Just a little more than an hour of what happens. But everything is incredibly compact, which allows you to avoid distractions as much as possible. Minimum details, everything is concise.
In general, the school is not a place for obtaining knowledge, teachers have not tried to teach them something for a long time, very rarely only reach the souls of their wards. And how disgusting it is when the elders frankly score for a generation, believing inside themselves that they can no longer be saved.
Seven friends, seven, but the path of each does not intersect with the path of his companion. Youth is a time when everything is huge, the whole world, dreams, desires and opportunities to realize it. But unfortunately, let's be realistic. They call school hell, and not everyone is allowed to go beyond that. School for them is their world, the world of struggle for power and respect of others. Just a building in which they are ready to spend their whole lives, and despite the hierarchy, next to the shoulder of a friend.
In Japan, life and death are viewed differently. What to do if you do not see a way out in the future? What if you are not allowed to go on to all the accepted benefits of society - "univer + work + family = happiness"? And you make your choice.
When your dreams are huge and the world can’t destroy them, when you look at the world through rose-colored glasses, when you like what you’ve invented. The reality is different...
Kujo and Aoki are a model of friendship. A real one, without a trace. They are ready to fight and move forward, but only up to a point. When the views differ, only at the last moment you can save everything, but is it necessary? . ?
I have always been afraid of people with a clear purpose.
I thought a lot about how to start a review. I saw this picture about three years ago, but the footage, the music, the mood of this film still echoes in my head like an echo.
I put a top ten on this film because it's a rating that's necessary, but to be honest, it's very difficult for me to rate it digitally. The picture is as deep as it does not seem at first glance, but somehow imperceptibly you are imbued with this seemingly strange but somehow familiar story that touches on one of the most important aspects of our lives - the transition from adolescence to adulthood. A world that can be hostile, that can break you if you're not ready enough, if you're not strong enough, if you don't have support, if you just can't... or don't want to... and many more ifs.
“It’s just like Paradise here,” says Cujo.
Think about it. Simplicity.
That's what scares him. Fear of a world in which the complexities of adulthood begin. In fact, he realizes that when he finishes school, nothing will be as simple and clear as before. It will be necessary to somehow build your life, which is not so easy when you have no goal, no understanding of what you are going to do, what you will represent, when you do not understand who you are outside your world, where you are an authority, where you are respected, where you are the world.
Search. Sometimes you just have to accept it. In the process of this very search, we sometimes make wrong decisions, cruelty as a response to fear, protection of our world, understanding or misunderstanding. In this film, violence is like a drama, saturated with the colors of maximalism. And around sakura blooms, and around spring ...
But there are problems that will someday seem like nonsense, the only thing you can smile at when you remember in passing. Someday later. But not now. And that is why it is so difficult to stop and think, it is difficult to understand yourself and what you need in this life, but it is very easy to make a mistake. A mistake you may never have the chance to correct.
In the film, the short but capacious dialogues – like the blows of a knife to just feel them – sometimes you don’t need many words, sometimes you just need to feel.
The musical accompaniment of every scene, every emotion, look and gesture, says more than a thousand meaningless remarks.
A movie about growing up, about making decisions that can change everything, a movie not about one particular person, and not even about a few young men, each of whom has his own way. A movie about youth: about its eternity, about its transience, about its cruelty, about its measuredness, about its fears and dreams.
“Even if my body falls apart, my spirit breaks and my tears evaporate, the dreams of youth will not go away.”
10 out of 10
P.S. I wouldn’t recommend this movie to anyone. In the end, despite the fact that for me it will remain one of my favorites, it contains a very strangely oppressive-exciting mood that not everyone will like.
When I have to choose which film I would like to see, I prefer films that give me reason to think, leave their mark on my memory and soul. One of these is the film ' Blue Spring' directed by ToshiakiToyoda, who has been considered the best young director in Japan for more than a decade.
This film describes the period of growing up of high school students, in which the most "#39" are collected; children are cut off from society, the period when they face a choice of the next path. The theme of the school is very often covered in cinema, the problems faced by a teenager within its walls are displayed here in a hypertrophied form. Problems of friendship and confrontation, leadership in school, cruelty reigning between students, bullying the weaker and trying to be ' not like everyone' are close to any school not only in Japan, but all over the world.
