Metrograph’s Introduction on Platform: Jia Zhangke’s intimate epic begins in and returns to the director’s hometown of Fenyang, Shanxi Province,
where it picks up with a theatre troupe first encountered in the late ‘70s, following them through changes in fashion over the course of a decade as they are scattered to the wind and finally return, along the way tracking the social shifts that accompany China’s move from the wake of the Cultural Revolution to the threshold of market capitalism. “It’s Pop Art as history.” – J. Hoberman

Slant’s Ed Gonzalez’s Review on Platform: You can feel the unrest in the air: Trains constantly leave and come into the community, but it’s as if no one rides on them; the tide is changing (Mao is dead and a Western, market-driven pop awareness is slowly seeping in), but no one seems to be going anywhere quick. Atop the cement platform that overlooks the city, a couple engages in a courtship repeatedly frustrated by unbending parents, defeated selves, and bitter surroundings (at one point, cement pillars make it difficult for them to share the same frame).

… … Some critics have complained about the film’s lack of narrative vigor, forgetting that Jia’s point is that there’s very little for these people to live out. These are lives trapped in amber, trying to create a more complex narrative. Via startling long shots and temporal displacements, Jia truly evokes a community grasping hopelessly for something, anything to lift them up.

New York Times’ A.O. Scott’s Review on Platform: Slow and gradual also describe the director Jia Zhang Ke’s approach to storytelling. Social change is incremental, and rarely noticed by those living through it. Mr. Jia shows the commercialization of provincial Chinese culture largely through incidental details.

… … When they are outdoors, Mr. Jia photographs his characters from a distance. The lovers argue on the ancient battlements that surround their hometown or stand in vast, empty winter fields. Interior spaces are either dimly lighted or flooded with harsh white backlighting. While these techniques often create visually arresting images, they also keep us detached from the human dimensions and emotional resonance of the story. The film seems to invert conventional notions of foreground and background, as if the feelings and choices of individuals were incidental and the real interest lay in their changing cultural milieu.

… … The historical thesis is clear enough: bourgeois domesticity and consumer capitalism have replaced collectivism. We grasp this as a historical fact, but not as an experience. Or to put it another way, the characters in ”Platform” live through a lot of history, but the history — and the film itself — never really come alive.

Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Introduction on The Wonders: Winner of the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival, Alice Rohrwacher’s vivid story of teenage yearning and confusion revolves around a beekeeping family in rural central Italy… … Hélène Louvart’s lensing combines a documentary attention to daily ritual with an evocative atmosphere of mystery to conjure a richly concrete world that is subject to the magical thinking of adolescence.

Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Introduction on La France: From time to time, these surprisingly sensitive, introspective men break out an assortment of homemade instruments and perform original songs written for the film by Benjamin Esdraffo and… … Exquisitely shot by Céline Bozon (the director’s sister), this unclassifiable hybrid of war movie and movie musical is truly unlike anything you’ve ever seen before.

Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Introduction on The Strange Case of Angelica: Manoel de Oliveira’s sly, metaphysical romance—made when the famously resilient director was a mere 102 years old—is a mesmerizing, beyond-the-grave rumination on love, mortality, and the power of images… … The crisp chiaroscuro compositions of cinematographer Sabine Lancelin enhance the film’s otherworldly, unstuck-in-time aura.

Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Introduction on The Milk of Sorrow: Llosa and DP Natasha Braier capture the striking beauty of Lima’s outskirts, as well as a revelatory performance by Magaly Solier, with dignity and grace. Winner of the Golden Bear at the 2009 Berlin Film Festival.

【写在前面】“我们常说激情是短暂的，爱的激情的确短暂，对于生活的激情却可以很长。”

#18 科托尔 (Kotor)

It’s a dramatic and delightful place where the past coexists with the present; its cobblestones ring with the sound of children racing to school in centuries-old buildings, lines of laundry flutter from wrought-iron balconies, and hundreds of cats – the descendants of seafaring felines – loll in marble laneways.

— Lonely Planet

image source: Business Insider

第一章 序曲：乡关何处

• 贾樟柯电影背景主要设定在山西，而且不像鲁迅小说所描绘的，时间和记忆的扭曲使故乡慢慢变成了一个奇怪的、无从辨认的地方，在贾的作品里，我们看到故乡在我们眼皮底下腐朽破败。我们见证了随着人际关系、道德伦理、生活方式甚至是物质环境的解体和崩溃而来的故乡观念的内爆……

