A sense of conflict between mythological themes and modern perspectives

Gracie 2022-03-24 09:02:49

It is said that "The Story of Kaguya Princess" was originally expected to be released at the same time as "The Wind Rises". To be honest, after watching "The Wind Rises", I began to look forward to "The Story of Kaguya Princess", because "The Wind Rises" " is undoubtedly a masterpiece.
However, after December, I searched for the resources at station B for the first time and marked them for the next day, but the resources were deleted the next day. . . This made me look forward to it even more, so I spent the night dragging down the 6g 720p.
Honestly, I regret it.
The opening part of the film looks good, and the level of painting is impeccable, at least visually. But as the plot slowly progressed, I felt a sense of discomfort; in Japanese, it was a "sense of disobedience". To be honest, it may be a very difficult job to express a myth story, especially an oriental style myth story, in a realistic narrative style, and it is even more difficult to do it well: it requires a "deliberate" approach to the myth story. The neglected details are supplemented a lot, and the narrative has to be carefully considered. A little carelessness may destroy the original, "mysterious and hazy" beauty of the myth. I don't think the film does this very well; in fact I think it fails: it always feels like some kind of "stream of consciousness" in a fairy tale, which is very "violating". On the other hand, if the story had been told in a more traditional way, the movie might have been less than 90 minutes or even shorter.
Not long at the beginning of the film, there is a scene where various printed fabrics (looks like fabrics but are actually clothes?) are gushing out of bamboo and floating in the sky. At that time, I thought of those art films made in China in the old days. This animated film has many similarities with the Chinese art films of that era, both in terms of definition and in fact, both in terms of the story and the presentation style of the pictures; but for further comparison, the two But there is almost nothing in common in narrative style. There are some similarities between myths and stories in any culture, such as the generalization of real meaning in symbolic meanings, and the often "romantic", and even the style used to describe myths has some very " The characteristics of “formalization” and even “ritualization”; and the classical literatures of various places are often influenced by their mythological traditions first, so they have obvious similarities in form, such as Homer’s epics; this similarity also It has also been passed down to the performing arts, originally, the theatre. The performance of traditional dramas is completely different from the current TV dramas and movies that try to restore the real performance, because under very limited stage conditions, performers can only express the most important and abstract and universal things. The symbolic, formalized and even ritualized expressions in mythology are exactly the same. When film and television first appeared, they also experienced an evolution from dramatic performances to realistic performances. For example, many early Hollywood films have the shadow of Broadway plays and musicals - some of them are now regarded as "" Another style of film" developed. If there is anything special about animation or art films for the performance of mythology, it is undoubtedly that art films themselves are "unrealistic": as long as there is visual expression, the author can show any "unrealistic" fantasy , as in those myths. Different from the high-tech computer special effects in sci-fi movies, art films focus not on reality, but on aesthetics, and they are more inclined to "formal" aesthetics, as long as the audience can understand; higher pursuits are nothing more than Let the audience feel the author's feelings, and even the "some" meaning that may be contained in the myth as the original work.
In my personal opinion, Chinese art films in that period very appropriately captured the formal characteristics of myths (similar to fairy tales), and used art films to express the narrative of ancient Chinese myths and stories. For example, it is full of fantasy and does not pay attention to logic (because of this, most of them ignore the details, so the length of the film is relatively short compared to the plot). Similarly, this film also does a good job in the processing of many pictures, reflecting a "dream" feeling; but this style is not used as the main theme, but more like embellishment and decoration, and Obviously, the main narrative style of this film is realism: the description of the plot is very detailed, and the description of the characters' hearts is also very detailed: although the performance of the two dreams seems to be full of fantasy romanticism, But in fact, it is describing the characters' complex emotions with a very "real" feeling; before and after the final departure, the film's constant emphasis on the protagonist's repeated and contradictory psychological state in behavior and language even made me feel Tired (don't know why, I thought of Scarlett in Gone with the Wind).
By the way, "The Wind is Coming" (because there is no film review there), in fact, I am surprised that "Kaguya Monogatari" rather than "The Wind is Coming" is more praised and even won awards. To be honest, "The Wind Comes" is indeed very different from Hayao Miyazaki's previous works, whether in terms of material or narrative, but it does tell a proper (albeit heavily modified) stray from the truth) story; one of the things I was most surprised about was that there was never a precedent for such a narrative in Miyazaki himself, but he did a good job; in fact, when I watched it, I learned that the film was in fact When there is an original work, there is a sudden realization. To some extent we may have to wonder what the author is trying to express, and what he is trying to avoid - what is this film really avoiding, maybe it's a concrete representation of the war, or maybe it's a The various flaws in the protagonist's personality described, including the connotations of the ending scene of his lover drifting away in the wind—they are clearly ignored, or "downplayed": perhaps the author finds it embarrassing, and Or maybe it wasn't the aspect he wanted to express at all. It would be perfectly understandable if someone downgraded this film significantly because of these factors. But the delicate performance of this film is indeed worthy of admiration. I was impressed by the part where Erlang's teacher accused him of being selfish. Gone with the Wind"); and compared with Kaguya, the emotional expression contained in the narrative of "The Wind Rises" is less emphasized. I read a film review before saying that Hayao Miyazaki would choose "Sea of ​​Plenty" and Isao Takahata would choose Yasunari Kawabata's work. The first half of this sentence is probably inappropriate, but it is "The Wind Rises" that reminds me of Yasunari Kawabata's work. Life is "light" or even "cold" (and Kawabata Yasunari is one of my favorite writers). For a simple-minded person, perhaps Erlang is indeed like a "selfish bastard", but in reality it may be nothing more than that: as a dream chaser, there are too many flaws in his life, but there is nothing he can do. . The flaws in this story are also the source of its beauty, at least I think so.

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Extended Reading

The Tale of The Princess Kaguya quotes

  • The Princess Kaguya: [singing] Go round, come round, come round... come round, oh distant time. Come round, call back my heart. Come round, call back my heart. Birds, bugs, beasts, grass, trees, flowers. Teach me how to feel. If i hear that you pine for me, i will return to you.