I took some time this afternoon to watch Bridge to Terabithia (aka The Bridge to Terabithia). After Howl’s Moving Castle, this is the fairy-tale fable film I’ve liked most.
The film opens with a boy scribbling and running — art and dreams on one side, a hint at the rush of reality on the other.
We live, we hustle, we run. From a certain angle you could say that the teeming crowds, bustling to and fro, are still muddling along, numbly living lives that make no sense at all. For money, for power, we scurry around all day long, forgetting the fantasies of childhood, giving up our ideals, our interests and our gifts, losing who we really are.
Open your heart and keep your mind infinitely open, and you can create a brand-new world that belongs to you.
The boy comes from a family that’s in the red. He loves to draw and to run, but because of his family situation he doesn’t seem to fit in. The girl who moves in next door and transfers into his class doesn’t fit in either (my guess: because she’s too good). Both of them get picked on by the school bullies, so they decide to go looking together for a secret territory of their own, one with none of those obnoxious classmates.
You run a stretch into the forest, reach the creek, swing across on the rope over it to the far bank, and arrive at an idealized “land of kings.” Soon they’ve founded a kingdom here — Terabithia. They fend off the attacks of the Dark Lord’s minions — pine trees, porcupines, vultures — build a castle on the foundations of an abandoned tree house, free the Dark Lord’s prisoners, rule over Terabithia, and defend the castle from dark monsters and giant beasts…
I think everyone has a kingdom of their own in childhood. When I was little, a few classmates and I once occupied the abandoned camper downstairs and turned it into a haunted castle — and even then outsiders were always stirring up trouble. Later I built models of warships, fighter jets and civic buildings at home and put together a simulated city…
Oh, right — I also drew skulls and treasure maps. The skulls hung in the castle to scare off invaders; the treasure maps were handed out in limited quantities…
What classic years those were. Hidden away in them are countless beautiful memories beyond counting or remembering.
Living in reality, hustling about, in the end it comes to nothing — you’re a loser whether you win or lose. What matters is that you don’t forget the pure, beautiful fantasies of childhood, those incredible, dreamlike-yet-not-dreamlike, elusive fantasies.
Friend, open your heart and keep your mind infinitely open. You can create a brand-new world of your own.
On the girl Leslie’s****death (a “dictatorial” personal opinion; ignore it if you don’t like it):
I’d assumed the film’s point was to reawaken the child in people, that it was a warm, My Neighbor Totoro–style story. I never imagined it would use “death” to elevate things — isn’t that superfluous? It was fine without the death; by the two-thirds mark I was already ready to give the film full marks, and then the plot hit me with a bolt from the blue. And now look — the American My Neighbor Totoro has turned into the American Pan’s Labyrinth. Through the whole last stretch I kept waiting for a miracle, thinking this was a fairy tale and it would surely have a happy ending, but by the end the die was cast… It sure earned a lot of audience tears.
Still, at least they didn’t make the audience look at the body, and there’s no heart-rending wailing. The film still expresses the belief that people must live on bravely in this lonely, absurd, inexplicable world.
(A pessimistic reading: the film is really suggesting that no matter how strong your imagination and how pure and lovely your dreams, they’re pale and powerless before reality — death! Read that way, I think the film is superfluous: it sabotages the very atmosphere of spiritual homecoming it built up in the earlier part.)
Could pressure from Christians in the West be the reason they killed off this girl who doesn’t believe in Christ — to vent their spite?
If they’d swapped in that actress from The Chronicles of Narnia to die, I bet there’d be a lot fewer tears (-_-!).
To watch this film you should also watch a few related ones — My Neighbor Totoro, Pan’s Labyrinth, Howl’s Moving Castle.
