美国国家公共电台 NPR A Body-Switching Teen Romance Anime Disaster Flick With 'Your Name.' On It

 

KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:

Let's take a break from the news and go to the movies. For the first two months of this year, a teen romance called "Your Name" was the biggest film of 2017, bigger even than "Lego Batman." It's a Japanese anime film that made more than $300 million at box offices across Asia. "Your Name" finally opens in the U.S. today. Critic Bob Mondello says it's a film worth seeing.

BOB MONDELLO, BYLINE¹: Taki and Mitsuha may both be teenagers, but they could hardly be more different. Taki is a street-savvy boy in Tokyo, raging hormones² in full rage.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "YOUR NAME")

MICHAEL SINTERNIKLAAS: (As Taki Tachibana) Are you the one that's been messing with my phone?

MONDELLO: Mitsuha's a country girl bored with the homemaking rut she's stuck in out in the boondocks.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "YOUR NAME")

STEPHANIE SHEH: (As Mitsuha Miyamizu) I hate this town. Please make me a handsome Tokyo boy in my next life.

MONDELLO: They'd be unlikely even to know about each other, except one morning Taki wakes up in an unfamiliar³ room, looks down at himself and sees a girl's body. His first impulse is exactly what you'd expect of a teenage boy. He brings his hands to his chest.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "YOUR NAME")

SHEH: (As Mitsuha Miyamizu) Whoa. They're so realistic feeling.

CATIE HARVEY: (As Yotsuha Miyamizu) Sis, what are you doing?

MONDELLO: Oops, busted⁴.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "YOUR NAME")

SHEH: (As Mitsuha Miyamizu) Sis? Me?

HARVEY: (As Yotsuha Miyamizu) Breakfast time. Hurry up.

MONDELLO: A look in the mirror clarifies things. Figuring it's a dream, Taki reluctantly decides to go with it. Something similar happens in his bedroom, where Mitsuha wakes up, looks at herself and sees his body. She's even more alarmed...

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "YOUR NAME")

SINTERNIKLAAS: (As Mitsuha Miyamizu, gasps).

MONDELLO: ...Until she looks outside.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "YOUR NAME")

SINTERNIKLAAS: (As Mitsuha Miyamizu) I'm in Tokyo.

MONDELLO: She's definitely going with it. They stumble through their respective days, both of them assuming they're just having a strange dream. But over the course of a couple of weeks...

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "YOUR NAME")

SHEH: (As Mitsuha Miyamizu) I'm slowly beginning to realize what's going on. Taki's in high school and living in Tokyo.

SINTERNIKLAAS: (As Taki Tachibana) Two or three times a week, I'll suddenly and randomly⁵ switch with Mitsuha. It was somewhere out in the boonies. The trigger is sleep. The cause is unknown.

SHEH: (As Mitsuha Miyamizu) Any memories I have of the switch get more and more hazy⁶ after I wake up.

MONDELLO: They start working out ground rules, leaving helpful notes, trying not to wreck⁷ each other's lives. And at about the moment you're waiting for them to just meet, what has seemed like a glistening⁸ teen rom-com turns into a darker, more affecting, very different sort of story - a harrowing survival tale that blends elements of Japan's recent real life nuclear reactor⁹ meltdown with the last reel of the disaster movie "Deep Impact" plus time travel. In short, anime doing what anime does best.

Along the way, you realize how smart writer director Makoto Shinkai has been in adapting his own novel for the screen, and not just with beautiful images. Take the body switching - with all the changes wrought¹⁰ by puberty, teenagers effectively wake up in new bodies every morning anyway. Developing breasts do, of course, interest Taki. He's a boy. But they're new for Mitsuha too, as are the feelings these kids are experiencing - the tension between respect and rebellion and, of course, the urgent need to recall the name they can't remember from the dream they're not sure they're having.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "YOUR NAME")

SINTERNIKLAAS: (As Taki Tachibana) What's your name?

MONDELLO: Taki sketches¹¹ a town he's never been to and wonders, why does looking at it make my chest so tight? This is not the cute little switcheroo comedy you thought you were watching at the beginning - it's deeper, more resonant¹². In the U.S., theaters have a choice. They can show "Your Name" dubbed¹³ into English or in Japanese with subtitles¹⁴.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "YOUR NAME")

UNIDENTIFIED ACTORS: (As characters, speaking Japanese).

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As character, singing in Japanese).