You are no longer a child, but you are not an adult. There are many opportunities before you, but which one to choose, which way to go if you have not yet decided on the future? And how to decide on the future, if your present is not the way you see yourself, but rather a mask that you have to wear to survive in school, where teachers rush out of school, and bullying and violence have long become a way of life for all students.
Involuntarily, the main character begins to win the right to be a leader, to become the dictator of the rules, not their victim. And gradually he himself becomes a part of this system of punishment and torture 39, merging with the image that he himself invented. But in the end, carried away by this game, the main character lost not only himself, but also what was really important to him.
When I saw this movie for the first time, I also had a choice. And he made me think about a lot of things. Where is the line when you stop being yourself and start adapting to the environment? And how is it among 'wolves' to remain human? This film is not easy, as the stage of growing up of a teenager.
Yes, it is blue spring, since aoi in Japanese means both blue and green, this color is called young spring greens and immature apples. The film is about the spring of youth, about the eternal, about a dream and about the fact that flowers in spring bloom different and not all dreams come true.
Watching the brutality of teenagers on display, do you think I'm doing here? Another film about a violent schoolboy? But gradually you penetrate into their world, characters, fates. It's done so subtly and individually that I can't explain it easily. “Blue Spring” is very different from the usual social black woman, it makes you think about the fact that when we say “everyone has a choice, everyone has the right to decide what to do”, we are lying when we say “always there is a way out”, we are lying. “Blue Spring” does not offer solutions, does not ask us to sympathize, it simply states the fact.
Perhaps the pupil who carefully collects larvae from cherry blossoms is likened to a higher force that takes care of all living things, and sakura is a society that, freeing itself from parasites, simply kills them. Perhaps this is an allegory of the inevitability of everything? Why do these dysfunctional children, so callous and cruel, find common ground only with a dwarf teacher? Because only a freak would understand? Do not focus on the word “freak”, focus on the meaning of this phrase. Only such a person will understand this, and to understand a child, you need to stand on his level. We often hear that children are the flowers of life, but how often do we realize this? A stunning allegory with tulips, with the words that you need to water, care, that you need warmth and sun, and even this does not give complete certainty that the flower will grow and bloom, and does not give us knowledge about what it will be. Not all flowers bloom, but those that do not bloom will never wither.
If you visit the Blue Spring page, you are a fan of Ryuhei Matsuda, Toshiaki Toyoda, or just accidentally pressed the wrong button. I am not advertising this film or offering to see it, but I will say that director Toshiaki Toyoda is amazingly recognizable in his works, including impressive shots, scenes and selection of musical accompaniments. Shooting is special, simple and extraordinary at the same time.
I wanted to be a pilot.
On these words, the heart will miss a blow, instead of black leather gloves - black from the paint of the hands.
Who is this? Nobody knows who.
You suddenly realize that this unknown who you are, and a huge plane roars past you like a dream that will never come true, then why all this? Why did they open this forbidden door to the roof? Because everyone wants to go up? Why this sakura, this spring and this eye-blinding sun? And no one is there to hold on to when there are billions of people around. You don’t know whether your heart is beating or not, there is a collapse for one character, person, viewer. You feel connected. All of a sudden you're amazed by these students, this music and the final video sequence. And you sit silent for a long time, amazed and confused.
Thank you, including for the best final video of my life.
What is youth? This is probably a dawn in a person’s life. Youth is like a gap or even a springboard, a jump from which promises the entry into adulthood. Where we all have our own way.
We see happy everyday life in gray tones. Sakura blooms, the spring sun warms, but we do not smell it and do not feel the heat. We live with inner tension and anxiety. Who are we? What will happen to us? Where do we go? Why should we go? These questions and the lack of answers consume us from within. We're rushing. Someone gives up their dream, someone ends someone else’s life. A feeling of hopelessness...
But each of us wanted to be happy. “If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands,” and we clapped. Putting everything at stake, and in return, we gain a sense of inner satisfaction. Is that what happiness is?
