I saw three segments, but I chose to write on The Blizzard, because it seemed a lot of people weren't writing about it and it seemed confusing. So here is my analysis of The Blizzard. There were four hikers climbing what seems to be a mountain and there is a terrible blizzard which was making it incredibly difficult for them to see which way they are going. The men were visually tired and made grunts for the first few minutes of the segment, until one of them said that it was getting darker and they should rest. Another man, who was seemingly stronger and more experienced told the rest that they still have a ways to go and they shouldn't rest because there's a major storm coming. He reminded them that it's only been a couple of hours since they left. The rest did not listen to him, so he continued to be on his way leaving them behind him. In the second part of the segment, the man fell from being worn-out and was almost unconscious when a strange woman approached him and covered him with a warm blanket. She kept saying that "the snow is warm" and "the ice is hot" and continued to push him back down whenever he tried to get up and leave. She was obviously trying to kill him by the use of the forthcoming storm and icy weather. After some struggle, the woman disappears and he gets back on his feet to continue hiking to his place of destination. He soon realizes that he was not far away from his destination as he thought he was.
The woman represents the evil demons that exist in the Shinto religion. She is known as "yuki-onna" and she tried to distract the man from his goal. He told the other hikers to "get up" and strived to remind them that they are "mountain-men" and this is what they do and to not let the blizzard defeat them. He resisted the temptation from the demon woman and managed to remain pure in his objective to accomplish what he came to do. I read an article on shinto sins and one of them was "to avoid things which disrupt the group of which one is a member." I feel like he did not succumb to the demon's temptations to rest and lie down in the snow rather than continue on his journey. He fulfilled his personal duty as a "mountain-man" and he was rewarded by reaching his destination in such a short while.
Although I watched a different segment, "The Weeping Demon", I like how you watched others and then chose one that not many were writing about because it was a challenge and still interpreted it well so that I, having not watched it, understood the concept behind it. I also thought that it was both interesting as well as good that you read another Shinto article and were able to parallel it to this clip, doing and using more research than we had to in this assignment.
ReplyDeleteI did not watch your segment I did The Tunnel which not alot of people did either but they way you interpreted the segment was great i was able to understand it without watching it. From what i have read i would also say that the segment relates to the evil demons in the Shinto religion.
ReplyDeleteYours is the first posting that I read on "The Blizzard" and I think you did a great job. The most interesting thing I found about this clip was the woman who was trying to sway the main mountain-man from his goal. I think you did a wonderful and very accurate job in relating this clip to the Shinto religion when you talk about how the woman represented the demon. Even from the article you read, I think you did a great job of relating it back to this clip when you talk about how the man was not affected by the demon's temptations unlike the other man and continued on with his journey until the end. Also, I think you did a great job in explaining this clip and relating the Shinto religion to it because I watched a different clip and understood exactly what you wrote and agree with all of your connections.
ReplyDeleteI actually began the blizzard clip but became very confused early on so decided to switch. After reading your analysis of it; the whole thing has become more clear and seems a lot easier to understand. I do believe that this definitely had to do with the evil demons that are present in the Shinto religion.
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