第二章 小武

• 贾樟柯的电影拒斥社会主义现实主义传统和第五代电影导演作品这两种早期的模式，欲对中国的城镇里上演的真正现实投去一瞥，他想要以一种主要源于纪录片传统的毫不花巧的电影美学来完成它。
• 作为追求真实性的另一个方面，贾同样致力于摒弃国营电影制片厂认可的标准普通话对白，而偏好能够捕捉到真实声音和节奏的当地方言，……贾樟柯雄心勃勃地挑战标准普通话的虚假霸权，实际上是另一种建构。使用非真实语言来制造真实的幻象，是《小武》通过利用电影工具的各种特征来创造纪录片氛围的一个例子。
• （小武和阿Q）都缺少身份，他们与旁人的关系都决定了他们在世界上的相应地位——或没有地位。小武的身份只有通过与他身边人的关系才得以建立，推动《阿Q正传》的是同样的失败关系网。

第三章 站台

• 《站台》的画面构图基本上由远景镜头、长镜头、极端限制的摄影机运动构成，实际上没有特写和手持摄影。贾说：“长镜头的使用客观地展示了存在于眼前的事物，保持一种有距离的观察，尊重发生于特定时空的各种各样的事情，自由地让事件不受干扰地展现，不对观众的凝视进行掌控并维护他们的观影自主权。这种平等、尊重个体、渴望自由的意识和电影的其他主题全部体现于电影的语言中。”
• 随着影片推进，毛主义意识形态信仰之间的张力，随着历史阴影的无声转换和萌芽生长的个体欲望，形成不断增前的态势。在叙事早段，这种张力表现为代沟的一部分。（而）崔明亮和尹瑞娟一代同他们的父母一代之间表现出来的清晰裂痕，已不止是代沟问题，……当席卷1980年代中国的快速自由化和经济改革仍在继续时，即便老派的保守者似乎也无法坚持其立场。……尽管《站台》更多地描绘了崔明亮一代的旅程和寻找出路的挣扎，但也不忘批判老一代人，在面对和他们从前接受的社会主义教育以及红旗下的生活经验相悖的改革潮流时，如何迷失了自己的方向。
• （歌曲）《站台》作为电影的精神内核，暗示一个想象的车站，在那里，片中的人物等待一列梦想的火车带他们到外面的世界去。然而，正如电影最终揭示的，这个想象的站台是一个虚幻的终点。
• 贾樟柯每个镜头的内在动力学也进一步提炼出不断出现的压力。尽管温州发廊的内部世界可以看做是自由主义和开放的自足世界，然而在景框中央抽着烟的干部以及外面国家发动的宣传“只生一个孩子”政策的游行队伍，代表的却是另外一个世界。当文工团的会议室被表现为保守的社会主义空间样板之时，留着“西式大波浪”发型的钟萍却突然出现，显然标志着“正统社会主义”的不稳定。……这种影响的杂交象征着在中国和西方、社会主义和资本主义、公共和私人、国家和个体之间展开的一个更大的协商。这种张力是他的电影视点刻意营造的一个面向。
• 开向深圳、香港和更远处的梦想火车永远不会到达《站台》。片中人物不停地追寻，永远不可能将他们带往想象中的目的地。……站台不是一个实体场所，而是一个象征性的变化空间，停留在过往和现在、乡村和城市、传统和现代之间，在那儿，时间受制于等候。
• 在背景中，正在演奏的音乐是《姑苏行》，与张行的《站台》代表的现代摇滚乐形成鲜明对比，……在他们家前门外，我们可以清楚地看到突出于地平线的城墙的棱堡。曾经使他们分开的城墙现在将他们密封了，寻求奇迹的时代已经过去了。正如贾樟柯所说的：“他们曾经很反叛，曾经追求理想和梦想，但最后又回到日常的生活秩序里——这是大多数中国年轻人最后的归属。他们回到了日常生活的常态里。”

第四章 任逍遥

• 两人在宾馆房间相处的那些短暂时光，不由得使人想起了在澡堂裸露身体的小武，在这两个短暂的时刻里，两位主角都脱去了束缚着他们的所有物质的和象征的桎梏，终于可以翱翔。但是，正如小武的幸福很短暂一样，蝴蝶的生命事实上也很短暂。
• 崔明亮曾经反抗传统的重负，称自己为“文艺工作者”，但在《任逍遥》里，艺术已沦为简单的商业宣传。伴随这种沦落的，是超越故乡去冒险看看外面世界的这种好奇心的终结。张军代表的深圳和广州“花花世界”的渴望已经被更为庸俗的欲望所取代。

乡愁的诗学（译后记）

• 贾樟柯迄今为止的所有电影，都在描绘一种“乡愁”，这一主题透过他不断重申的在特定的时空维度内所发生的破坏及变化、停滞和运动、政治vs.流行文化而呈现出来，借助于长镜头、手持摄影，以及非职业演员、方言和画外音的运用，以及后来的拼贴、自我指涉或拼贴，体现在孤独的行走、无尽的旅程、废墟、城墙、站台、被拆迁的城市影像中。