MONDELLO: I've seen both. And while they have different virtues¹⁵, the story is affecting either way. Taki and Mitsuha think they're dreaming. And after about the first 40 minutes of their shimmering¹⁶ film, you may think you are, too. I'm Bob Mondello.

1 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

2 hormones   

n. 荷尔蒙，激素 名词hormone的复数形式

参考例句：

• This hormone interacts closely with other hormones in the body. 这种荷尔蒙与体內其他荷尔蒙紧密地相互作用。
• The adrenals produce a large per cent of a man's sex hormones. 肾上腺分泌人体的大部分性激素。

3 unfamiliar   

adj.陌生的，不熟悉的

参考例句：

• I am unfamiliar with the place and the people here.我在这儿人地生疏。
• The man seemed unfamiliar to me.这人很面生。

4 busted   

adj. 破产了的，失败了的，被降级的，被逮捕的，被抓到的 动词bust的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• You are so busted! 你被当场逮住了！
• It was money troubles that busted up their marriage. 是金钱纠纷使他们的婚姻破裂了。

5 randomly   

adv.随便地，未加计划地

参考例句：

• Within the hot gas chamber, molecules are moving randomly in all directions. 在灼热的气体燃烧室内，分子在各个方向上作无规运动。 来自辞典例句
• Transformed cells are loosely attached, rounded and randomly oriented. 转化细胞则不大贴壁、圆缩并呈杂乱分布。 来自辞典例句

6 hazy   

adj.有薄雾的，朦胧的；不肯定的，模糊的

参考例句：

• We couldn't see far because it was so hazy.雾气蒙蒙妨碍了我们的视线。
• I have a hazy memory of those early years.对那些早先的岁月我有着朦胧的记忆。

7 wreck   

n.失事，遇难；沉船；vt.(船等)失事，遇难

参考例句：

• Weather may have been a factor in the wreck.天气可能是造成这次失事的原因之一。
• No one can wreck the friendship between us.没有人能够破坏我们之间的友谊。

8 glistening   

adj.闪耀的，反光的v.湿物闪耀，闪亮( glisten的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• Her eyes were glistening with tears. 她眼里闪着晶莹的泪花。
• Her eyes were glistening with tears. 她眼睛中的泪水闪着柔和的光。 来自《用法词典》

9 reactor   

n.反应器；反应堆

参考例句：

• The atomic reactor generates enormous amounts of thermal energy.原子反应堆发出大量的热能。
• Inside the reactor the large molecules are cracked into smaller molecules.在反应堆里，大分子裂变为小分子。

10 wrought   

v.引起；以…原料制作；运转；adj.制造的

参考例句：

• Events in Paris wrought a change in British opinion towards France and Germany.巴黎发生的事件改变了英国对法国和德国的看法。
• It's a walking stick with a gold head wrought in the form of a flower.那是一个金质花形包头的拐杖。

11 sketches   

n.草图( sketch的名词复数 )；素描；速写；梗概

参考例句：

• The artist is making sketches for his next painting. 画家正为他的下一幅作品画素描。
• You have to admit that these sketches are true to life. 你得承认这些素描很逼真。 来自《简明英汉词典》

12 resonant   

adj.(声音)洪亮的，共鸣的

参考例句：

• She has a resonant voice.她的嗓子真亮。
• He responded with a resonant laugh.他报以洪亮的笑声。

13 dubbed   

v.给…起绰号( dub的过去式和过去分词 )；把…称为；配音；复制

参考例句：

• Mathematics was once dubbed the handmaiden of the sciences. 数学曾一度被视为各门科学的基础。
• Is the movie dubbed or does it have subtitles? 这部电影是配音的还是打字幕的？ 来自《简明英汉词典》

14 subtitles   

n.说明字幕，印在外国影片上的对白翻译字幕，译文对白字幕；小标题，副标题( subtitle的名词复数 )；（电影的）字幕

参考例句：

• subtitles for the deaf and the hard of hearing 为耳聋和听力不佳者打出的字幕
• a Polish film with English subtitles 附有英语字幕的波兰影片

15 virtues   

美德( virtue的名词复数 )； 德行； 优点； 长处

参考例句：

• Doctors often extol the virtues of eating less fat. 医生常常宣扬少吃脂肪的好处。
• She delivered a homily on the virtues of family life. 她进行了一场家庭生活美德方面的说教。

16 shimmering   

v.闪闪发光，发微光( shimmer的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• The sea was shimmering in the sunlight. 阳光下海水波光闪烁。
• The colours are delicate and shimmering. 这些颜色柔和且闪烁微光。 来自辞典例句