Cultural Interpretation Of Ancestor Faith In Seediq Bale

As the first epic blockbuster in the history of Taiwan film, spent 12 years for planning, 700 billion new Taiwan dollars and 5 hours of the final version, Seediq Bale eventually won the Golden Horse Award in Taiwan and the mainland Chinese Film Media Award, even officially participated in the Venice Film Festival. Although it has received numerous awards and also has been highly appreciated by experts, some audiences and medias even foreign experts at the Venice Film Festival are very critical of it,and they hold the opinion that this film reflects a brutal belief and ambiguous political stance.This thesis tries to explain the spiritual connotation of divine dimension of ancestor faith from the dual perspective which are the outer research of cultural roots movement sweeping all over the global and the inner research of Seediq’s traditional ancestor faith, in order to point out the very true aggression under the civilization which reflected by the sun flag in Japan and the pursuit of paradise and harmonious balance of life energy behind the seeming barbaric ancestor faith. The reasons why modern audience and some experts feel difficult to understand the big grass part are as follows. Firstly, there’s a certain distance between our civilization life and the concepts of primitive beliefs and myths,the distance between secular and saint makes us further away the faith and feels difficult to understand the traditional divine behaviors. Secondly, due to the requirement of television drama, the director needs to exaggerate the conflicts and hatred factors of bloody sacrifice for the ancestors, which enhances the confusion and rejection between audience and the original myth. Modern civilization has a humanitarian moral ideal height, but it still can’t effectively prevent the aggression to others and the destruction to the Mother Earth. After modern human initiative departed with the divine saint, they are thrown into a crazy and pathological narcissism division status instead of a real introspective, spiritual and pleasant world. On the contrary, Seediq tribes who hold the ancestor faith which is regarded as primitive superstition and bloody have active interactions with the cosmic energy and live in a highly spiritual life. As the perfect mirror of un-alienated modern civilization, the tradional ancestor worship faith gives us some certain inspirations.In addition to the introduction and conclusion parts, this essay is completed with three chapters.The first chapter is divided into three sections, mainly explaining the cultural roots movement which sweeps all over the global. At the beginning of this part is a brief summary of cultural roots movement occurred in Western of the late 20 th century, which starts the real spiritual meaning of the two opposite faiths between the civilization of sun flag and the ancestor faith in the film. As a response of modern Western capitalist crisis, cultural roots movement consists of three aspects: orient steering, original steering and ecology steering. Then, the film does a comprehensive interpretation of sun flag faith which stands for Japanese modern civilization and points out the dual characteristics of violence and humanity. Compared with the civilized sun flag, Seediq’s ancestor myth faith symbolizes a cultural root, and has the mystical cultural meaning of ecological, original and oriental.The second chapter is divided into three sections, mainly explaining ancestor faith in Seediq Bale. At the beginning of this part is a detailed outlook of the center universe belief which reflects by ancestor myth faith, and the reason why Seedqi worships ancestor spirits is a reflection of their eager desire to live in the holy center of the universe. Then, point out the Seediq’s two different choices of ancestor worship faith that are saving life for the family tree or fighting for souls when they face Japanese colonial civilization. There are six Dirk Dayak tribes in total choosing fighting for souls. Despite different tribes make different choices, they reach a reconciliation of a certain aspect: the survivors will be more proud because of the sacrifice action. Since the film was born, there are many different kinds of opinions about the blood sacrifice part which is the so-called Big Grass Cut. This chapter tries to restore the seeming mythical bloody act of worship from mythology angle.The third chapter is divided into three parts, mainly explaining the enlightenment which ancestor faith brings to the modern civilization in Seediq Bale. First is the confirm revelation of heaven on earth. The center of the universe of ancestor faith and the eternal return of Seediq’s universe space and time by ceremony give us a pursuit of heaven on earth and eliminate the difference between the sacred and the secular. Second is the repeated act of Seediq tribe’s initial self-sacrifice to God, maintaining the universe equality and conservation of energy via the opening-up life concept, which is the so-called Harmonious Life Energy View. Third is the mental healing and reconciliation functions that Seediq’s initial ancestor faith has. One of the director’s objectives by shooting the film repeatedly is to heal and re-conciliate the relationship among the Seediq tribes that made different choices under Japanese rule and the relationship between Japan and Seediq tribes. From my point of view, the healing and reconciliation function not only fits the Seediq tribes and Japan, but also the audiences who are lost in the modern civilization.