1. After "awakening", I realize the absurdity of my own existence
"Aerial Killer" tells that the future is an era without war, and people need to use the war performances run by war companies to maintain the sensitivity of mankind to oppose war and maintain peace. At first, it was real people fighting, and later, small "children" were invented to be used in warfare. Such combatants were named "children", and as long as they were not killed by weapons, they would never die. They can't grow into "adults," because war shows often result in death, so they're designed to be biologically incapable of growing into adulthood and never entering old age. Once killed in battle, they will be put into a new body, and after a month, they will be able to regenerate and continue to work in war performances. Therefore, it can also be said that these "children" who are engaged in war performance work will never die. They are also called "children". Eternal Son".
As the "Son of Eternity", after learning the truth about his life, Yuichi raised an abyss-like unanswerable question, suffering from the meaninglessness of his life as the "Son of Eternity". "Once the world has lost its illusion and light, people will feel that they are outsiders, exiles without support." Because at this time there is no faith for their souls to fall back on. Originally, the world worked as it was supposed to be on a daily basis. Such as getting up, going to work, going to bed, starting the next day's cycle, and after the war show, driving to find an adult woman to sleep, but the "child" is deprived of the right to have children and a happy marriage because it will never grow up. There is no war in the "future world" but there are still people who need to be sacrificed (because they can't die, so the sacrifice is not the body but the desire to live that is exhausted in eternity). They are in such a pre-arranged framework of life that their eternal mission is to die in battle, rise again, die in battle, rise again, and never die if not killed in war, in all time, "Son of Eternity" "In this way, he continues his immortal life numbly again and again in the established life track, as if he has been hit by the endless curse of eternal reincarnation that Sisyphus bears. Finally, one day, Hannan Yuichi was tired and questioned his own life. After the questioning, his self-consciousness was triggered, and he felt the absurdity of the world pouring into his body irresistibly.
"The sense of absurdity is a sense of insecurity and untrustworthiness experienced in this world, resulting in the fear of survival." What is the meaning of one's own life? Time is meaningless to me, because I will never die, and I cannot fight against time through death at all. This horrific life belonging to the "Eternal Son" can neither be escaped nor confronted, the only thing one can do is endure this long and painful sense of meaninglessness, reborn after battle after death. The protagonist Yuichi doesn't know the truth about his "birth", so he doesn't even have the right to choose. Faced with the unknowability of his own destiny and the meaninglessness of life itself, Yuichi felt what Sartre called "disgusting". The power to control one's own destiny is above one's own, just like the "mentor" in the film who can grow up to maintain the balance of the battle situation of the children as "air killers", he also means an unsurpassable power (The boulder is to Sisyphus, the identity of the "Eternal Son" and the absolute suppression of the power of the "Guru" are to Yuichi), the confrontation with death is doomed to fail, and the confrontation with the invincible "Tutor" is doomed to fail. to a sense of powerlessness in the face of an unalterable fate.
Therefore, Yuichi, who was a "child" at this time, fell into a hopeless predicament after a long period of numbness. At the same time, entering this predicament actually meant an awakening.
2. Make choices in the face of "death"
Yuichi enters the company as a newcomer, and his boss is Kusanagi. Yuichi doesn't know the truth about himself as a "child" because his past life memory has been erased. The fighter assigned to him belonged to the deceased former pilot Ren Lang. Ren Lang was not killed in battle, but others avoided talking about Ren Lang's death, which also left a lot of fog in Yu Yi's mind. Yu and Mizuno Kusanagi have a sense of deja vu, and the two have an ambiguous relationship. As the story progresses, the truth slowly emerges, and Yuichi gradually learns that Ren Lang is himself in his previous life, and Sui Su is his lover. Ren Lang was killed by Sui Su to help him get out of his pain. As their boss, Shui Su was able to avoid her death in battle because her superiors made her seldom fight. Therefore, her lover Han Nanyu came to her again after dying in battle again and again. She used her undead body to face her lover who came back to life again and again.
Because of a kind of contingency of life (why is Yuichi the "Son of Eternity"?) and the unknowability of life (what is the meaning of life of "Son of Eternity"? What is the meaning of the existence of war performances? How to define human civilization progress?) In the film, these questions are thrown out one by one, leading Heidegger and Jaspers to argue: “Whoever consciously goes to death goes to freedom.” And Camus is also in The Myth of Sisyphus. He proposed: "There is only one really serious philosophical question—suicide. Judging whether life is worth living is itself an answer to the fundamental question of philosophy." After becoming a boss and less involved in combat, Kusanagi became an immortal person. In the face of the meaninglessness of no end, Kusanagi once killed Renlang and erased Renlang's memory to help him get rid of the pain, but this time, facing the reincarnation of Renlang Yuichi, Kusanagi once again said to him: "Yes Are you willing to kill me, or am I to kill you? Otherwise we will never be able to escape."
Towards the end of the film, Kusanagi Suizou was meeting with Yuichi Kannan, and Suizu raised his gun and said to Yuichi Kannan, "Kill me, or I will exist forever." At this time, with a gunshot, Yuichi Kannan shot He hit the glass behind Hui Su, and said to Hui Su, "You have to survive, before you get any change." Therefore, he gave up the choice of death, and chose to live alive and live with the world's huge Ridiculous to do confrontation. This also confirms what Sartre mentioned in "Existentialism is a Humanism" written by Sartre in the later period of his ideological process after a long period of ideological changes, because existence precedes essence, "human nature is No, because there is no God to provide a concept of a person, a person is a person." In the book, Sartre turns to an optimistic existentialism that believes that he can define himself, he first has himself "what he wants to do" After the awareness of what kind of person to choose and what kind of person to become", through actions to "what kind of choice to make and what kind of person to become." The meaning of one's life is actually defined by oneself, and then realized through actions , therefore, it is we who determine existence. At the last moment of the movie, Hannan Yuichi chose to put down the pistol and told Suizun to survive well, because once he chooses to terminate in the form of death, he will actually lose all options as the "eternal son".