Comments from other viewers on Douban:
端午: (1) Fairy tales, presumably, are mostly written by adults, and presumably besides children, adults read them too. The adult world contains too many impurities; colorful as they are, they’re no longer the many-colored splendor of childhood. People will still say you haven’t grown up whenever you mention fairy tales. Just know this in your heart: a wounded heart and a masked face still having the courage to stand open and honest before pure fairy tales — that is probably exactly what lets you taste a sweetness in life that others can’t, rather than only rushing about and helplessness. (2) The authors of fairy tales aren’t ignorant of life’s cruelty, aren’t avoiding it. It’s precisely because they understand it that they understand life’s beauty even more, and that’s why the world in their writing is so pure, so illusory. (3) But is there such a thing as a fairy tale in reality? (4) But what if the fairy tale were very realistic, and the story in the fairy-tale world were no longer pure, no longer illusory? (5) A path opens in the labyrinth wall, yet the bullet strikes Ofelia; bright red blood runs down her arm, yet where it drips at the center of the altar, it opens the door to the underworld; Ofelia sees the king, her father in the underground kingdom, while everyone else sees her cold corpse. Illusion, or reality? Is this the illusion she imagined, or a real fairy tale? Or is this, too, a labyrinth — inside our minds. In the dark, rainy weather, the flitting fairy is no longer a winged creature with cicada wings; its exterior is blue-black, its face hideous; Ofelia wants to go back to the underground kingdom and become a princess again, but the one guiding her is Pan, god of beasts, embodiment of nightmares. How we wish this were a fairy tale, so Ofelia could happily turn back into a princess. Even though her kind heart could give up returning for the sake of the little brother in her arms, she dies anyway, at the hands of a cruel dictator. In the end, in that golden, glittering hall, she returns to the underground world and becomes a princess again — yet how do we know this isn’t just her fantasy? We hope it isn’t, and yet we feel it is. We’re still in reality; we don’t know whether Ofelia made it to that beautiful fairy-tale world. (6) Terabithia is a wonderful fairyland. With a magnificent castle, a winding river, a Dark Lord who has the people of Terabithia besieged, whose evil minions try to destroy freak and leslia, and a giant whose weakness, it turns out, is that grass growing between her toes tickles. And all of this is imagined by freak and leslia. After school they swing across the creek to this forest that belongs only to them, bringing along that puppy which is the giant’s dog, and the tree giant who follows them is modeled on the schoolyard bully girl, the monsters running on the ground are really little squirrels that can throw pinecones, and their cries are the boys in class who always bully freak; the things flying in the sky are eagles. Who says childhood is all happiness — an ordinary family, loneliness, a somewhat timid freak; only the fantasy world under his pen is beautiful, plus a beautiful, kind music teacher. Only together with leslia, who loves fantasy just as much, in their fairy-tale world, do they get to have a beautiful, happy childhood. A boy who draws especially well; a girl who does woodwork especially well; a wonderful fairyland reached by imagination alone. Let’s all sink quietly into this happiness and illusion. Yet that morning, the music teacher took freak into the city to visit a museum and didn’t invite Leslie to come along. That afternoon the sunlight was the same as ever, but freak and the rest of us were told that when leslia went into the forest alone, the rope snapped, and she who smiled like an angel had left. We cried. I always thought that in this story, freak and leslia would walk out of loneliness together, grow strong together, and the story would end there. If so, the story would be very ordinary — so ordinary it would soon be forgotten. But even so, I’d rather — I’d rather not remember this beautiful little girl than have her leave this world. (7) leslia’s death is more natural, more lifelike; and so, all the more tearful — because of that smile of hers, like a cool breeze, like warm sunshine. At least, through freak’s final care for his little sister jesse, we see redemption and hope, perhaps. ofelia’s death, though, is darker; even though the scene of her turning back into a princess appears, we still feel it’s the hallucination of her dying moments, that near-despair darkness, that darkness which mocks our wishful thinking about fairy tales. (Postscript one) I’d rather live in the house beside that nanmu tree. When I first moved in, if I’d met a black spirit, I’d probably have opened my eyes wide just like Mei, and been more surprised than frightened. Suddenly I think of my own home, and the creek by the road. Does the hill behind our house have a cute, chubby Totoro in it too!
nettv: I just finished The Bridge to Terabithia — a work that touches the heart. Only after reading about it did I learn that it’s adapted from a novel, and a novel with profound influence in the US. Since I haven’t read the original, I’ll just talk about my own feelings about the film: 1. Life can be happy and simple, but it’s also full of unknown troubles and disasters. Through abstract fantasy, the work tells us to face everything bravely and open our hearts. 2. As the plot unfolds step by step, I gradually came to like so much of it and to recall bits and pieces of my own childhood. The melancholy boy, the dull chores, the bland schoolwork, the sudden turns into wonder, Leslie’s idiosyncratic personality, her rich imagination, the childlike innocence and enthusiasm she can’t hide — all of it instantly infected the boy, and infected me. Sadly, beautiful things are always fleeting; Leslie disappears, and the world of the two of them turns lonely again. Pain, repression, regret, all mixed together. When he finally realizes that nothing can be changed or undone, he picks himself up again and lets everything carry on its beauty and magic. All of this happens to a boy — how could it not stir you deeply. 3. The work has a strong Western flavor. Running through it from start to finish are encouragement, tolerance and the pursuit of ideals, and the plot is natural and engaging. I truly hope we can have works that teach us these ways of encouraging and educating children. Finally, I recommend it to all my friends. May every child grow up smoothly.
