Text | Cat novelist
When Meimei chose to keep this panda in her body, I was a little relieved: I finally want to leave the blessings of my ancestors behind!
The film was not introduced to the mainland, and it was temporarily broadcast online abroad.
If the setting of this film doesn’t appeal to you, you must know another short film animation directed by the film: Bao Bao Bao, which won the Best Animated Short Film Award at the 91st Academy Awards.
For the record, this article covers a lot of spoilers. Please slide away if you care. Thank you.
The surprise of Metamorphosis of Youth is that you can always trust Pixar.
This is a story about Asian families. At the beginning of the film, the protagonist Meimei’s family in Toronto and her temple were explained.
Meimei is an obedient and excellent "other people’s child". At the beginning, it took a few minutes to introduce Meimei’s sacred work before she was 13 years old: she was alert, sensible, idealistic, listened to her mother and had a group of friends with her.
Suddenly, it was the same day as usual after school. Meimei’s friend asked her to take part in singing activities, but she said she wanted to "clean up". When I saw this, I thought she was going to help her mother clean up. In fact, she cleaned and incense the temple at home. The story begins, and their Li family’s past also begins. She has always regarded the "legend" told by her mother as "legend", and one morning after her mother found the boy in her notebook, she found herself suddenly turned into a red panda.
She was so scared that she didn’t dare to tell her mother that she was hiding in the bathroom alone, but her voice caught her mother’s attention. However, her mother mistakenly thought that Meimei was having her period, and quickly sent her a bunch of supplies. Meimei withdrew from her mother’s leisure time and went back to her room, slowly discovering that as long as she relaxed, she would become the original normal "Meimei". By the way, the picture of Meimei combing her hair with a comb is really cute! No one can refuse such a fluffy panda, right?
Meimei kept calm and went to school. She just didn’t want her mother to know that she had put on a hat to cover her red hair. But my mother was still worried about her and even ambushed her school and sent her sanitary napkins.
The beauty of this moment broke out completely, and she became the panda again, running in the street, trying to go home quickly.
At this point, everyone should understand that the story of Meimei has just officially begun, and the contradiction between her and her mother is also out of control from this moment.
Meimei gradually realized that this ability to become a panda is actually a family inheritance: in Meimei’s family, all women will become pandas uncontrollably during adolescence. The uncontrollable causes are often extreme emotions: anger, shame, longing … They face the problem of surrendering this little panda in their hearts together and try to seal it in the mirror.
The power of Metamorphosis of Youth is that it compares a child’s adolescence to a panda. Because in reality, the power of adolescence can’t be underestimated, and the family is a more sensitive topic in China. This Asian-directed film also says that Meimei is her in reality. Her adolescence is like drawing boys, but in fact, it’s not just Meimei. Children who have just reached adolescence have some strange ideas, are obsessed with the "dreaminess" brought by the band, and want to do anything that they are controlled and forbidden to do.
"The English name of the film, Turning Red, actually indicates the direction of" deformation "more clearly than the Chinese name" Metamorphosis of Youth "-red, which refers not only to red-brown pandas, but also to intense emotions, desires, rebellions, self-ambition, maturity, and even menarche and sexual fantasies. All these things together, it is adolescence, and especially refers to the puberty of women. Therefore, "red" is not a purely positive or negative word. On the contrary, it is a complex collection of things-many people think that turning red only symbolizes menarche and it is not accurate. Menstruation is just one of the elements that make it red. "
Red is in contrast to the color of Meimei’s mother. In her mother’s eyes, bringing Meimei up is not for her to be infatuated with 4 Town, nor for her to hide under the bed and paint. What she wants is always the beautiful girl who is sensible and obedient.
When my mother accused the boy in the convenience store of "seducing" her daughter without authorization, and eagerly criticized others without thinking that there was anything wrong with her daughter, it can be said that only my mother knew about the contradiction between the two people.
Meimei still stayed at home to do things, but when she stopped herself, she also released the real Meimei in adolescence.
Adolescence is a seemingly simple but dangerous period.
"The film has a very nuanced and vivid description of this’ danger’. In addition to portraying runaway and eager to move as a giant panda, there is even a vivid description of the taboo topic of’ children’s sex’ in the story: 13-year-old Meimei began to have a good impression on the opposite sex, including her idol, the 4 Town men’s group, and Dai Wen, a boy who works in a corner convenience store. If we only describe naive’ admiration’, it is just the usual routine of youth films. The two details in Metamorphosis of Youth further reveal the desire behind the love. "
Adolescence is infinitely beautiful, and it should be experienced between mother and daughter, whether for Meimei or Mom.
Meimei didn’t accept herself as a panda at first. She thought she was a’ monster’, with a strange smell of hair loss. She was also afraid that others would look at her differently. She thought it was abnormal. Therefore, this is also the reason why Meimei compromised with her mother several times, because she felt that everything would be solved as long as she compromised.
But what followed was the mother’s incomprehension and the’ persuasion’ of all ethnic groups. Even if the first practice failed, my mother would say, it doesn’t matter, we can start over, but at this moment Meimei realized that youth can’t be started over.
She jumps in the city, which is her heartfelt happiness, and she moves towards the light, which is the power of youth.
Back to the movie itself.
As soon as this film is on the line, the unavoidable topic is "discrimination".
In fact, not only Metamorphosis of Youth, but also the director’s first work Bao Bao Bao did not escape this remark, and The Lion Boy, which was released a few months ago, was used to say things because of "small eyes".
But the movie is really good. I’m not a fan of any director. I hardly knew her before watching the movie, so I just thought it was good.
Pixar’s films all have their own’ souls’, and there are really no technical problems in the picture texture and detail description, but Metamorphosis of Youth is about the adolescence that we have passed and that many children are about to meet. It’s a scourge, but it’s not bad luck. Meimei said that the panda stayed, and she also left this’ adolescence’ as happiness.
So at the end of the film, it’s a happy ending. They, Qi Xin, worked together to save the transformed mother and took a photo with 4 Town. On the night when the Red Crescent left, Meimei almost experienced many events that she didn’t dare to think about. It was also because of her panda that the Lee Ancestral Temple flourished, and her mother completely changed her previous stubborn ideas and stopped disciplining her daughter harshly.
After watching the movie, I feel comfortable because I know it must have a good ending, but what is warm is that you know that this movie is absurd and unrealistic, but at least it tells us women that you can choose any way to treat prejudice, or seal and hide it, or just ignore it, but we can even choose to believe that this kind of’ magic’ is real, and hug the red panda in your body without any worries.
At the end of the article, I want to say that any episode in life may be to test your perseverance in growth. The story of Metamorphosis of Youth is over, and our lives are still going on. I can’t help but wonder if Meimei will ask her daughter not to do anything when she grows up, and will she be afraid that she will go astray and do some behaviors that her daughter can’t understand.
It doesn’t matter. What matters is that we all have to go through puberty and find our own red panda.
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