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The Track of Heart
A cartoon review of Isao Takahata’s Only Yesterday
I've always liked such kind of cartoon, a film actually, which is displayed through animated skills.
Adopted from an animation, this cartoon is the work of director Isao Takahata and produced by Studio Ghibli. To be fair, if you just treat it with a psychology of preparing to watch a block buster, then you will be disappointed and lose your patience to finish it. Without brilliant plots or excited confliction, this cartoon tells an ordinary story happens on an ordinary Japanese woman who lives in an ordinary Japanese family. However, it is this cartoon which soaks with the taste of traditional culture makes me feel great.
It's 1982. Taeko Okajima, the 27-year old “office lady” who has already been weary of the boring office life in Tokyo, is planning to take a sabbatical trip to her hometown which is in the countryside of Yamagata Prefecturein where she decided to pick benibana flowers. In the farm she meets with Toshio, who previously was a businessman and now is introduced to “organic agriculture” through his friends, and finally falls in love with him and decides to take root there. The unique feature of this film depends on its successful mix of recall of childhood and the reality. Meanwhile, in order to show the sense of reality, this cartoon reappears the past social background, custom and the fad at that time. As a result, it becomes a music which stirs up your feeling.
Taeko recalls her childhood without intermission. At the very time when she leaves Tokyo, the scenes of her old days as a fifth grade girl begins to jump out of her mind. The first time of eating pineapple, beating by her father, pursuing by a boy, knowing about period…. Her thoughts are always pulled back and influenced by the “young Taeko in childhood”. Even when important decisions are about to make, Taeko chooses to touch the inner feelings of herself in childhood.
Listening to her opinions from herself in childhood is like obeying the voice from the bottom of heart. The adult Taeko is trying to use “herself of a fifth grade girl” to deal with the problems she faces as an adult.
The film develops along two time lines, Taeko's reality life and her childhood. The plots are lead by some similar settings from one side to the other. Such feeling should not be strange for the majority. It could be the most beautiful contribution when time and memory mix together. Like the supportive effort of the sunshine, the color on the cloth will become clear. When adult Taeko is falling into sleep in the cabin, the little Taeko as a fifth grade girl is stretching forward her head to peep with curiosity. Such feelings of being watched and the mix of the reality and the past time leaves me with beauty but sentiment. When the two different bodies watch at each other, the content of their watching may mean “losing” or something else—fortunately it is not the topic of this film. It seems that how to make balance and get along with two “selfs” and face the shared future together to be the theme that director Isao Takahata wants to explore in the film.
Perhaps someone when finishes watching this cartoon will say: “Why don't we make a film of it instead of showing all the incredible life details in the cartoon?” However, from my point of view, the secret of the success of this cartoon is due to its nature—it is a cartoon. When Toshio is driving while Taeko is sitting by his side, we will be amazed to find the vivid tree shadow and the reflection of rain water on the ground are accurately reflected on the car window—all of these are done by hand drawing pictures! When they stay in the car, the close-ups are almost taken from the front which reminds me of real film photography skills, seldom cartoons share that merit at that time. Besides, careful audiences will find the brand “SUBSRU2” on the car; later in the cartoon, we can find the singer Yuming’s album on the shelf, Puma sport shoe, Beatles’ premiere in Japan, even the playbill of E.T on the wall.