月华清影: Tonight I finished watching Bridge to Terabithia (bridge to terabithia) alone, and I was a complete mess of emotion. In the related forums on Baidu and Douban, the posts are also one long chorus of lament. Come to think of it, this film suits my taste especially well, because in it I vaguely see my own childhood. I had a similar feeling before, when I read The Green-Haired Water Monster. I was a freshman then, and one line has stayed with me ever since: “Not everyone gets to meet their Yao Yao.” The stages of life aren’t like a fairy tale, full of chance encounters. Most people have also grown used to mediocrity and triviality. Only after you meet “him/her” do you discover how unbearable your life was all along. If she had never appeared, that country boy’s life would have been like most people’s — bland and boring. His parents, struggling to feed five children, wear sour faces and have short tempers. His sisters mock him and keep their distance. He sleeps in a small, dirty bed, has no new sneakers, and can only go to school in his sisters’ hand-me-down shoes, enduring his classmates’ jeers. His teacher is a stern, boring old woman. At school the boys tease him, making a “beep beep” sound whenever he comes close. That fat girl from the upper grades bullies him openly. Even the school bus driver, when he’s framed, throws him off the bus without asking any questions. After school he still has to help his always-busy father. A childhood like that plays out for countless people — luckily, that transfer student changed everything. The moment Leslie appeared, her striking presence knocked me sideways. I marveled that such a girl could exist — so full of spirit and yet so sweet. Leslie has an extraordinary imagination. Together with him, on the far side of the bridge to Terabithia, she builds an imagined country: Terabithia. There are magnificent castles, giant tree trolls, evil pine-tree monsters, sword-bearing dragonfly knights… Everything is real, and everything is fake. Magic and reality interweave; Terabithia is the paradise children build in their minds. The ending is impossible to accept. But compared with most people, the boy is still lucky. If he had never met her, how could he have shaken off all the trivial fetters of reality and enjoyed the wonderful world of fairy tales? Not everyone gets to meet their Yao Yao…
墨墨:收到明信片要吱声 It’s not fantasy — it’s the story of a boy growing up, and of his spiritual mentor, the girl next door. Growing up, and the troubles of growing up, is an eternal topic. Little Jesse has clean eyes and a sensitive soul. The troubles he runs into: 1. Not fitting in. He’s quiet by nature and loves running and drawing. 2. Being bullied. By classmates and by older kids. 3. A poor family. He can only wear his sister’s running shoes. 4. Craving a father’s love. Wishing his father would value him, even if it’s just a hug. 5. A secret crush on the beautiful music teacher. Just as he was sinking into these worries day after day, a girl named Leslie transferred into his class. Jesse’s life had always been closed up in a narrow environment and a stuffy atmosphere. Leslie’s arrival was like a key given by an angel; she opened the door to another world and led Jesse to see a broader world — and, more importantly, a broader soul. Leslie’s thinking is far more mature than Jesse’s; she has her own little philosophical system. She tells Jesse that a person’s growth has nothing to do with their parents. (My parents are writers — that’s got nothing to do with me having an imagination. Your father works at a hardware store — are your hardware skills that good?) She appreciates Jesse’s drawings. She gives him expensive watercolor paints. She keenly notices Jesse’s admiration for the music teacher and encourages him to help her carry heavy things. She creates the wonderful world of Terabithia and encourages Jesse to imagine, to build this world. We can see very clearly that Terabithia exists entirely inside the children’s heads, but we can also see the journey to Terabithia as the boy’s journey of growth and tempering. Accept the challenge, exercise your courage, and put it to use in your life. Rather than a private space belonging to two children, it’s a training ground Leslie created for Jesse. After all this, Jesse’s life changes. He gradually stops being timid, and he dares to say out loud to his father what he’s unhappy about. When the music teacher takes him to the museum, his eyes shine, and we can foresee that in the life ahead, Jesse will move toward a broader world, and he’ll always keep his love of drawing and his joy in imagining. We can guess at his profession: illustrator, advertising man, writer, picture-book author, film director. We can even imagine that when he grows up he’ll write, draw and film the Terabithia he can never forget. (Just musing… please don’t argue with me.) The boy has grown up. And his mentor Leslie, on the day he went to the museum, fell into the creek and lost her life. Or we could say that when the angel finished her task, she left this world; Leslie vanished forever into the creek that lies between the farm and Terabithia. In a sense, Leslie is the Bridge to Terabithia — she is what connects reality and imagination. At the end of the film, Jesse builds a bridge over the creek and leads his little sister to Terabithia. Jesse takes over Leslie’s role and becomes his little sister’s mentor. When the little sister grows up, there will surely be another mentee (I’d guess the baby in their family), and Terabithia will welcome generation after generation of princes and princesses. The fuel is used up, yet the fire is passed on, and no one knows its end. This is the best annotation of Leslie.