So originally this blog was intended to be a series of reviews as I journeyed through anime, but I think this is maybe a little boring. I don't really like to read reviews, and I just discovered I don't really like writing them. However, what I do like writing is more analytical pseud-essays. I do like to read these too. So this is what this blog will be, oh and the odd real life report if I see or do anything anime related.
So the other day I was talking with my friend on skype and we were showing each other youtube clips as you do and I decided to get her to watch La Maison en Petits Cubes (Tsumiki no Ie). I thought it was a touching anime that was worthwhile for anyone to watch, plus it is easily accessible on youtube. So we stopped video calling and I let her watch the film and I decided to do the same having not watched it in a while. At this point I advise you to watch it too (not only for the story but also because of how it tells the story with no words and a great art style), becuase I will give a pretty detailed summary in order to talk about what I want to talk about.
Anyway the short film, which incidentally won an Oscar for best animated short, is a just an old man and his home on this planet where the water levels keep rising. As they rise he is forced to build a new house, smaller than the last on top of his current home. He is doing this as his room is flooding until one day he drops his favourite smoking pipe down the trap door in the middle of his room. Each of his houses has one of these to connect it to the house below and above it. He tries to buy a new one but the ones on sale don't quite match so he decides to buy diving gear to find his pipe. As he finds it in the next lower level, he decides to open the trap door this house and each lower level, until he reaches his first house. As he goes through each house he reminisces about his life, backwards in stages as each house was a different part of his life. He remembers his wife dying, his grown-up children coming to visit him with their own children, his own children going off to school and finally, on ground level, his life growing up with his friend and eventually marrying her. The film ends with him and two wine glasses on his table, just as he had the first day he owned his house and was at dinner with his wife.
So we stopped watching and I video called my friend again only to find her crying. She said that the film was really sad but she had enjoyed it. We had a small discussion about why this was. She said it was because the man is basically just waiting to die and all he can do is remember the good times of his life, but they are only memories not his life. All he is doing is building an ever depressingly smaller house, waiting for death. The last scene just shows how memory is just a fleeting grasp for reality and for happiness which is ultimately not real. His memories are related to his loneliness, from how his daughter grows up and gets married and how his wife dies, leaving hm alone. This is only further emphasised by how we realise that when he goes under water there are more houses. This was a town, now it is just one old man. There is nothing beautiful about loneliness. All of this is something he had, but no longer. This is a very sad view of this, but one that does seem to come quite naturally and logically. I mean the first memory he has is of his wife dying, surely the saddest point in his life now that his children have moved out and he will be all alone.
However, I feel as though I need to explain why I disagreed with her interpretation. I feel as though the man was not sad about his memories, he cherished them. He loved his pipe, he wanted to find it, but more than this, when he found it he didn't just resurface but he wanted to go further down and think about the rest of his life. Just the fact he went through all the hassel to buy a scuba suit and dive down instead of just buying a new one isn't just some nice sentimental action it is a way to show he is not depressed about death (he is happy with the life he has lived). This is the idea I got from the whole film. He was content with his lot in life. In a way he realises his death will come and he is (I wouldn't say ready for it or embracing it) but he is happy with what has life has given him. The last scene isn't a failed attempt to relive the best time in his life, it is a celebration and acknowledgement of it. In the end this makes me happy. Everyone is scared of death but this gives me joy that someone in their old age could be happy. Now I will make one admission, this being that the way his house is constantly shrinking and looks quite cell like is depressing. But he doesn't need an expansive living space, he realises his needs are less and is happy with a smaller house (showing his acceptance of his old age and not a depressed clinging to the past).
So now I want some feedback from you. This is such a good and interpretative film all based on emotion. I mean all the photos on the wall could be interpreted either way really. So who do you agree with, not that there is a right opinion (but if there was one it would be mine)? Is he enviable or is he pitiable? Or both? Can we feel both sadness and happiness for the old man?
Links for the anime below:
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