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Thursday, November 11, 2010

Cinema Studies - Music

In regards to music, this film has a very cheerful background song from the beginning until the pika. We can hear the background music, the same rhythm; even though it changes to an acoustic version and whistling, it continues as the background. Here we can feel that the fishermen were really happy being together; even though they were fighting, the background music is still cheerful. After that, they had some problems because they couldn't get any fish before they had to go to the south (minami), the music changed turn sad. But when they decided to go to the south, the happy BGM came again, representing the new spirit of fishermen.

When they saw the pika, there was no BGM at all. It was all silence, and suddenly there was a very loud pikadon sound, causing everybody to become panicked. The fallout came along with a mysterious sprinkle background music which makes a clear image, that those fishermen did not really know what the 'mystery white dust' was.

At 00:53:48, the mysterious music, combined with the cutting scene of newspapers, shows more uncertainty about what was actually going on. When the Americans were inspecting the boat, the clock ticking BGM seems to represent the alert and hurry that they were forced to act with, as the possibility of radiation sickness would be increasing day by day. At 01:00:03, they were admitted to Tokyo hospital, and the sad BGM, seems to emphasize their separation from their family, friends, and relatives. When we see images of the hospital, a serene BGM can be heard, possibly to stress the atmosphere inside this place of healing.

When the fishermen were at the hospital, happy BGM can be heard on some occasions, such as the scene when the old lady was asking about makisushi (Japanese roll). At this time, they were happy and got their spirit back. Besides that, when one of the girlfriends came to visit one of them, there was a happy BGM as well. When one of them is happy, everybody else is happy. Nevertheless, when everybody else were getting better, Kuhoyama's condition worsened. When he was in a coma, there was a flashback of the image of the fallout. It can be interpreted that this flashback was a hint to the causal link of Kuhoyama's coma. Boats in the ocean were there with sad BGM, and at 01:33:05 he died in silence, with no music whatsoever. After that there were sounds of birds, and everybody started crying.Here the film tries to set a sombre mood in response to the death of Kuhoyama's. The song is a very sad song, probably not unlike those heard at the funerals of national heroes.

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