Hopefully it's just a coincidence that the stories of both dramas begin with a broken family, and in this single-parent family there are two children, a boy and a girl. I won't say much about "Boyhood". In "From the Northland", the newly divorced working boy Goro, with his young Chun and Hotaru, left Tokyo and returned to his hometown of Hokkaido. The children who are accustomed to urban life are like this without warning. began to live in the countryside. "From the Northland" was originally broadcast on Fuji TV as a weekly drama with 24 episodes and ended in 1981. This part of the story mainly tells about how children adapt to life in Hokkaido and the reconstruction of broken families, which finally ends when their mother dies of illness , and the children completely give up the idea of going back to Tokyo. Since 1983, "From the Northland" has been broadcast on Fuji TV in the form of TV movies, and 8 films have been released at an average interval of 2 to 3 years. It was officially completed in 2002, and no crew was changed during this period. The members, including the core members of the screenwriter, director and actor, the actor Yoshioka Hidetaka even married his girlfriend in the play. It can be said that the drama is like life.
At first, I really wanted to compare the two dramas, but after watching "Boyhood", I felt that they were not comparable at all. Except for the shooting method and story background, the two have almost no similarities. "Boyhood" tells more about the meaning of people's own life, and this meaning presents another face through this unique shooting method, reflecting the changes of people and families through the real passage of time; "Northland" is completely different. It wants to express a connection and bond between man and land, and nature, so that each year's story is better than the previous one, and the life and death during the period is full of life and death. Expressed in an oriental way, it conveys more of the Japanese nostalgia complex. After experiencing a series of struggles, the male protagonist finally returned to the land. From a foreign land to a foreign land to his hometown, this process is very full; And "Boyhood" is a process of self-discovery. The film rarely involves the success or failure of family education and the rebellion of adolescence. Instead, it seeks self through the perspective of the male protagonist, growing up from a boy who is accustomed to moving and is silent and obedient. For a self-independent social person, this is very similar to Spirited Away.
Although it was also a marathon shooting, different broadcast methods also gave people different feelings. The 12-year shooting cycle of "Boyhood" was finally compressed into 3 hours, although the nodes of the passage of time were deliberately blurred. , but the feeling of a thousand years at a glance will still make people somewhat detached, resulting in a special drama; but "From the North" is different. The shooting cycle and broadcast time are far longer than "Boyhood", but every year The content and era of the broadcast are relatively fixed, which means that the episodes grow together relative to the audience. Although the stories are coherent, each episode is a microcosm of the era, and finally merged into a big picture scroll of the era. , from a small local romance drama to an epic drama. But no matter which of the two is better or worse, such a shooting method is very challenging. As the saying goes, there is no hard work or hard work. It is a miracle in itself to be able to complete a job for decades.
Going back to "Boyhood", the director did not deliberately ignore the node of time loss, but explained it in other ways. Of course, some very deliberately implanted bridges can be seen here, such as the popularization of home computers and the entry of the Internet. , the rise of social networks, the male protagonist's little friend is still holding an electronic pet machine one second, and the next second is replaced by an Xbox, and the most obvious change is pop music, although he is not very familiar with European and American pop music, but In the past 10 years, I can still tell the difference. Of course, if this is another long post, let’s just say a few came out of the actors’ mouths. "We all in this together" sung by the child is the theme song of the popular Disney movie "High School Musical" in 2006; Mason's sister was watching Lady in the car when the father and the children first went out after marriage. Gaga's 10-year single "telephone", when Mason and her sister met to play billiards in Austin, the song played in the billiard room was the 11-year hit "Somebody That I Used to Know" (personal love!) and so on, and the director It is almost guaranteed that the songs of each era are in line with the ages of the protagonists. Of course, the movie episodes are not included here, they are all elements of the era that appeared in the movie.
In addition to the focus on family, the most important thing about this film is American politics. I even think that from some aspects, this is also a film that records the social and political ecological changes in the United States after 9/11. If Mason and her mother Representing the middle class of American society, Mason's father is a representative of the Democratic Party, and each of Mason's stepfathers represents the Republican Party of different eras. At the beginning of the film, Mason's mother, who had just divorced, fell into extreme anxiety and anxiety. Obviously not suitable for single-parent life. In 2000, Clinton ended his presidency with a scandal, which also ended the political status of the Democratic Party. At this time, Bush also entered the White House in a very controversial way (Baidu 2000 US presidential election). But after 9/11, the reluctant Americans also supported Bush in launching the war on terror. This is like Mason's first stepfather, who entered their lives at an extremely inopportune time, caring for the family at first, but controlling the family later. It must be reminiscent of the Bush administration's monitoring of domestic communications in the name of anti-terrorism, and the departure of Mason's mother symbolizes the complete disappointment of the American people with the war on terror. Then Mason's father began to appear more in their lives, the iconic event is to help Obama campaign. Mason's second stepfather entered the family as a retired National Guard member. Although his Middle East experience was before 9/11, he was more like a veteran returning from Iraq, and abandoned Bush's rhetoric. Won the favor of Mason's mother (the American people), and family life during this period was relatively quiet, which also corresponds to the domestic situation after the Obama administration came into power... In fact, it is not so much an innuendo to American politics as it is to say A living reaction to American political culture.
In fact, there are a lot of things that can be said about such a movie built with time. Some people may not like such a bland and lack of dramatic conflict, but in any case, time can prove everything, just like the movie itself.
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