The abstract compassion - HH 

 

In class, we were talking about the compassion of Noriko, and I would like to dig deeper into this topic and connect everything that she does in the course of the movie to really understand this and find out what is at stake here. There is no deny that she is one of the most understanding, thoughtful, and affectionate, if not the most, characters. I am especially impressed by the composition of the scene of her and Tomi when she stands up to turn off the light. There is something ethereal about that shot. Maybe it’s because of the composition of light and dark, or it’s because of Noriko’s composure. Someone says that she looks like a goddess, and I couldn’t get that image off my head since. Her love for other people is like that of a benevolent goddess: it is full of compassion and understanding, but it’s also impersonal. Noriko does everything she could to help other people, but she does not share her difficulties with other people although at the end, we know that she has a story of her own. To me, her compassion bears a strange semblance to that of Rieux in The Plague. One does everything to help other people, but one loses oneself in the abstraction in the absence of an individualistic and personal relationship.

 Noriko sheds light onto other people, not just in the scene with Tomi but also in her conversation with Kyoko. She stands high above and far away from other people, but not in a condescending way. But being so far away, even a goddess gets lonely. It is revealed at the end of the movie that she is just as lost as everyone else, and she could not even know what was wrong with her. Behind that constant smile is a soul struggling to feel grounded. I think that understanding, just like love, is reciprocal: we need to understand other people and let ourselves be understood. If we don’t strive to understand other people, we will become like Shige – thoughtless, careless, judgmental and oblivious to her surroundings. On the other extreme, we have Noriko who is very attentive to everyone besides herself, but she is in pain, lost and lonely. What would become of her and what form would her compassion take when this condition is lengthened? Will it lost itself in abstraction and ultimately, she will become numb?

I guess I’m just curious about what constitutes true understanding and compassion. There is this saying in Vietnamese which basically says that to love something big like your country, you have to start from loving your family (going from individuality to totality). In Marx, there is also this idea of loving all of man because we are a species being. Noriko once more raises that question for me: can we have an  impersonal understanding and abstract compassion towards other people? What would that look like? 



Comments

  1. Krishnan VenkateshNovember 7, 2021 at 8:17 PM

    Very deep insight here, in particular the comparison with Rieux. In Confucius you start with yourself -- then extend to family, then society. If you can't be compassionate to yourself, how can you be so to others? Or maybe compassion for others is easier, and we learn from that to be compassionate to ourselves. But as you say, what IS compassion?

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