LIPING ZHANG
Fire at Sea (2016)
Gianfranco Rosi
The beginning of the film is focus on a little boy. He plays in the wild, cutting off branches and making slingshot. He has the common nature of many children. He is naughty, playful and doesn't like learning. A typical representative of the island residents. Because of this, he becomes the core of the story. The next scene is the rotating radar at night. We heard the dialogue between refugees and lifeguards. The noisy dialogue ended abruptly, the fate of refugees was uncertain. It can be imagined that this is the most real picture of most refugees’ fate. After all, there are a few refugees who can survive. Been buried in the sea might be the normality. The dialogue also pulled out another clue to the story: refugee problem. From then on, the double line narrative is constructed.
The record of the whole process of the second refugee rescue in about 13 minutes makes the audience face the refugees for the first time. They are thin, tired and sick. The director uses the camera lens to examine everything through the breathing mask. On the lifeboat bound for the island, several large close-ups of the faces of the refugees are startling. The dull faces of the refugees are just like the dead. What is it that keeps them away from home? Take a crowded boat to the uncertain future, even if they know that death is the most likely direction. Wrapped in gold foil, the refugees accepted the inspection from the staff one by one, as if they were "goods" and these "goods"’ smell were sometimes been disdained. The song from one of the refugees are the most impressive scenes for me.
“We can't stay in Nigeria. We fled to the Sahara. We fled to Libya. We cried on our knees. We couldn't stay on the mountain or in the city. We fled to the sea. The sea was dangerous. Many people didn't get through it. But we have survived. The sea is not a smooth road, but we should take risks. Life is a gamble. "
This song that he called "testimony" shows me solves my questions. In the scene of a football match, the refugees count the countries that have brought wars to the African continent and expel people from those countries. This consensus is the embodiment of their complaints.
Back to another clue, the subtle growth of the boy is the reflection of the refugee problem or the further thought about human and nature.
I’m impressed by the scene where he and his father go out to sea. The boy curls up on the boat. With the shaking of the boat, he can't bear it. His face is getting pale. At last, he can't help vomiting. It may not be much to watch the play alone, but the director put this scene after the landing of refugees. The contrast is strong, but it's natural.
Another main thing happened to the boy is the amblyopia of his left eye. The doctor said to him, you are used to seeing things with your right eye, which will cause the laziness of your left eye, so you should use an eye mask to correct your vision. He began to live with his left eye. Everything became inconvenient, even his favorite slingshot. But as he gradually got used to it. Things changed. The most obvious one is the scene of his going to the birdhouse before and after. The first time he and his friends tried to attack with the newly made slingshot, but the second time he tried to "talk" with the birds. The changes before and after gave the audience an obvious direction of thinking.
In fact, some human beings are exactly like this. They are used to seeing things with a consistent eye and thinking with constant value judgment. But after the reverse change, things may have new possibilities and the attitude to things will change accordingly.
In fact, the attitude of all countries towards refugees is a good interpretation of reality.
There are many other factors involved in refugee issue, not a simple positive and negative opposition can be said clearly, but this documentarygives the simplest but also the most basic logical starting point of thinking.
The boundless sea, my favorite images in the documentary. It is the master of the drifting fate of refugees and the guarantor of the basic life of fishermen on the island. In a sense, they are all fighting against the sea, and at the same time, they are getting the possibility of life continuity from the sea. There is an explicit point, that is, grandma and boy talk about grandpa's story. Warship fired at night. That’s the reason of the spectacle. Half sea water, half fire appears. After that, grandma ordered a song called "fire on the sea" to the radio station, praying that the sea would be calm so that his son could go fishing. Singing the fire on the sea to pray for the mercy of the sea. How ironic. After all, the sea has always been capricious.
Four Springs (2017)
Qingyi Lu
The clue of the whole film is very clear and compact which makes people not feel lengthy at all but immersed in it. The nature of the record makes it look like a fragment year after year but in that cycle, "flow" and "change" happen.
The first spring is mainly to create a New Year atmosphere and display the daily life of parents. The life around the pool in the courtyard. When the fern is born, pick it from the mountain. Go to the grave with relatives and friends.
In this kind of light narration, the character of parents and the surrounding environment appear. The main characters appear one by one. In fact, the hidden clues of the story behind have been buried. It's just that we, as the audience, can't realize it until we think about it later.
The next spring focused on the meaning of music in life and then things went straight down. In the third year, the sister passed away. In the fourth year, slow recovery, like the deep ice river, finally cracked a new crack in another spring. The meaning of life, love and company, the toil and poetry of life are highlighted here.
The bursting point is clearly not what this documentary is after. From the sister's illness in hospital to her death and burial. This process is extremely sad, helpless and touchable. But the director obviously avoided this heartbreaking rendering. Only at the peak of the inevitable sadness, there is a natural emotional bursting point. When the sister was buried, her son knelt in front of the coffin and shouted "Mom! Mom! Mom!", which is the most emotional scene in the whole documentary. This is the effect that the director intended for. But it doesn’t make me feel tortured. Even sadness is gentle. Most of the scenes are soft and warm, like the May wind blowing through the blooming honeysuckle. I couldn't help laughing for the lovely talk between the two old.
