The BIG Yellow Thing Called Love -- Lester Fu


    WHILE Aya and Noriko was having a heated discussion regarding whether Noriko loves Kenkichi and what love is, Aya's mom came into the room and looked for a thing "this big and yellow". As absurd and confusing as it may seem, her (Aya's mom) search for this thing concludes the conversation in a highly metaphorical manner.

     We are uncertain of what this big yellow thing is, just like we (as well as the characters in the film) are uncertain of what love is. Noriko's description of being able to trust Kenkichi and envision a happy life with him is taken by Aya as an evidence of love. However, there is a sense of dissatisfaction we get from this description of love. It is possible that the dissatisfaction arises not only because Noriko keeps refusing to call it love, but also because we would imagine love to be something with more romantic passion than simply a choice out of considerations for the mundane life. And clearly there is no obvious sign of that kind of passion in the relationship between Kenkichi and Noriko. 

    In that way, Aya's repeated assertion that Noriko does love Kenkichi is an assertion that the audiences wish to make as well. Yet again and again we are pushed back by Noriko's refusal. Thus, even until the end of the movie it seems unclear whether there is an answer to the question "what is love". There is a parallel between the ambiguity of what love is and the ambiguity of what the big yellow thing is. Perhaps that is as close an answer as we can get for such questions regarding love and happiness -- it is this big yellow thing somewhere in the house, people may have heard of it, but no one seems to know where it is.

    Nevertheless, on a more positive note, maybe love and happiness are like the glasses on Aya's mom's nose, or the husband that Noriko grew up with -- you look for it all over the place, and then you find it was right in front of you all along.

 

 




Comments

  1. Krishnan VenkateshNovember 28, 2021 at 9:14 AM

    If this is a metaphor, then the search for love is being compared to the early stages of dementia -- which may be a true comparison! This is Buddhism 101:

    "Potthapada, it's as if a man at a crossroads were to build a staircase for ascending to a palace, and other people were to say to him, 'Well, my good man, this palace for which you are building a staircase: do you know whether it's east, west, north, or south of here? Whether it's high, low, or in between?' and, when asked this, he would say, 'No.' Then they would say to him, 'So you don't know or see the palace for which you are building a staircase?' When asked this, he would say, 'Yes.'

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