This week's workload is not too heavy (good). Let me share some superstitions: the day before, I bought a dragon year sticker at Metro, which is a lucky little dragon holding a gold ingot in one hand and a banner saying "get rich quick" in the other. I stuck it on the wall behind my monitor, and today I received a year-end bonus. It's unexpected that a company that is about to go bankrupt would still give out bonuses. Perhaps it's to appease my worries about the company going under and leaving early.
I had a lot of content I wanted to write about this week, but I kept writing and deleting, deleting and writing, and in the end, I probably didn't write anything.
Fireworks#
This is the first time I've watched a film by Takeshi Kitano. This film has almost no dialogue, giving the same feeling as watching a silent film, but it gave me goosebumps.
Fireworks won the Golden Lion Award at the Venice Film Festival.
Takeshi Kitano seems to understand film and has a very artistic way of expression. He doesn't stick to the conventional techniques of filmmaking and has his own interpretation of film. I used to hear people describe Takeshi Kitano as a director who started out in comedy (I remember he was one of the three giants of Japanese comedy), so I initially thought this film would be somewhat humorous (due to my wrong expectations, I watched it in two parts, and fell asleep the first time).
In reality, this film is a beautiful intertwining of "violence" and "tenderness".
The film itself tells a tragic, violent, and love story, but it is far from a traditional love story. The protagonist is a police officer who is drawn to the edge of violence and crime. While watching, I often pondered over the protagonist's struggles and pain, the tenderness towards his family and love, and his chilling and ruthless nature in the face of violence. The film oscillates between these two extremes, and to be honest, I found it difficult to keep up with the pace. But this complexity and depth of the character are well portrayed.
The color tone of the film is something that the director paid great attention to, as colors express emotions. The main color tone of this film is dark and oppressive, which is in line with the overall tone of the story. However, from a certain moment or in certain key moments, the colors become exceptionally bright and beautiful. Especially the paintings drawn by the colleague, they are vivid and magnificent, transcending reality. I haven't fully grasped the meaning behind this, but I think the reason for using such bright images is to express a fantasy world (a spiritual world) or something else?
The visual style of the film is also very distinctive. Takeshi Kitano uses a lot of static shots and long shots to create a calm and oppressive atmosphere, complemented by the color tone. With almost no dialogue in the film, emotions are conveyed through colors and shots. I believe the director's idea is that a suppressed mood should be expressed in a quiet, deep, and introverted manner. However, the occasional insertion of violent elements deepens the audience's understanding of his pain and helplessness, as at that moment, the male protagonist can only maintain his dignity through violence.
One of the shots that I find intriguing is in a temple, where a child wants to ring the bell, and the adults tell the child that they can only hear the bell ringing at dusk. After they leave, the male protagonist secretly rings the bell. I think the director wants to convey the message that if you want to hear the sound of the bell, just ring it, don't wait until dusk.
Another memorable scene is at the beach, where a little girl is flying a kite, and the male protagonist holds onto the kite while the girl runs. The wings of the kite are torn off. But the little girl continues to run, a kite without wings, fluttering in the air. I think this is the main theme of the entire film. The male protagonist's wife doesn't have much time left to live, just like this kite without wings, but the little girl continues to run, wanting to make the kite fly.
In the final shot, facing the sea, accompanied by two gunshots, the play ends. These two gunshots gave me goosebumps, as the struggle of life was released at that moment. This is a film that seeks hope in despair, a film that explores humanity on the edge of morality.
BBQ rating: 9.5/10. By the way, I intentionally wrote the title as "Fireworks" instead of "花火" because I believe this film is not just about "life is as short and beautiful as fireworks," but it can be divided into "花" (flower) and "火" (fire). It is like the beautiful intertwining of "violence" and "tenderness": the tender part is the "花" (flower), short-lived and beautiful, perhaps more fitting to the Japanese "cherry blossom theme," while the "火" (fire) part represents the violent part. I believe the violent part can be seen as a rebellion against the injustice of life, like anger, like a shout, like a struggle. Of course, this interpretation may be wishful thinking, as the English name of the film is "Fireworks."
Giving the Blog a Little Makeover#
This week, I didn't do much, I've been trying to give my blog a makeover.
What I've Done#
- Last week, after changing the theme to pink, some friends gave feedback that the font color was not clear on the pink background. I investigated and found out that everyone now likes to use dark mode on their phones (for eye protection and power saving). The dark mode that comes with this theme was not completely removed, causing the font color to become white. I deleted some code and the problem should be solved.
- This week, I introduced a plugin for online chat, so now everyone can leave me messages. I didn't want to bother with a message board, and I saw on Lü Ye's blog that she had a fun little message bubble, but when I looked into it, it seemed quite complicated to set up. Then I remembered that one of the themes I used with Hexo had this feature built-in. I found this plugin that comes with an app and can be used as long as you copy the HTML code to a page. It's theoretically not much different from integrating WeChat.
What I Want to Do#
- I want to copy Douchi's heatmap feature. I've actually been wanting to tinker with this feature, but when I tried to copy it, I encountered an error. I'm confused as to why others can copy it, but I can't. I looked into Yibocat's Hugo Date Heatmap and it seems to say that the code needs to be written in HTML, but I don't understand it. Anyway, the problem is definitely with fetching the article data, as Hugo uses Go language, which I don't understand.