Cigarette smoke replaces air. The untidy and abandoned office, the dirty room of the school toilet is the ideal place for our gatherings and meetings. And if "some flowers are not destined to bloom" - it is probably us. Cruelty is our desire to live and feel alive.
Unfortunately, the finale is predetermined and tragic in advance. He was seen in the empty and sad Kujos, in Yukio’s insane hysteria, in the rejection of the desire to be Aoki. Painted by Cudjo, “No Know Who” most clearly and correctly reflects their lack of goals and the emergence of an inevitable fear of adulthood. Never before has Aoki been so close and at the same time farther from his dream than in the final part of the film. Falling ...
I described the emotions that overwhelmed me during and after watching the film. It was like music was born with this movie. Thank you all. Thank you.
You can make my dream come true and then you can give it back to me!
What will I get back?
Far from being a black social, but something more.
High school students choose a leader through a simple game. It is necessary to stand on the eaves of the roof and, trying not to fall, make a few claps with your palms, and then grab the crossbar. Whoever makes more claps without falling is the winner. The leader is a guy named Kujo. He runs the school from now on. However, his friend Aoki doesn't like Kujo's detachment - he craves cruelty. Then he wants to prove to everyone that he is a leader himself and tries to make more cotton on the roof of the school.
Toyoda’s film, although it contains many scenes of schoolchildren’s neglect of school and life, is not a black social. This film is primarily about teenage loneliness. Both Kujo and Aoki are desperately seeking their place in the world, but cannot find it except in the form of self-affirmation through violence in peer society. Toyoda's violence shows without embellishment, however, and not without cinematic effect. For example, one of the students kills a classmate with several blows of a wide butcher knife. It was his way of asserting himself. By their behavior, teenagers feel the limits of what is allowed, and there is no authority for them. They spray-paint the walls of the school with their own markings, smoke in the hallways of the school, and can throw a shoe at the teacher during class. And of course, they humiliate those who are weaker.
Cujo, seemingly indifferent, although zealously defending his right to be a leader, seems ready to come out of adolescence and recognize the values of the adult world. However, something still prevents him from doing so, so he tacitly condones the violence perpetrated by his friend Aoki. While he still has a future, he can easily ruin him with one wrong act, as did others who did not have time to finish school, and have already fallen into yakuza or prison, or even completely crashed to death, like Aoki. Kujo and Aoki aggressively try to snatch their right to the future, not realizing that they need to work and set goals. Cujo says that he is frightened by people with a purpose. And while this is so, they are forced to deceive themselves, believing that to humiliate the weak is what will happen.
Blue Spring is riddled with a cold that is almost existential. The modern Japanese school, which seems to be the focus of youth and energy, looks deserted, like a stalker zone. This is nothing more than the territory of a gloomy confrontation left to themselves by teenagers who are only interested in self-assertion and leadership. Cruel, aggressive and uncompromising, Toyoda’s film simultaneously addresses the theme of the adolescent’s inner world, finding new artistic means to express human loneliness.
8 out of 10
I will not call it a review, a review, or a critical essay. Let it be an impression.
I love this movie with all my heart. Perhaps this is my favorite movie of all shot in Japan, because it evokes all the sensations that make you admire the land of the Rising Sun. “Aoi Haru” is full of young drive and painful, but quiet, truly “Japanese” longing experienced through contemplation and radicalism. The picture surprisingly combines subtle lyricism and cruelty, humor and tragedy, which makes the story no less real than our behind-the-scenes life, and at the same time elusively airy, enclosing forever lost sensations of school years, when everything is still ahead, and you, perfectly understanding this, waste your days in vain and enthusiastically, collecting the baggage of memories for the rest of your life.
This film is little-known, but it is for the best: it is very intimate, touching painfully sensitive areas of the soul and causing acute attacks of nostalgia. After all, the difficulties of the transition period, socialization are international and in any part of the world are experienced in the same way.
A story about lost teenagers, about yellow-mouthed rebels standing on the threshold of adulthood, who have not yet become anyone and are powerless in attempts to self-determination. They are young men who have a passionate belief that youth is infinite, like the ocean, and in front of them all that their rebellious souls long for. In such an atmosphere of fearful expectation of change, the “Sad Spring” proceeds.
