Deep Sea： The Creation of Marine Narrative in Domestic Animated Films with Failed Stitching

Original title: Ocean Narration of Suture Failure

In the literary narrative spawned by farming civilization, Haijiang has rarely become the protagonist or home of the performance. With the strategy of building a maritime power gradually becoming clear, the literary creation of marine narrative is particularly urgent. The animated film Deep Sea not only takes the name of the sea, but also constructs a marine wonder with oriental characteristics with gorgeous special effects technology. This animated film, which has accumulated seven years’ achievements, should have started the ocean narrative of China’s animation after the "Journey to the West". However, the narrative hole caused by the lack of "main brain" eventually made the work fall into ruins and became a "sewing monster" of "four unlike".

The ambition of stitching: the mosaic of the story world

Deep Sea, with the shell of talking, focuses on creating a colorful oriental marine world. It is refreshing by borrowing classic texts such as Zhuangzi and using colors with traditional aesthetic charm. However, through the crowded and dazzling formal matrix of the work, it is not difficult for us to separate the familiar pre-text elements from its artistic world.

The internal and external structure of the Deep Sea Hotel reveals the traces of the soup house in the cave and the castle in Carl’s Moving Castle. Tang Popo, Chihiro, Bailong, Karl and Kaonashi, who regard money as the South River of life, are also in great coincidence with the mysterious sea elves. Because of the popularity of the nursery rhyme "Little White Boat", it is embedded in the climax of the work; At the end, Nanhe and Betelgeuse bid farewell to each other in the sea, almost recreating the classic lens.

This world construction, which combines Chinese and western cultures and is uneven in ancient and modern times, stems from the animation growth experience of the creative team, and also shows an artistic/commercial ambition of "winning the world". The biggest stitching of the film is to connect the fictional animation world with the real "bereavement of culture" emotions such as divorced family children’s problems and depression, trying to arouse the audience’s value resonance with transcendental emotional resonance and realize the appeal of animation intervention in reality.

However, the accumulation of complex and extensive elements did not bring steampunk aesthetic to the film. On the contrary, because of too strong and deliberate desire for expression, the above elements were reduced to mechanical platter, which failed to produce the due artistic effect. For example, the performance of the Deep Sea Hotel, with the push and pull of the camera, the over-saturated colors and shapes keep pouring into the audience’s sight, which certainly shows the hectic and crowded situation of the Deep Sea Hotel. However, compared with Spirited Away’s similar display of the soup house, Deep Sea fails to organically integrate this hectic and crowded situation with the extension of the plot, making the scene almost separated from the characterization and plot development, and becoming a dazzling skill field for the art group. The expression of "bereavement of culture" and children of divorced families could have been the core value of the work, but the whole narrative indulged in emotional venting, lacking reflection and discussion, and the realistic theme failed to help deepen the plot, which was only the oral highlight of film propaganda.

The absence of "main brain": the hollowing out of artistic connotation

Deep Sea brings together ancient and modern Chinese and foreign elements, but it can’t produce the artistic charm it deserves. In the final analysis, it is the lack of the film’s "main brain". Li Yu, a drama theorist in the late Ming and early Qing Dynasties, put forward the requirement for drama creation, that is, to make clear the story context and contradictions and conflicts, and not to spread branches and vines. Transplanting it into movies means that we should make clear in advance what stories to tell, what characters to portray and what ideas to express. It is precisely the ambiguity on these three issues that makes the artistic connotation of Deep Sea empty, leaving only the shell of picture/technology.

From the story level, the film could have reflected on the growth of children from divorced families closely around "finding a mother". However, because there are too many elements in the film that want to pay tribute or show off, this core story has been shaken repeatedly, and finally it has only become a dream, tears or slogan of staying in the house, and even until the end of the film, this core story has not been completely closed.

From the perspective of characterization, as the hostess, Betelgeuse has completely become a flat symbol figure. Artistic creation often gradually fills the character through various emergencies, and completes the image-building of the protagonist in the final contradiction and conflict. In Deep Sea, there is no trace of the growth of Betelgeuse. In the face of Tang Popo’s difficulties, Chihiro won affirmation with his courage, struggle and hard work. In the face of Nanhe’s refusal to release the sea elves, Alnitak only verbally "begged you" and obtained a series of opportunities through verbal entreaties. The deep sea hotel, which has maintained a one-star rating for a long time, has quickly climbed to four stars because of the washing and brushing of Betelgeuse. When the narrative line of the ocean reached its climax, the depression of Betelgeuse attracted a powerful frustrated ghost, and the whole ship was unable to fight it. It was at this time that the "in hindsight and in hindsight" worshippers knew that they had attracted the frustrated ghost, filled with self-reproach, and relied on the mumbling of "I’m not afraid of you" to inspire the fighting spirit of the whole ship and completely crush the frustrated ghost. This superficial narrative, instead of shaping Betelgeuse’s strength, courage and boldness, makes the particle ink special effects that cost a lot of money become vulgar and melodramatic accessories, and the hostess gradually deviates from the growth route and becomes a "crying only" rescuer.

From the perspective of concept expression, according to the original narrative logic or the value position of official propaganda, the belief of love and redemption should be expressed through the story of staying in the house. However, from the final presentation of the work, the story tells the story of children from divorced families "looking for their mothers", but it is Nanhe, a clown who has nothing to do with this core story, who provides love and redemption. Whether the love of people outside the family can save the cold inside the broken family is surely not a question that can give a definite answer quickly. What’s more, the film only began to show Nanhe’s redemption to Alnitak in the final stage, while the previous value expression focused on conveying the idea that the "mourning" of Alnitak would bring disaster to people around. The dislocation of the two dimensions makes the value expression of the film gradually deflect to the incorrect position that it is not necessary to "mourn" and that depression will bring disaster to the people around, which completely empties the artistic connotation of the work.

"Deep Sea" undoubtedly has an important contribution and demonstration significance to the exploration of marine narrative in domestic animated films, and its exquisiteness in form also shows the superb level of animation art skills and aesthetic taste. However, the most infectious artistic impact of the film stays on the exquisite posters. Once it goes deep into the story world, the audience will only feel the "broken flow and lost a bell" that is riddled with holes and difficult to justify. Although "rolling pictures" is the realistic demand of China Animation School in the new era, the lasting charm of film and television art still lies in the touching of stories and values to the audience. Instead of clinging to the production of colorful "poster movies", it is better to return to the original heart of narrative art and impress and infect people with good stories. (Author: Associate Professor Du Xiaojie, School of Journalism and Communication, Nanning Normal University)