three returned to the place where he lived with his grandmother when he was a child, and the vague memories of childhood led her to find it little by little. Back to my grandmother's childhood life. So, who is that mysterious Marnie? At the end of the film, together with the protagonist Anna, we suddenly realized that Marnie was the grandmother who raised her when she didn't remember and told her bedside stories; she was the doll she liked to sleep with when she was a baby; When she opened her eyes for the first time and observed the vague impression of her family, what she heard came from the gentle voice of her relatives; it was also the childhood memory that she seemed to have forgotten but never left.
I was also raised by my grandmother as a child, and now I watch this film with my own child, and tears are streaming down my face. Although my grandmother is still alive, I can't help but feel that the years are gradually eroding her body and brain. The grandmother now makes me feel strange, and the grandmother in my memory who took me to dig wild vegetables in the fields, bought me yellow peas to eat at the temple fair, and told me her childhood stories seemed not to be the same person. My grandmother is still my favorite relative, but my childhood grandmother seems to be getting further and further away from me.
So, as time slowly takes away our dearest loved ones, how on earth are we going to say goodbye to them? I think Anna's initial pain and final reconciliation stemmed from such a goodbye. From Anna, I can see the shadow of my mother. She lost her father when she was 11 years old. This is the grief she never wanted to share with others in her whole life. She only told me a lot of things. She recalled to me over and over again the fragments of her childhood sitting on Grandpa’s bicycle to accompany him home from get off work, recalling that when Grandpa was sick in bed, he gave her a notebook that he had treasured for many years, and told her to study hard. . In the 1970s, she was very good at getting into the university. After she got the admission letter, she secretly wrote a letter to her grandfather with tears in her eyes, telling him that she was going to university, and then burned the letter to him alone. This is my mother's last goodbye to her grandfather. She said that since then she never mentioned her grandfather to anyone, including her uncle, father and grandmother. She sealed this memory in her heart forever, until I became sensible. She just started taking the initiative to open up to me.
It's gone a little too far, let's go back to this movie. Xing Nai was sent to an orphanage at the age of three, and then adopted by her adoptive parents. She has always been extremely autistic, sensitive, and vulnerable. She couldn't forgive her biological parents for leaving her without saying goodbye to her. She hated being abandoned by them, so she locked her heart on her adoptive parents and friends around her. She became accustomed to fantasizing about a blond girl of the same age named Marnie. Marnie was her best friend, she protected her, accompanied her, and shared her inner secrets with her. Although the film does not directly state it, the flashing childhood clips allude to the image of Marnie here, which actually comes from the doll she liked to hold as a baby.
Later, she accidentally got Marnie's diary, she began to be confused, does Marnie really exist? Why did she know so much about Marnie's story, why she seemed to have been to Marnie's house, and with these questions, she began to search for Marnie from the diary. During the search, she began to slowly reconcile with her heart, and began to realize that the so-called abandonment of her relatives without saying hello was not actually not saying goodbye to her, but that she was not there when they said goodbye.
Before the age of three, she was only a baby, how could she understand the heartbreak and reluctance of her parents and grandmother when they were forced to leave her? ! The most distressing thing is that her relatives have no chance to tell Anna in person how much they really love her. Anna will blame her relatives for abandoning her when she was a child, but when she becomes an adult, she will understand how much she can't let go of her parents and relatives when they pass away with resentment. So after becoming an adult, Annai officially said goodbye to her grandmother in her heart.
I think [Marnie in memory] evokes a new understanding of family affection from a very special angle. Many children will be unable to reconcile with their original family after growing up because of childhood trauma, and will become a shadow for a lifetime. This phenomenon is very common, but there are too few works that take this as an entry point. There are too many left-behind children, abandoned babies, and abducted children in this society. What is their impression of their parents in their childhood memories, and how did they reconcile with themselves in the end? Relevant reports and investigations are too few and too few.
My baby is due to meet me in a month. I had already set up the baby's room for her, and her white crib had a colorful toy bear that spun to the music, and at night, a sleep lamp would flood the room with starlight. She has warm blankets and wraps, and soft plush toys. I hope she will feel safe and not panic when she is born in this world. I also hope that the memories of this infancy will give her enough security and a sense of love for the rest of her life.
Everyone in this world faces the day of death from birth. In the short journey of life, relatives will leave us, lovers will leave us, after all, we need to face the world alone. Maybe at the last moment, only the warmth of our family members in our memory will accompany us. Although we are very reluctant, we still have to say goodbye to them and start our own life. I think this is the last letting go of Anna, and the relief she starts calling Lai Zi's mother. One day, the pain of separation from our loved ones will be far away from us, but the love in our memory will always accompany us and give us the courage to continue living.
The wind blows, and life goes on.
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