- I also want to add a friends' link section. I found a tutorial on adding friends' links, but I don't want to go around leaving comments to add friends' links, but it doesn't seem right to unilaterally write someone's blog as a friend's link, like telling others "I'm friends with that big shot," when they don't even know me.
- I feel a bit awkward about working on my blog. Sometimes I want others to see it, sometimes I don't. There are some content that I don't think everyone wants to see, so I want to study frontend encryption. I've looked around, and for example, hugo-encryptor can achieve it, but it's quite complicated. The principle is to encrypt locally and decrypt on the frontend, but encrypting every time I deploy is too troublesome, and I don't want to bother with it.
- I've seen NeoDB entries on other people's blogs, and they're quite nice. They also use shortcodes, but I don't really like the style, so I haven't copied it. Recently, I don't remember where I saw a tutorial, but I can't find it now. I'll tinker with it next time I come across it.
- Another thing is images. Sometimes I want to add more images and have them displayed in the same line, or something like a carousel of images. I haven't tinkered with it yet, but I want to. I think I saw a tutorial a few days ago, but I didn't save it and now I can't find it. I'll tinker with it next time I come across it.
When the Seagulls Cry E1-E2#
I've heard about this work for a long time, but I'm not really a fan of visual novels. However, when I saw someone playing it on Steam, it sparked my interest, so I decided to give it a try. I've finished the first two chapters, and after finishing the second chapter, there doesn't seem to be an option to choose, it's just pure text. Currently, there are a few points that confuse me. Is this game not a full-fledged detective game?
The first chapter ended mysteriously, with a structure similar to Agatha Christie's "And Then There Were None." Many of the locked room solutions were not explicitly explained, but with careful reading (hints), you can somewhat guess. For example, it's highly likely that there was no sixth person in the warehouse on the first night, and the locked room on the second night was most likely not locked at all, so there was no real locked room.
The second chapter also had some hints, and it's highly likely that the tower seat is the wolf (since you survived while everyone else was in the auditorium on the first night, who else could be the wolf?), but the rest is not easy to guess.
Based on the two chapters, I speculate that the servants, who always refer to themselves as "furniture," are more or less assistants to the wolf. At least those with family crests are definitely assistants to the wolf.
I plan to finish the rest after the Lunar New Year. If this game could make each locked room a full-fledged detective puzzle, it would be very interesting. As we all know, the locked room genre has already been covered by Agatha Christie, and the most exciting locked room is probably Ayatsuji Yukito's "The Decagon House Murders." Of course, if we're talking about schemes, Shimada Soji is also at the T0 level (I really like the character Motoshige in his works). Looking at the first two chapters of this game, the first chapter introduces the concept of a witch, and the second chapter is just arguing with the witch. As long as it can be proven that it's not witchcraft and can still be achieved, it's fine (here, a concept is being introduced, that if it's not magic, then you must suspect the people around you, and the male protagonist, who doesn't want to suspect the people around him, chooses to believe that the witch exists, I think this should be a point the author wants to lay the groundwork for). It can't really be considered a detective novel.
The End of the FXXXking World Season 1#
I didn't finish watching it in 2019, but recently I was a bit bored and decided to watch it again.
The male protagonist considers himself a psychopath, fearlessly harming his own body, killing small animals for pleasure, and waiting for the opportunity to kill a person to satisfy his urges. However, these are all ways he builds walls to protect his fragile inner self. The female protagonist is nihilistic, from a single-parent family, with a stepfather who sexually harasses her, and her mother acts as if she doesn't see it. That's how these two people meet, start a relationship, and then run away from town...
The ending of the plot is similar to "Fireworks," with a beach and a gunshot. But considering there is a second season, the male protagonist should not be dead, right?
This world is messed up, and they are cool for rebelling against it. I looked at the reviews on Douban, and for many people, they are rebellious, but I think they are cool. In fact, many of the people in this series are miserable because the world is terrible and they are powerless to resist.
There is a part in the plot that I think is well written. The male protagonist's father often tells jokes that no one understands at home, and the male protagonist finds him annoying and noisy, and even punches him before leaving the town. But when the female protagonist feels scared after killing a pervert with a hunting knife that the male protagonist carries, she temporarily leaves him. At this moment, the male protagonist says that the world is so quiet, this silence is deafening, so he understands why his father tells those jokes, because the quiet world is really noisy.
Although the female protagonist seems to not care about anything, the narration reveals her fear everywhere. She has always been pursuing a sense of security. After leaving her mother's home, she goes to find her biological father, who seems cool but is actually an irresponsible jerk. She realizes that only the male protagonist gives her a sense of security, and she decides to be with him no matter where they go. If the juvenile detention center separates them, they will attack the police and run away.
The male protagonist always claims to be a psychopath, finding pleasure in slaughtering small animals, but later it is revealed that when he was young, his mother, who had depression (I don't remember the exact illness), committed suicide in front of him, so he has been building walls in various ways to prevent himself from having emotions, actually to protect himself. But after meeting the female protagonist, he changes. First, he understands what loneliness is, and in the end, he understands the meaning of people to each other.
And in the end, they are both defeated by this garbage world, but they become each other's heroes, each other's redemption.
Why are both movies I watched this week about this theme? Is fate guiding me?