However, no matter how similar it is looked like a real film, if we really try to make it as a film, it will not work especially in the part of Taeko’s recall of childhood. In the section of “recall”, the most important premise is: recall is not the reality but the part of Taeko’s memory; it is a product of a mixture of recall adds present mood with imagination. Thus in this setting, the background of the frame looks hazy, sometimes we get blanks. When young Taeko talks with the boy whom she seems to love, she is so excited that you can find the little girl's face turns into an exaggerated scarlet, then she happily "flies home". However, no matter how similar it is looked like a real film, if we really try to make it as a film, it will not work especially in the part of Taeko’s memory of childhood. In the section of "recall", the most important premise is: recall is not the reality but the part of Taeko’s memory; it is a product of a mixture of recall adds present mood with imagination. Thus in this setting, the background of the frame looks hazy, sometimes we get blanks. When young Taeko talks with the boy whom she seems to love, she is so excited that one can find the little girl's face turns into a exaggerated scarlet, then she “flies home.” In another scene, when young Taeko’s walks on the street depressed because her star dream has broke up, an encouraging song of a popular puppet show on TV (“Hyokkori Hyotan Island”) comes from the street shop. One can see the background of the street becomes the beginning of the puppet show. With those high-spirited melodies, young Taeko strides along with her head up and begins to sing. These abnormal scenes, if not use the skills of cartoon, will not be showed so dramatically.
In the section of “recall”, those countenances that have been totally caricatured are the further excellence of this cartoon. Taeko’s mouth twists when she has the sour pineapple for the first time; when her big sister Yaeko looks at Taeko’s math paper with a poor grade, her non-comprehending, astonishing expression makes me can not help laughing; during PE, the fifth grade girls are taken aside for a lecture on certain facts of life (the period), later all the boys know this and they tease the girls about it and look up their skirts, while young Taeko and her friend Rie have such twitched faces for embarrassment because they are being called as “period women” by the boys. Taeko’s two comas (first in a big luxurious public baths in Atami, second on the playground because of the embarrassment of the “case of period”) show vividly how her face turns from red to pale. Perhaps because of the effect of the mutually complementary afterimages (An afterimage is an optical illusion that occurs after looking away from a direct gaze at an image.), the audiences can understand better what a “pale face” means. Those effects can be only done by cartoon at that time.
In addition, those scenes: the fog in the mountain dispersing gradually in the morning; the tenacity feeling when plucking the benibana flowers off their stems; when getting on the car, safe-belt is always fastened by protagonists as well as every time putting on the brakes when every halting of the car; the plastic bags with trademarks, etc. are all done by hand-drawing. Compared with the cartoon films created totally by computer, the hand-drawing pictures can bring us a faint of retro complex and the moved feeling by this elaborately wrought work.
So, filmed with the way of cartoon is one of the key points of the secrets of its success. Of course somebody may say: “It's not my cup of tea, for it is not exciting.” Well, everyone has his own taste, or maybe some of us are so familiar with those works with splendid plots, so this one just doesn't suit them. However, such innovation on cartoon should be admired. Only Yesterday is a proof that cartoon can do something that the real film can not.
At the beginning of the story, when Taeko takes the train to Yamagata Prefecturein and begins to aware that she is taking herself of a fifth grade girl for this travel, the plot reaches into the “case of period” in her school days. At the end of this recall, when young Taeko and her friend Rie dumped the rubbish in the rubbish heap, the close-up focuses on two butterflies flying in the sky; while Taeko and Rie move out of the range of scene, then a flying butterfly appears in adult Taeko’s imagination when she is sleeping in the cabin. Through this section of the story, we can say the scene range of her recall represents Taeko’s vision to the recall in person, which is the focus of concentrating attention. What does the butterfly symbolize? For Taeko herself, “I always want to be a butterfly, but I don not want to become chrysalis.”
The chrysalis of butterfly or moth here symbolizes “Transformation”. While in Only Yesterday, the image of “butterfly” plays an important role with symbolic meaning.
In the story of Only Yesterday, “butterfly” means an adult woman who has grown up compared with the fifth grade girl. On the contrary, the “chrysalis” represents a awkward phase from a little girl to an adult woman, those strange feelings and detestation towards “period” or “bad mood” can be found in girls like Taeko. Now as a white collar worker who has got rid of those bad habits of childhood and done well in her career, Taeko has been a beautiful butterfly which the young Taeko would never thought of. However, what does the present situation mean to adult Taeko? Since she is the “butterfly” right now and everyone envies her, what would be her dream for the future? It's a position of bottleneck according to Taeko, for she thinks her own characters has fell into a pattern which can not be changed easily. As human beings, we are working everyday hardly; however, some of us don not know what they are busying with, because they have lost their targets in life. Taeko seems to have the same feeling of void. Taeko depicts herself in childhood like a butterfly who always wants to do better than boys and flies higher and higher. When the high-spirit of childhood has passed, what target can she pursue? Only “love”, perhaps.