Director makes great choice of music. Four springs have lots of singing scenes. Music shows a hidden echo with the rhythm, mood and trend of the film. Father stood on the hillside and sang: “Spring flies to the distance with the wings of cranes. Let bygones be bygones.” It is not difficult for the audience to feel the connection.
Dreams(1990)
Akira Kurosawa
Perhaps, this is the most ambitious dream in the history of world film.
It's not deep and difficult, on the contrary, it's simple and clear. How can dream become like this? Like the aged Kurosawa is constantly changing a slide with different realistic styles. He keeps saying: the world will be like this, the world is like this, this is the future of human beings, our reality. Only unlike dreams.
Eight dreams. In fact, are one dream. No matter nature, war, society or life, they are all about the same theme: human'sperplexity. Most dreams don't look like dreams to me. There is no uncertainty and confusion of dreams, just telling the persistence of an old man's life. Kurosawa painfully confronted the perplexity of his life. Or this is his warning. He uses strong colors and bleak scenes to constantly torture the nerves of his audience, make them despair of the world completely, and then take actions.
My favorite is the first dream: sun rain. Beautiful field scenery, misty forest, unreal raindrops reflecting the sun's light, mysterious and traditional sending off team, home under the rainbow and the legend. Only the simple dialogue between mother and son, without preaching or pretending to be mysterious. It's not fox's home, it's human's home. Human beings and all kinds of creatures do not invade each other. They live in harmony. Under the sun and rain, life grows quietly with the rhythm of season.
Why didn't Kurosawa continue his dream in this way?
Maybe because of his age? A stubborn, anxious, frowning, chattering old man. He just wants to say the things that torment him all his life and gives himself and future generations an explanation?
In the last dream, the idyllic life of water truck village shows some comfort. "I don't need a light so bright that I can't even see the stars." Kurosawa said through the mouth of a centenarian in red. "It's very gratifying for a man to do his duty well in the world and then die with a clear conscience."
Book Review
Something Like an Autobiography
Akira Kurosawa
It's like facing a courtyard. It's drizzling rain or sunset. With a cup of tea or a pot of sake. The characters are the old and the young. Both with a lit cigarette in their hands. The old speaks slowly, the young listens attentively. The sound of the rain gradually subsided or the day slowly turns dark. An oil lamp lights up slowly. The old stops talking, smiles gently and looks out of the window. The young follow the old’s eyes to the sky or the night sky. This is how I feel when I read this book. It's like talking to Kurosawa all day.
In Chinese and Japanese edition, this memoir called Toad's oil. Kurosawa so named this book probably means that in old age, looking back, feeling like the ugly toad in front of the book. Couldn't help being scared to secrete oil all over the body. But this oil, can heal wounds. The Japanese legend about toad is printed on the back cover of the book.
Waiting on the Weather
Teruyo Nogami
The book not intend to systematically narrate the process of film making or focus on the analysis or evaluation of Kurosawa’s films. Instead, it narrates lots of details about Kurosawa’s life.
He forbids the staff call him "teacher". He loves to use mirrors. He frantically rescued the film when it caught fire. He thought it was troublesome to go to the toilet and peed out of the window. When shooting shadow warrior, he was furious because of the unfair reports from the news media. He wrote a joint letter asking for an apology. Otherwise, he would stop shooting the film but reflected on himself the next day, "it seems childish to be so angry". As Kurosawa liked to say, "in a word, all kinds of things happened." As Kurosawa liked to say, "in a word, all kinds of things happened."
Among all kinds of things,Nogamiconcentrates her brush and ink on those things that Kurosawacannot control. "There are three things about the film that Mr. Kurosawacannot control. Weather, animals and music. There is no other way to deal with these three things but to wait or to give up. Of course, Mr. Kurosawawill not give up. He chose to wait. "
In order to wait for "that cloud comes to this mountain", Kurosawa was willing to wait. For him, waiting on that cloud to arrive is not an extravagant demand at all. Because "the so-called movie is such a thing". The same is true for animals. Whether shooting ants or crows, Kurosawa has enough patience and will never give up if he doesn't achieve his goal. Nogamiuses several pages to elaborate on how the forty second crow scene in the film Dreams take months of preparation to make and "such an instant is really the fun of the film." It is in these things Kurosawacannot control. I hear the giant's footstep.
In the second half of the book, it’s sad. Nogamirecalls the last days before Kurosawa's death. In his three years of bedridden life, he always said: "the hardest time is not to work" and he also realized some abstract principles: "recently, I feel that the secret of the film seems to be hidden in the contact between the lens and the lens." Something must have touched his sorrow. After all, now people can make any image with CG.