"Love Letter", this concept is full of deep meaning, it originally refers to the thoughts sent to Fujii (male) by Hiroko Watanabe and sent to heaven. This "love letter", which was not expected to receive a response, came into the hands of Fujii (the woman) by accident, and it evolved into a correspondence between the two women amid doubts and desires.
But it can still be called a "love letter", because this desire to understand (the life of the male Fujii tree in middle school) embodies Hiroko's obsession with his fiancé, and on the other hand, uncovers the relationship between the male tree and the female tree many years ago. The green, hazy, fruitless secret love, and finally found another carrier of "love letter" - the three words "Fujii tree" on the loan card lying quietly in the book and the small picture on the back. sketch.
On the other hand, this letter from a stranger still evoked a trouble in Nushu, a confusion of identity confirmation. The overlapping of names between the two "Fujii trees" and the similarity in appearance between the two girls allude to the process of double "mirror love" and self-recognition.
Lacan's "Mirror Theory" holds that in the course of 6-18 months, the infant in front of the mirror goes through the first stage of identifying himself in the mirror as another child, an irrelevant image and indifferent . And in the second stage, he/she will recognize the image in his/her mirror: "That's me!" But the misunderstanding still exists - he/she takes the illusion of light and shadow as reality, and starts from the mirror image of himself/herself a lifelong infatuation.
From the ancient "narcissus legend", we can infer that people are mirror-loving animals in a certain sense, and in the narrow sense of narcissism, there is no better mirror than "lover's eyes".
So when we forget our "other love", we are also in a strong "narcissism". The art of film also practises this principle. The screen is an artificial mirror, through which the audience can reflect on themselves (the experience of others) and satisfy the corresponding sensory needs.
The famous Japanese actress Miho Nakayama plays two roles: the affectionate and restrained Hiroko Watanabe and the cheerful and straightforward girl Fujii Shu. The theme of this "twin flower" is not uncommon, but the transfer of the mourning work, which is cleverly connected by "love letters", is not uncommon. The (un)consciousness of identity recognition has become a highlight of this film!
First, the taxi driver in Otaru discovered that the two girls he carried in succession were strikingly similar; then, it was Hiroko who faced this fact. In order to reply to the letter written by Hiroko in front of the door, Nyuki replied again and put the letter into the mailbox on a bicycle. This is the first and only time the two appear in the same picture in the film, which is similar to the "opposite" of the twin flowers in "Veronica's Dual Identity". In the panoramic shot, Nyu Shu rode a bicycle from the depths of the picture and put the letter into the letterbox. The camera continued to pull back and pan away. In the foreground of the telephoto lens, the back of Bozi was standing and staring.
The camera is lifted and pulled away, Bozi paints, and in the large panoramic shot, the camera follows the female tree with a long panning shot of nearly 360 degrees, which is again Bozi's subjective shot. Not long after the girl entered the scene where Hiroko was, she almost bumped into Shigeru Akiba who was saying goodbye to her friend, and then passed by Hiroko. Perhaps it was the driver's hint that Bo Zi suddenly encountered "self" on the street in a foreign land, and at the same time realized that "self" might be "others", so she called out the name of "Fujii tree" to confirm her conjecture. When this conjecture was confirmed (the female tree turned back), Hiroko's "imaginary kingdom"/love began to shatter, at least showing deep cracks.
As a character in the play, she began to realize that her deep love for Nanshu and her uncontrollable thoughts were just a projection of herself. At the same time, although Nanshu's love for her was not 100%, it also accounted for a large proportion of her first love. Lover - the shadow of the female tree. And the fact is, we are not willing to be a "shadow"!
However, "Fujii tree loves Fujii tree", isn't it another "projection of narcissism"? The coincidence and sharing of the typical signifiers of the names of the two teenagers made Nanshu's unrequited love in the awkward relationship, and started a journey of memories in the "love letter" quietly opened after decades of separation, making the two teenagers. The youthful and ignorant love gained an "echo" in the kingdom of heaven again. It is also a story of a person and a mirror.
Therefore, the relationship between Bozi and Nvshu is not only the relationship between shadows, but also "the love of shadows", or "two shadows of two shadows".
Interestingly, Nyuki not only "turned a blind eye" when she met Hiroko, but also expressed her secret love for Manshu. In her eyes, "Fujii tree loves Fujii tree" is just an unpleasant memory in middle school, full of ridicule of classmates and disgust of her own. In the "love letters" that were exchanged, this old image slowly emerged and was finally confirmed in the portrait of the female tree hidden in the book "Reminiscence of the Time Like Water". When she realized the love she once had too late, the lover had passed away, and when she finally saw "self", she realized that she had been loved so deeply.
Hiroshi finally accepted this fact, and she recalled the scene when the male Fujii tree was hesitant and did not propose marriage in person. Friends recalled that Nanshu sang Matsuda Seiko's sad song at the last moment of his life: "My love goes with the wind..."
This constitutes another hint: although Nanshu is happy to have Boko's love, it is as if he is fully The long-term dream has been replaced by an unsatisfactory, but he obviously can't forget his first love - the other love/narcissism that should be extraordinarily perfect because of sharing the same signifier, he may not be able to let go of this long-term unrequited love. get echoes. Not without chance, at the end of the film, Bozi stood on the snowy field and shouted to the vast crowd, and in response to her, there were only echoes one after another. But as far as the "work of mourning" goes, she was finally rescued.
The superposition of the two seemingly girl images, which can also be called the completion of the double shadow of the self, is nearing the end of the film. When Bozi was in the mountains, he called out to the male tree in desperation: "How are you? I'm fine." The camera cuts parallel to the sleepy female tree on the hospital bed, mumbling the same greeting. That was the content of Bozi's first letter. When Bozi shouted in the mountains, only echoes echoed, but Nushu's babbling was like another echo. This is an echo in multiple senses, that is, it replied to Bo Zi, the object of "Mirror One", and also replied to the male tree of "Mirror Two".
At this time, Nushu took over the position of Bozi. She recognized love, but she had long since lost her mourning lover. She didn't see Bo Zi, but she realized the mirror-like connection between herself and Bo Zi. If it is said that Hiroko identifies himself with the other because he sees Nushu, then Nushu recognizes the self of an other (male tree & Hiroko) in the continuous "love letter" exchange with Hiro.
In a word, from the perspective of Lacan's psychoanalytic theory, especially the mirror-subject theory, "Love Letter" shows the self-recognition process of the "twin flowers" of Watanabe Hiroko and female Fujii. Although the theme of life and death caters to the normal state of a slightly sad life in black and white tones, the warmth has always been shuttled in the swirling snow, and the meaning of "rescued" is also clearly echoed in Bo Zi's cry and Nv Shu's tears of laughing with a book .
And the audience outside the screen will also find the answer to life in this coincidental and "familiar" comparison...
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