3. Be a Sisyphus Rebel
Because the company where Youyi works has won many battles, the war show needs to reverse the situation in order to maintain the balance, so a "mentor" is sent to fight. "Teacher" is an adult who can grow up, which means that in order to maintain balance, he is an invincible force above this group of "children", and fighting him means death. As said in the film: "Children can't beat adults." After learning the truth, Yuichi and Sui Su met, and Sui Su asked Yuichi to kill herself, saying, "Kill me, or I will exist forever." At this moment, Youyi hit the bullet on the glass next to Sui Su, and said, "You have to live well." Youyi also really took action, and the character's mental attitude was reversed, reversing the previous attitude. of "doing nothing". At the end of the film, Yuichi fights with the "mentor" in a Sisyphus-esque spirit, even though he knows that he must eventually face death.
Mitsuya, the only "child" in the film who is soberly faced with pain, said: "How the present that keeps repeating the same thing and the memory of the past are connected. This is just my imagination, you may be very forgetful, like Dream-like blurry self-protection." In order to protect the mental health of the "eternal sons", the designers put their memories and lives in chaos to achieve a kind of self-protection, which seems to be a kind of our modern real society. The metaphor of : peasants, workers, and even migrant workers are also living a life of repetitive labor and hardship, but they cannot feel pain until they are conscious, "only when they become conscious are accidental moments that are tragic. "Before the psychological turning point, although Yuichi didn't give up asking questions like other "eternal sons" and immersed in life, but Hannan never really faced and faced up to this huge absurdity like Miya, but only in his heart. Leaving one unsolved abyss-like question after another, without putting it into action. When Mitsuya told Yuichi the truth soberly, Yuichi responded with indifference. In the process of eating with Sui Su once, Sui Su said, "This is obviously cannibalism." Yu Yi also responded with a lack of warmth: "This is a profession, and it is the same for any job."
In the end, Youyi chose to define himself, and then realize himself through actions. Before, Yuichi believed that all paths were repetitions, but when he set foot on the battlefield again to fight against the "Teacher" and set foot on the same path again, he said to himself: "It is precisely because I have walked countless times. The scenery will change in a thousand ways." Yuichi has thus become a Sisyphus-esque tragic figure, creating meaning in a meaningless and eternal life. As a god-like "teacher" who maintains the ecological order of war games, for Yuichi, who is a "child", just like the boulder is for Sisyphus, it is an impossible existence to overcome. If the "mentor" is destined to be invincible, and the boulder is destined to not be pushed to the top of the mountain, shouldn't everything be completely meaningless?
In "Aerial Killer", Hannan Yuichi stared at the abyss for a long time, and finally chose to fight against this nothingness and impossibility, using his own life to achieve a value in the meaninglessness, and chose to go to the battlefield and crash the "mentor". airplane. Of course, the ending is bound to fail, Youyi will die during the battle, and the "mentor" has no possibility of being defeated, but at this moment, the fate of Youyi belongs to him, at least when he chooses and "mentor" At that moment, the "teacher" who was a god-like existence was expelled and failed. At the end of his life, Hannan Yuichi also achieved a kind of western The completion of Firth-style heroism is also Kannan Yuichi's return to life itself in the long-term invasion of "sense of exile".
2. Modern social metaphors for audiovisual elements in the film
In the movie, Mamoru Oshii frequently uses silent long shots, people in the vast scenery become a tiny existence, and the interior scenes are basically a minimalist and empty atmosphere like in Aki Kaurismaki's movies. Gives a strong sense of detachment. Some imagery is also often used in the film, such as the huge metal gear that rotates forever, and the ethereal and unstoppable songs, through which the "Eternal Son"'s despairing feeling of facing a life without an end quietly penetrates into the audience. This despair comes from a sense of indifference brought about by immutability, a common experience that deeply pierces the spirit of contemporary people. In the film, there is often silence, which is also the lonely situation in urban life that is often faced with oneself. Although technology continues to develop, many urbanites are separated from the collective spiritual connection in the process of urbanization after "God is dead". And become isolated and helpless, resulting in a strong sense of exile.
In the movie, an "Eternal Son" who once died in battle once again has the same body and returns to the war company, but he has forgotten all the memories of his previous life, sitting at the desk, folding the newspaper in the same way as his previous life (eternal). After the son is reincarnated and his memory is erased, he will still retain some indelible habits and combat skills), but when he completely forgot who he was, Hannan Yuichi watched him for a long time and felt a strong alienation. After completing the battle performance and being interviewed by the camera, Yuichi said "this is what you should do" after being praised by others, and showed a long-lasting, mechanical smile that also conveys a sense of alienation, which makes people feel in the process of watching. Chilled. This is not a profound metaphor of contemporary life. Everyone becomes a nut of the social machine, and the meaning of self is eventually lost.
Yuichi died in the battle with "Tutor". At the end of the film, the newcomer (the reincarnation of Yuichi) went to report in front of Sui Su again, and began another meaningless reincarnation in the endless life. Therefore, although Mamoru Oshii endowed Hannan Yuichi Sisyphus with heroism in "Air Killer", and completed the confrontation with the absurd in the form of self-combustion, this victory is still at the personal level in the end, and in the completion of personal After the confrontation, the absurd will still be rolled over the human body, and the absurd will continue forever.
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