The quiet sadness of an ordinary woman in a wartime

Herta 2022-04-18 09:01:20

Sorry for such a circle of friends from the title, but I think this may be my most intuitive feeling about this movie.

I wrote in the short review that this is not an excellent commercial film, but a very good work of art. It has the calmness unique to Japanese movies, even if it is such a heavy topic as war; but it also makes a breakthrough in the Japanese "forbearance" character. It uses the protagonist's words and tears to let us see a real, flesh and blood. "people". I think this film impresses me mainly because it chooses the perspective of an ordinary person and an ordinary woman with no culture, quietly depicting the horror of war and the value of peace, rather than shouting. and outright cruelty and hatred.

Although the story just unfolded so frankly, there are a few details that moved me very much.
One is a series of actions by the heroine when she lost her right hand and felt that she was a burden, and she was burdened with the self-blame of her niece's young life (although it was not her fault). Such as risking death to extinguish the flames, such as disregarding the bombardment to drive away birds in the distance. It was the silent outburst of a helpless woman. What moved me even more was when Zhou Zuo desperately threw her into the ditch to avoid the bombing, she said insincerely that she wanted to go back to Hiroshima, and Zhou Zuo said sadly, then you can leave. Our couple turned out to be so unsympathetic. She was silent. But even so, in the next second, Zhou Zuo immediately threw her down tightly, using his body as a cover for her to avoid the bombing, she also hugged Zhou Zuo silently. Being stabbed in the heart by these two small actions, this may be true love, even though there are all kinds of insincere quarrels, but it will not change until death.

One is the perspective of the heroine selected throughout the work. She is the most ordinary woman. She has not received much higher education. Marriage is also the word of her parents' life matchmaker. Not only the heroine, but all the female characters in the whole work are so forbearing and powerful. They always support the home silently behind their backs, without complaining, quietly dedicating. This is their hard work and greatness, it is also the sadness and injustice of the times, but it is also the greatest luck of this famous family. The film depicts the heroine's psychological activities and words and deeds very delicately. She has all the stoic "virtues" of Japanese women of that era mentioned above, but she also has her own emotional outbursts, so that she is no longer the same silhouette in an era, but a flesh and blood real " people".
When everyone is saying "~て, よかったね" with a forced smile, only the heroine will think silently in her heart, what is there to say? When the Japanese army's efforts for many years came to nothing in the surrender statement on August 15, her unwilling tears and cries were so real. This is a normal, ordinary people's real thoughts and words and deeds. In the end, he also jumped out of the terrifying Japanese skin of "ハンカチ", which can't express how sad it is. This moved me very much.

The third point I want to say is that in the short comment, someone mentioned that he could not understand the Japanese's victim mentality, and he couldn't be moved by World War II and Japan. I think these friends still bring in too much subjective color. As Chinese, it's not surprising that we think so when we see these depictions of Japan, and I respect you too. But I don't think that's what we're seeing from this movie.
First of all, if you look closely, you will find that the main line of the whole film hardly actively renders the emotion of "we are victims". Rather, the main line of the whole film should be: no matter what happens, life always has to go on. Just like after the defeat, the mother-in-law took out the white rice she had collected and asked the hostess to cook a good meal, but don't use it all up, because there is still tomorrow and the day after tomorrow. Pain? But the days will go on.
The outburst of the heroine after hearing the surrender broadcast is actually easy to be misunderstood by us Chinese. The heroine at this time is naturally unwilling, but her unwillingness is not so much because the Japanese army lost, but rather an outbreak of the war itself. For the most ordinary people like the heroine, they really did not receive any benefits from the war. On the contrary, she even became disabled because of the war, lost her family, and was afraid every day, and in the end of all this In exchange for the emperor's surrender, asking the people to persevere, she is naturally unwilling. What the heroine is looking forward to is not a great victory for the Japanese army or a successful invasion of other countries. In fact, she doesn't even know why her country's army is fighting, nor why she and the people around her are going through such hardships. Her outburst is the most real accusation of the most ordinary person: what is all this for? Why should we innocent people have to bear these sufferings? And what did all this get in return? She didn't really ask for anything, but she just really, really, really endured for too long and finally broke out.

All kinds of atrocities by the Japanese army in the 20th century, and finally brought a devastating disaster for their own country, this is of course self-inflicted, this is certainly deserved. However, those people who live as ordinary as the heroine are also completely innocent! Why should so many innocent people be allowed to bear the sins of the national government? This is the worst part of war. Because no matter whether you win or lose in a war, there will always be people who will be hurt in the end, and those people are usually ordinary people who have no fault whatsoever. Is this fair? For Japan, it is like the people of Hiroshima; for China, it is like our compatriots who died under the Japanese bayonet and shells. Could it be that if Japan wins, all the sufferings of the past will be wiped out? Although we are the victorious nation in the end, those compatriots who have passed away will never come back. This is the scariest part of war.

There are still a lot of good things in the movie, such as Zhou Zuo's generosity when the boy the heroine once liked became a sailor and came to visit her house, such as the portrayal of リンさん, such as the cannonball blown up in the sky and turned into watercolor, Such as the peasant woman who looked at her razed home without shedding a single tear.
A constant element in the film is the concept of "home". Because of the war, the country is not for the country, the home is not the home, and the heroine seems to have never really become a part of the family. All the time, the heroine uses her own accent when reading "Wu", which is pronounced "くれ" ①"; and when the war finally ended, and when she and Zhou Zuo returned to Wu from Hiroshima, her accent became "くれ◎" for the first time, and it became Wu's accent, which also told us that she finally became part of this home.
These small things make me very touched.

I really hope that we can put down our hatred and watch this work. I hope that everyone can see the damage caused by the war to an ordinary family in this movie. I feel the same way, and I hope everyone can realize that the pain caused by the war is irreversible, whether it is won or lost, so we must cherish the current life and maintain world peace.

I hope that each of us can understand the quiet sadness of ordinary women in this war era, and hope that there will be no such sadness in this world.

CHIN

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