Even a week after watching the movie We Made a Beautiful Bouquet, I still couldn't get rid of the sadness it gave to me. So right here, I start to write my thoughts down in order to commemorate it, the first love movie which touched me so deeply.
I've search this movie on IMDB, surprisingly found that there are only 591 comments about it, with average stars 7.1, compared to 79826 comments with average stars 8.7 on Chinese film review website Douban, which made me profoundly aware of the cultural difference between the east and the west.
As it says, the whole movie is talking about love between an artistic youth couple beat by cruel reality.
"Those two, they don't like music."
"Pardon?"
"The music is not monophonic, but bi-vocal. With one wired headphone, the left-side sound and the other side is different. It's another song when you listen to it with only one side of headphone."
"The song mixers must be pissed off and have thrown out the midnight snack."
Kinu and Wataru explained to their respective partners that two men share a same wired headphone is definitely a dishonor to music, not knowing that just a table away, standing a similar soul.
When they met again because of missing the last train, they and another couple of man and woman stayed in a bar, waited for the next day coming.
Mamoru Oshii just sit not far away and the man started to talk about movie.
"People says that I'm a movie buff."
The woman asks, "what movies do you watch?"
"The Shawshank Redemption."
"I heard about it."
"It's a super touching movie."
"Really? I watched Kiki's Delivery Service last year."
"The live-action version?"
"Yes."
Wataru, wearing a constipated face, thought in his head.
"why the real master is in front of them, they are still talking about the live-action version of Kiki's Delivery Service. The are so many live-action versions in just because of you people?"
Kinu just sit aside without saying anything.
Then after the four said goodbyes, Kinu caught Wataru, with a smiling face, and asked.
"It was OshiiMamoru, right?"
"You know him?"
"Whether you like him or not, you should know him at least."
"Sure, he is the greatest."
"You are right."
Kinu nodded.
Then they came to a izakaya (Japanese Pub), and started a real conversation.
"I'm Kinu Hachiya. My favorite saying is 'free refill for noodles'."
"I'm Wataru Mizuno and my favorite saying is 'stuff like spade'."
They exchanged they reading notes, talked about Hironagashu and Homura's poems, their favorite writers and bands, their common habits of using movie stubs as bookmarks, ended up with finding that they both bought the tickets of guinea-pig exhibition and missed it.
I recalled the so-called Bible for artistic youth, Before Sunrise trilogy, where Jesse and Celine also started their conversation with the books they read when met on train. So if you want to step in a artistic youth's world, just go to read the books she reads, the movies she watches.
And when she stands in front of your house bookshelf, says like Kinu in the movie, "It's exactly the same version of my bookshelf", it's time for you two to become one.
After a couple of times of missing the last train, Wataru expressed his feelings to Kinu.
And I thought that's it, a simple lovely Japanese movie.
But it's not.
Wataru and Kinu set foot in the real society after graduation.
Kinu cried under a high-pressure interview, and Wataru asked.
"Who is that interviewer?"
"A great senior."
"He might be great, but he must have no feelings after reading Natsuko Imamura's Picnic."
"It doesn't make sense to employment."
They started to live together. Wataru got a job at business department, went back home 8 p.m. Everyday. Colleague told him it will be better after 5 year's fighting.
Work was getting more and more burdensome. Kinu found that Wataru hasn't touch his once loved paintbrush, could put off the stage play they scheduled, wear a listless face when watching movies, started reading success books instead of poems.
In a fierce quarrel, Wataru mentioned a old customer told him to die and spat on him.
"He is so weird." Kinu said.
"He is a great man."
"He might be great, but he must be emotionless after reading Natsuko Imamura's Picnic."
"Maybe I am too now."
I shed my tears for the first time when I watched here, but not because of love.
Till here, about 4/3 of the movie has passed, and I don't want to keep writing. The rest is worth watching and feeling by yourself.
I thought it will be a beautiful romanticism, but eventually I realize the low-plot life is the cruelest realism.
Let me quote a heat comment from Douban here: The most romantic love an artistic youth can imagine is that, running in the rainy night when first met, having 100% similar artistic taste, kissing in front of a red light after confession, making love for a whole week in a rent room, living together in a flat with a huge balcony, picking up a cat at New Year's worship, and then break up peacefully after a long time consuming, recall past times at the once visited place, still think of each other when it's rainy outside. It's like the fantasy of people who yearn for love but don't believe it.
There are a lot of details worth sharing. If you have time, go and watch it, it will be your best love movie this year.
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