The Tokyo described in the film, as one of the most urbanized cities in the world, has strong economic strength and cultural heritage, and the residents' material life is relatively rich. But at the same time, the fast pace of life puts them under enormous social pressure. It is precisely in such a highly informatized city that a group of people who are indifferent to the society and extremely closed-off have appeared - the otaku. It is clear that the director deliberately cared about this group and thoroughly studied the core meaning of its existence. In the film, the protagonist otaku lives on the phone and takes out food. He stays at home and does not communicate with outsiders. In his subconscious, he is very disgusted with the repeated life in the city, in order to escape the heavy social responsibility and pressure. , to avoid the repeated mechanized life, and can only choose to live in isolation and incognito. Obviously this way of life is different from the mainstream. Strangely, the protagonist's life purpose seems simple. Although the house-style life allows him to leave the hustle and bustle of the city, it can only bring short-term peace, and it is not a long-term solution. Everything fell into another pattern, as we could see from the high stacks of pizza boxes and neatly stacked rolls: his way of life was caught in a ludicrous paradox: the otaku, despite his His house is well-organized, but he can only enjoy his life by observing the sunlight and experiencing time. He cuts off the medium with the world and communicates with himself only through reading, falling into absurd nothingness. The director examines the psychological state of the protagonist with the "Catch-22" model, which aptly shows that the city is a model, that is, a forced ideology. How difficult it is for us to escape as constituents of it!
At the same time, the protagonist's existence consciousness (here referred to as sexual consciousness) is activated by an ordinary pizzeria girl. It allowed him to make eye contact with someone for the first time in eleven years. In the dramatic scene deliberately designed by the director, the girl fainted due to a sudden earthquake, which just gave the hero a chance to restore his humanity. But here the heroine is a symbol of extreme mechanization: all her emotions are controlled by a machine, with precise vision (a misplaced pizza box) and careful thinking. Despite this, this autistic love still makes the male protagonist muster the courage to enter the society and find love bravely. Ironically, when the male protagonist finally dares to pursue a normal life, the entire society has indeed been disintegrated in extreme development, and human beings are alienated into otaku and otaku because they cannot accept reality.
Here, the director presents the audience with the same street, while the pizza delivery robot takes the place of the person. Society has become a prison, and human life has become a ridiculous drama. The director of the film is also trying to tell us here: the process of human being imprisoned is caused by excessive modernization, and this kind of imprisonment is due to the reasons of man himself. In the process of urbanization, the status of the individual is ruthlessly sacrificed. Turning into screws for the operation of society, which leads to human beings often unaware of their own spiritual needs and enclosing themselves in a small living space. In the director's context, the super-large city represented by Tokyo is It is such a space.
The film sets up many metaphors to illustrate the subject. The circle in the otaku's hand refers to the future of Japan, and at the same time symbolizes the modern human existence. In Sartre's words: "Existence without essence equals nothingness." People generally live in small circles, making constant cycles, and they do not have the right to autonomously control their lives. Japan is a country under such a crisis. And from another prop, the motorcycle headgear in the girl's hand, we can see that after the sudden change, people actually realized the tragedy of "the person in the cover". Repeated earthquakes represent a change and subversion. The appearance of the pizzeria owner predicts the last appearance of the human individual, melancholy and angry, without losing the basic qualities of the human being. And the button is a symbol of collective mechanization, we can feel from the heroine's behavior: human beings are dying under the pressure of collectivization.
When the otaku saw the heroine again, he bravely pressed the button representing love. In his essay "Existentialism is a Humanism, Sartre said: cowards are self-inflicted, and heroes are self-inflicted." At this time, the hero changed his usual resoluteness and decisiveness, and became the incarnation of a hero. In fact, the director revealed sympathy and praise for the hero and the human beings he referred to in many places. Abandoned emotionally, but still often lingers in front of his father's house. Although isolated from the world, he still reads books enthusiastically to gain knowledge. Although he has lost the ability to communicate in society, he still runs persistently to find the whereabouts of the heroine. It can be said that , the director gave mankind the last hope in the male protagonist. Only by bravely evoking the normal emotions of human beings can people continue to survive in an extremely mutated society.
In the "Tokyo Rhapsody" series of short films, people from different nationalities The directors each told their own views on the city, and compared with the profound political metaphors and wild plots in the film by French director Leo Carax, Feng Junhao more embodies an oriental introverted and introspective temperament. However, such a low-key film takes the demise of the entire human race as the end of the prophecy. It can be seen that no one can escape such a tragedy in any place. Obviously, the director's ulterior motives are for people in the "entertainment to death" era. A reminder to see what's left behind the city.
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