Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Mono No Aware
Mono no aware is the Japanese idea of the awareness of the transience of beauty and the ultimate sadness of life. After watching Tokyo Story can you better understand this concept? What were your emotional feelings at the end of the film? What were you thinking when you saw the final image: the old man alone in the house fanning himself? Are there other moments when you felt the sadness and the beauty of life?
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If believe that the closing scene were the old man fans himself alone sums up the concept of mono no aware quite well. The with each beat of the fan a pleasant burst of wind is produced, but the sensation is short lived. He must beat the fan over and over to produce a minor relief from the heat of the day. Despite this he continues to fan himself. To me this is mono no aware; the heat, or sadness of live, is ever present, and relief from it is short lived and not without effort. The old man continues to fan himself and he continues to live. His wife is dead and the pride he had for his children has mostly vanished, but he still carries on. Would he continue to beat his fan if only one stroke gave continuous relief? Would he continue to truly live if his first experience of happiness never faded?
ReplyDeleteThe idea that the beauty of life is transient creates the idea that one must always be working towards a new happiness, as it does not last long relative to life itself. This is the concept that the old man and his wife try to instill in their daughter in law, who still waiting for the happiness she knew with her deceased husband to come back. The film works to show that something that creates happiness is ultimately lost and cannot be brought back. No amount of remorse or reminiscence could bring the children's' mother back. The old man is shown to know this; the morning of the mother death the children sit by her morning, but the old man is outside enjoying the fleeting beauty of the dawn.
I suppose in some ways after watching Tokyo Story I received a better and clearer understanding of the Japanese concept of Mono No Aware. Tokyo Story as a whole was a very grim and depressing film. Every aspect of it including its cuts, takes, characters, etc gave off a vibe of sadness and emotional baggage weighing heavily on its character’s minds and hearts. Throughout the movie it feels as though there’s a constant decrease in hope and optimism towards life and living in general. Some scenes towards the middle of the film show the parents and their emotion towards their lives and those of their children; in scenes showing the expressions of people who seem to be completely empty. Tokyo Story intertwines the saddened lives of the elderly with the even sadder lives of those with those who still have youth. It’s quite ironic to see how sad people who are “assumed/thought” to be in the happiest years of their lives be so blank and emotionless. I don’t know if Tokyo Story portrays the ultimate and absolute sadness of life, but it sure does come close.
ReplyDeleteMono No Aware is the Japanese idea of the awareness of the transience of beauty and the ultimate sadness of life. Tokyo Story seems to demonstrate this concept throughout via character interaction, primarily amongst the family which the film centers upon. At the end of the film, after the old man's wife has died and his extended family has left him to die alone in his small home town, I had few emotional feelings. Primarily I felt sadness for the character of the old man. Another instance in which I experienced sadness was when the old man gradually came to the realization that his children were relatively unsuccessful working-class citizens who did not care enough and were much too busy to spend time with him (and their mother). After watching Tokyo Story I suppose that I can understand the concept of Mono No Aware better.
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