Kujo and Aoki, old childhood friends who have been together through school years, take part in the ordeal that determines the boss, the undivided master of the entire school territory. It is noteworthy that candidates expose themselves to an illusory risk to life, so only the most desperate daredevils compete in it. The victory is celebrated by Cujo, a silent and dreamy guy; it seems that he volunteered to compete only out of boredom, not seeking power. He repeatedly proves his right to be called the boss, putting the bully in his place and solving “organizational issues”, but he, in fact, does not need this. Having received the proud title, he is still a dreamy recluse, proudly walking through the muddy roaring corridors. The faithful comrade, Aoki, understands the behavior of Kujo - becoming the leader of the school, you need to live on a broad foot, revelling in permissiveness! Desperate to reach out to a friend, Aoki enters with Kujo into fierce competition.
Informal director Toshiaki Toyoda, who has never played and shot one after the other films, touched on the themes of Aoi Haru much deeper than it may seem at first. An agonizing expectation of something vague, leading to madness; a reckless desire to live without the looks, mistakes and hopes of yesterday’s children, a strong friendship disfigured by mutual misunderstanding – and all this under the transient, as youth itself, cherry blossoms and the percussion soundtrack from Thee Michelle Gun Elephant.
More than anything, he loved to stand on the edge of the roof, smoke and look where the horizon closes. There was something out there that he was missing. But he didn't know what it was. He just glared at the merging of the sky with the earth and smoked. Perhaps he saw himself there, calm and happy. And here he was an authority, important and independent, successful and popular. Everyone either respected him or feared him. But there's something inexplicable inside him. He didn't feel himself, there was a void eating him. And that wasn't there. And he looked there for hours.
Who is he? He is a high school boy in a Japanese city. He's young and exaggerated. He's a maximalist and a sinner. He's naively audacious and defiantly free, like The Blondie Plastic Wagon and The Michelle Gun Elephant playing around him, like Blue Spring. He, like them, is full of deliberate rudeness and obscurity. There is a secret in it, as in them.
He has friends. Gang. Together they play a dangerous game. Deliberately dangerous, which can cripple, kill. “If you’re happy and know it, clap your hands.” But they know they don't. They're not happy, but they clap anyway. One, two, three, and every cotton comes close to death. They wear black school uniforms. They set their own rules. They own this school.
They are cynical, they have no authority but him, and he has no authority. They are permissiveness and impunity. They are anarchy. But together with the school gardener, they grow flowers. Every flower. And it's more than just flowers. It's a grain. Grain hidden under a thick shell. The grain they store in the emptiness of their souls. A grain they don’t understand but feel. That's what leads him to the roof. That’s what’s on the horizon.
He has no purpose, and the people who have it frighten him. After all, for some, dreams of a national baseball team end in the replenishment of the ranks of the yakuza, and for others, the inability to enter the university brings to a pen when the mind is clouded and you do not know what you are doing until the handcuffs are not shackled with blood. If you do not have a goal, there is no risk of not achieving it, the flowers that will never bloom will never die. Shining emptiness is also a form of being.
It's a movie called Blue Spring. He is not one of many films about difficult school days, about upbringing and transformation. It does not differ in a detailed plot and characters. It might be called socially problematic, or philosophical, or educational, but that would be a mistake, for emptiness cannot be clothed in form. Yeah, it's almost empty. But there's grain in it. If it grows into a flower in the viewer, then perhaps something will change in the viewer, and he will not forget this film. But the flower may wither, and the grain will not sprout. It's not about the soil at all.
Blue is considered the color of harmony, which is dissolved in the underworld and which people so lack. And in the spring, sakura blooms and blooms. One, two, three, and the best friend, driven to despair by indifference, throws up his hands. And small pink petals, driven by the wind, cover the dusty schoolyard, fly into open or broken windows and lie on dirty stairs, on the floor of empty corridors. With their light, harmonious dance, they remind us that “even if our bodies fall apart, our spirit breaks and our tears evaporate, the dreams of youth will not go away.”