He may be a failure in your eyes, but he must be very gentle ｜ A good film has an appointment with Hai Jie Diary.
Special feature of 1905 film network A father is the first man a daughter meets in her life, and every daughter has a definition of a father in her heart.
In the movie Diary of the Sea Street, 15-year-old Ling (Suzu Hirose) meets her half-sisters Xing, Jia Nai and Qian Jia, who have never met before, at her father’s funeral, and accepts their sisters’ invitation to live in Xiangtian’s old house in Kamakura.
The film follows the name of the original comic book diary of the Sea Street, instead of Story of the Sea Street, and connects the theme of "getting my father back" with trivial stories. The comic aesthetic style shows that director Hirokazu Koreeda doesn’t intend to make a profound analysis of society this time, but only wants to discuss the eternal topic of "father" in this film "Father is not present".
Poster of Hai Jie Diary
The death of my father is the beginning of this story. Fifteen years ago, my father left the three sisters because he fell in love with another woman (Ling’s mother) and lost contact with them. The cherry blossoms in Binhai Road bloom and fade, the plums in front of the old house are green and yellow, relatives and friends come and go, and the father never appears. In the process of the growth of the three sisters, the father’s "lack of companionship" is an important reason for the daughters’ "incomplete emotional life", which has become the "introduction" of this film.
Dajiexing (Ayase Haruka)
I have witnessed the quarrel between my parents and my mother’s sadness. After my mother left home, it was my eldest sister Xing (Ayase Haruka) who took care of the family. Fortunately, she was tough in appearance and extremely fragile in heart. She assumed the responsibility of parents prematurely and longed for a man to rely on. She fell in love with a married man, probably because the other person is a mature man, but as a de facto third party, traditionally, she had to bear the blame of her conscience and hid all her desires very appropriately, only when her younger sister Ling arrived, she inadvertently revealed them.
Er Jie Jia Nai (Masami Nagasawa)
The second sister, Jia Nai (Masami Nagasawa), is simple in nature. In her memory, she often hears her parents quarreling at night and sees her sister comforting her mother. Her dissatisfaction with her father is more influenced by her sister’s luck. It is her childhood memory that makes her want to be free and happy when she grows up, be cheated by her little boyfriend again and again, and drink and go crazy again and again. Her sister’s luck may comfort her but she can’t tell her to avoid repeating the wrong plan.
Sanjie Qianjia (Kaho)
Among the four sisters, Qianjia (Kaho), the third sister, is the daughter who has the most vague impression of her father. Because of her vagueness, her feelings for her father are just like that of a daughter’s family who worships her father. Because of her worship, she wants to know more about her father, so when Ling holds the childhood photos of the three sisters treasured by her father, she is the most curious chatterbox. She likes to practice fishing alone at home. When she learned that her father also likes fishing, her excitement was beyond words. "It turns out that my father and I are very similar in this respect." Her boyfriend, like a joke, is a store manager with a grotesque appearance. She was attracted to the store manager because this sports man with six toes missing is passionate about conquering Mount Everest and loves sports as much as his father and is full of adventure.
Although the film did not deliberately explain the age and gap of the three sisters, from the scale of the wooden pillars in the promenade, we can guess that the age gap between them is not great. However, because of my father’s absence, my eldest sister came to middle age early, my second sister played a rebellious youth, and my third sister stayed in her childhood, just like plum wine brewed in different years, with different shades and tastes. The pillars at home are engraved with the height marks of the daughters’ growth. We can guess that it was their father who carved the mark on the wooden pillar, and the last mark stayed at the age of fifteen.
The death of my father is also an emotional turning point. Lost fifteen emotions, sealed fifteen years of memories, slowly opened with the arrival of half-sister Ling. The sisters invited Ling to live with them, worried about their younger sister’s future life and hypocritical stepmother, and loved her sister’s kind-hearted and tough personality. Moreover, among the four sisters, only Ling had a complete memory of her father, who often made sardine toast for her and took her fishing together, and never missed the key to her growth. At the last moment of her father’s life, Ling accompanied her father through the last life, and Ling’s body was marked by her father. When they accepted Ling, they actually accepted their father in another way. Because of the arrival of Ling, the family began to appear complete. The elder sister was no longer strict, the second sister had more responsibility and the third sister shared more. In their minds, the vague impression of their father began to become concrete. From Ling’s perspective, what unfolds slowly is the scene where my father and daughters lived together many years ago. The accumulated life in the town is strung together, and the diary is not a story. The plum trees planted by my grandmother in the old house, courtyard and faint pickles flow peacefully in the four seasons of Kamakura. Sardines toast is the memory of Ling and her father’s life together. In the dining hall of the sea cat, Ling found that this food was actually the creativity of the sea cat. A piece of food carries the memories of a full family, and the family is the people who eat many meals together.
Under the promenade, Ling He, who was drinking plum wine, made a funny laugh. Ling, who came to the old house, was the father who returned to his daughters in another way to accompany her to find the lost innocence in her life. "You can always be here, forever … …” This sentence appeared twice in the film. The first time was when Ling just arrived in Kamakura. Fortunately, she expressed her acceptance and welcome.
The second time was at the end of the film. Ling, who always felt guilty and thought that she had stolen the happiness of her sisters for fifteen years, opened her heart to her at the top of the mountain. Fortunately, she sincerely said, "You can always be here, forever … …” This sentence is not only for Ling, but also for her father’s confession, for her inner reconciliation with her father, and for her inner love for her father.
Ling told her sisters that her father said at the last moment of her life, "It would be a wonderful thing if she still has the ability to feel beautiful when she leaves this world!" . At the end of the film, standing by the sea, Yuki and Qianjia and Jianai talk about their father. "He may be a failure, but he must be a very gentle person."
Father never appeared in the film, but he was everywhere. The train passing through the city meets the cherry blossom avenue in the sea at the corner, and four girls wearing kimonos and playing with fireworks. The film seems a little scattered. What is scattered but not chaotic is the feelings of the four sisters for their father, with a touch of warmth in their sadness. Although their feelings for their father are complicated, their love for their father makes them live and move forward bravely.
The film begins with his father’s funeral, and ends with the funeral of the boss’s second house in the Haimao canteen. In this film, the director fully shows his seriousness to death and kindness to life, understands his father’s abandonment of his wife and children with the greatest tolerance, and does not accuse him too much of throwing his children to his grandmother’s mother, falling in love with his married sister, trying his best to occupy the second house in the Haimao canteen, and even Ling’s mother as a "third party" because Ling.
The director confessed with the film: "No one’s soul has fragrance, no one is wrong", life is beautiful, sometimes life is not so beautiful, even so, life is still beautiful.
Life is like a cherry blossom, a bunch of fireworks, short and beautiful. Life needs such loosening.