At the end of the story, when Taeko finished her journey and takes the train which is starting slowly back to Tokyo, a real butterfly flies into the carriage from outside of the window and waves in front of her eyes. Then, the young Taeko as a fifth grade girl appears at the back seat of adult Taeko, suddenly all her classmates in childhood appear. Of course Taeko can not see them, for their appearance here can be explained as sub consciousness in Taeko's mind. But she can feel them and their urging for her to go back and stay with Toshio, the man she is falling in love with. Taeko came here with regret which is of losing her target in life, and butterfly is just the medium that triggers this kind of regret. Now on the way home, the butterfly coming again from the outside of the window evokes the same regret on her. This feeling forces Taeko to make her decision to stay in the countryside and bravely and sincerely face such a strange but wonderful feeling.
At this time, in the same train, Harumi Miyako’s song comes from the radio of an old man who is in the same carriage: Ai wa Hana, Kimi wa sono Tane (“Love is a flower, and you its only seed.” — a Japanese translation song of Amanda McBroom's composition “”.).The meaning of the lyrics is appropriate to the whole story, they are complementary to each other.
It's the one who won't be taken,
Who cannot seem to give
And the soul afraid of dying
That never learns to live.
It seems to me that this lyric is not emphasizing “to survive desperately”, however, it can be seen as a reference to the “seed” in the title of the song. Flowering means “death” to every seeds, only if the seeds sacrifice their external forms can they sprout and flower. You are the seed, and the flower represents love. In some Asian cultures, like Chinese and Japanese, you have to sacrifice for your lover (your custom, values, career, etc.), then your reason and spirit can dissolve in love.
This is a very placid and peaceful cartoon film.
No gorgeous trick shots, no undulated plot, no Joe Hisaishi’s magnanimous music, no Hayao Miyazaki’s theme of bewailing the time and pitying the people.
Peaceful scenes, music, it is so quiet that maybe you can hear every croak or every cicadas stridulating, like an exquisite poem.
You can image to have a cup of tea in your backyard under the nice and warm sun, and recall your childhood accompanied with the fragrance of soil.
It can be your past or my memory.
It is our memories like falling rain drops which can not be counted.
Recall looks like the clear reflection in the water of our childhood.
Maybe the little boy with a yellow baseball glove or the little girl wearing a red hairpin is me of ten years ago?
The Chinese version of this cartoon film has another name: Tale of Time.
The friendship and playing times of your childhood, solicitude or the scolding by your family, germination of love and all the mischief we did-- show beauty as fairy tales.
Everyone can find his shadow and his tale in this cartoon.
It has triggered every sensitive corner in our hearts like the breeze strokes the surface of lake, gently stirring the ripple, then we will feel relieved.
At the end of this article, I want to share the lyrics of “The Rose” with all of you.
THE ROSE
— Amanda McBroom
Some say love, it is a river
that drowns the tender reed.
Some say love, it is a razor
that leaves your soul to bleed.
Some say love, it is a hunger,
an endless aching need.
I say love, it is a flower,
and you its only seed.
It's the heart afraid of breaking
that never learns to dance.
It's the dream afraid of waking
that never takes the chance.
It's the one who won't be taken,
who cannot seem to give,
and the soul afraid of dying
that never learns to live.
When the night has been too lonely
and the road has been to long,
and you think that love is only
for the lucky and the strong,
just remember in the winter
far beneath the bitter snows
lies the seed that with the sun's love
in the spring becomes the rose.
The Track Of Heart
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The Track Of Heart
by InKunming on Fri Apr 22, 2011 4:01 pm
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InKunming - Posts: 1342
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