Dog's films recommendation Hachiko: A Dog's Tal

May your love never fade

Love and loyalty, in fact, are the themes that many works of art are willing to tirelessly express, because it is perhaps the softest and most touchable part of people. When you meet by chance, you are willing to love. When you love deeply, you are willing to wait. "Hachi", the interpretation of such stories by a dog and an old man is very touching and direct to the heart.

In 1987, Japan released a film adapted from real life, " Hachiko monogatari". The story of "Hachi" was reproduced by American director Lasse Hallström in 2009. The two films tell the same story: an old man took in a Japanese Akita dog named Hachi at the railway station, and they began to live together. Then the Hachi waited for the old man to come home from work at the railway station every day. After the old man died of illness, Hachi still waited for the old man to return every day at the station regardless of the weather in spring, summer, autumn and winter. He waited for ten years until he finally lost sight, walked hard and died in endless waiting and snow. The special three-stage narrative of space-time intersection in the film introduces the narrative back to the core of the story to show us the spiritual communication and sincere feelings between people and animals.

"Hachi" uses a lot of montage techniques, such as cross montage. In the film, the description from the perspective of Hachi is a clue, while the description of the life of the protagonist's family in reality is another clue, but the two clues influence each other, depend on each other and promote each other. The defamiliarization of the animal perspective in "Hachi" produces an unexpected artistic effect: after the death of the professor, according to human thinking, naturally there is no need to wait for him at the railway station, but Hachi do it. What is embodied here is a kind of "defamiliarization", namely "abnormality".

Puppies have poor eyesight. In their world, there are only three colors: black, white and grey. The director uses this feature to have a great idea in color application. Human visual angle and social scenery use color tones, mostly warm tones, which reflects the warm interaction between the hero Parker and Hachi, as well as the happiness and harmony of the family and the people around them. When portraying Hachi, the film uses black-and-white pictures with high saturation to simulate his subjective perspective. While emphasizing on depicting human beings, it also uses this method to focus on portraying the inner world of Hachi, which is not noticed by other movies of the same kind. The intersection of black-and-white pictures and color pictures naturally separates Parker's and Hachi's different perspectives. And they all give different emotional colors. At the end of the film, the professor's grandson also led an Akita dog to school. The name of the Akita dog is also called "Hachi". This scene also uses warm tones, which contrasts with the sad and cold tones of the previous Hachi's death. It makes people regain a warm feeling and extends the plot of the film with endless aftertaste.

"Hachi" is a fascinating story, and the audio-visual language is equally wonderful. It tells us what is love and loyalty with a moving emotional story between people and animals. At the end of the film, Parker's grandson walks along the railway with his puppy and the picture fades out. In my opinion, the director's intention must be more than just to express "love". Ten years is a dog's life, and Hachi's persistence touches the whole world, it is precisely because he has such a pure love. In human society, you will encounter different people and different things, and you will not be able to pour everything into one person. So, when there are people around you who have a love for you, cherish it, as Parker said in the film, "Whatever happens, never forget the people who love you."

Reference list

1. Borgerson, J. and Schroeder, J. (2005) ‘Identity in Marketing Communications: an Ethics of Visual Representation in Allan Kimmel (eds) Marketing Communication: New Approaches, Technologies, and Styles. Oxford: Oxford University Press.