Christian Checa Bañuz  克里斯蒂安·切卡·巴努兹

 November 2006     

本文刊登在《感官》（Senses of Cinema）杂志 Great Directors 第41期，还出现在西班牙的《特写》（Close-Up）杂志2006年10月版上。

Mais dèjá, au début des années 70, le rock était quasiment fini, c’est comme le cinéma, comme à la guerre: il y a les éclarireurs, ceux qui vont en première ligne et se font descendre tout le suite, les mecs morts dans les années 60, Hendrix… Après arrivent ceux de l’arrière-garde, qui ne savent même plus pourquoi ils combattent, très protégés et beaucoup moins intéressants. Ce n’est meme pas une nostalgie, c’est l’idée qu’on arrive après les choses. Par contre, le jus, l’électricité qu’il y a eu dans ce mouvement-là, je l’ai toujours recherché dans la vie, le cinéma, le montage. 

早在70年代初，摇滚几乎已死，电影也是。如同在战场上，有侦察兵，有冲锋陷阵而牺牲的将士，还有像亨德里克斯（Hendrix）那样在死于 1960 年代的人……而再之后的后备军已经不知道他们为何而战，被保护着的他们不再具有吸引力。这甚至不是一种怀旧，我们总是在事情发生之后才意识到。反之，我一直在生活中，在电影和蒙太奇中寻找光影运动里的精髓和火花。

Born Alexandre Oscar Dupont into a period incapable of defining itself, always post-, posthumous something, a period speaking always from the death of another, Alex Oscar D. gives new life to the cinematographic media causing its limits as an autonomous expression to burst apart. His films are full of literature, music, autobiographical references and cinematographic quotations, of philosophy… although behind this uncontrolled intertextuality, behind Gilles Deleuze, Arthur Rimbaud, Herman Melville, Charlie Chaplin, Jean Vigo, David Bowie, Arvo Pärt, a dense, vast and excessive vision is discovered; Leos Carax is discovered.

亚历山大·奥斯卡·杜邦（Alexandre Oscar Dupont）出生在一个无法自我定义、总是在讲述前人故事的时代，亚历山大·奥斯卡·杜邦（Alex Oscar D）赋予电影媒介以新的生命，求索自主表达的极限，直至迸发破裂。他的影片充满了文学、音乐、自传和电影引述，充满了哲学，但在这种天马行空的互文性背后，在吉尔·德勒兹（Gilles Deleuze）、阿蒂尔·兰波（Arthur Rimbaud）、赫尔曼·麦尔维尔（Herman Melville）、查理·卓别林（Charlie Chaplin）、让·维果（Jean Vigo）、大卫·鲍伊（David Bowie）、阿沃·帕特（Arvo Pärt）的背后，是他的个人视角，浓聚而宽广，甚至是过度的——莱奥·卡拉克斯（Leos Carax）诞生了。

Before beginning his career as a filmmaker, at the age of 20, in the late 1970s Carax joined the editorial staff of Cahiers du Cinéma, with Serge Daney as chief editor. He began his career in film criticism with a very positive review of Sylvester Stallone’s debut as a director, Paradise Alley (1978), which in itself revealed something of Carax’s particular vision, a special feeling of urgency he was demanding from cinema and filmmakers – an embryonic version of the “smile of speed”. Shortly afterwards he directed his first short film, Strangulation Blues (1979), awarded the Grand Prix du courts métrages at Hyères festival in 1981. It took him three years to direct his first feature film, Boy Meets Girl, but already in his critical work, Carax had begun to forge a certain theory of what was to become his cinema.

在开始电影制作生涯之前，20 岁的卡拉克斯于 20 世纪 70 年代末加入了《电影手册》（Cahiers du Cinéma）编辑部，由塞尔日·达内（Serge Daney）担任主编。他的影评生涯始于史泰龙（Sylvester Stallone）导演的处女作《陋巷风云》（Paradise Alley，1978），他给予了该电影非常积极的评价，这篇评论也反映了了卡拉克斯的一些独特的观点，即他要求电影和电影制作人创造出一种特殊的紧迫感。不久，他执导了自己的第一部短片《忧郁的扼杀》（Strangulation Blues，1979），该片于 1981 年在耶尔艺术节上获得了短片大奖。卡拉克斯花了三年时间才执导了他的第一部长片《男孩遇见女孩》（Boy Meets Girl，1984），而他作为一位作者导演的个人理论与风格已经开始逐渐形成。

In notes to a retrospective on Polish cinema he argues that Krzysztof Zanussi’s Camouflage (1977) was “perle trop mais il est aussi trop mime”, and from there he draws his concept of “le film bavard muet” , which, as Daly and Dowd point out, is so important in his first productions. It is in this same essay that he brings up a significant question which will be one of the keys to his cinematographic vision: “les metteurs en scène qui comptent aujourd’hui ne seraient-ils pas ceux qui interrogent le cinéma muet par l’absurde, en cherchant comment lecinéma parlant parle (ou vice-versa)?” Carax’s interest in silent cinema’s particular form of expression and the absurd goes beyond a mere referential game.

在为波兰电影回顾展撰写的笔记中，卡拉克斯认为克日什托夫·扎努西（Krzysztof Zanussi）的《黑幕风云》（Camouflage，1977）是 “金句频出但同时又如哑剧”，并由此提出了“无声的有声电影”的概念，正如弗格斯·戴利（Fergus Daly）和加林·多德（Garin Dowd）所言，这一概念在他的早期作品中非常重要。正是在这篇文章中，卡拉克斯提出了一个之后将决定其电影观的关键问题：“今天的大导演们曾经不都是质疑默片的怪诞并积极探索有声片的吗（反之亦然）？”卡拉克斯对默片的特殊表达形式和荒诞的兴趣超出了单纯的指代游戏。

As Powrie argues , the French cinema of the 1980s was beginning to be affected by new audiovisual forms, which put into crisis the concept of authorship. From many critics’ point of view, especially those of Cahiers, in the so-called cinéma du look the author as the source of a personal style, reflection of a critical voice, “has become reduced to the promotion of signatures”, becomes reduced to a mere commercial brand. Whereas modern tradition based its cinematographic practice on the search for some truth, these authors’ cinema starts out from a lack of interest in thisquestion. Reality is no longer something to discover or grasp, the world is essentially appearance. According to Serge Toubiana, “What was in the air, advertising, pop videos, short films, zapping, were all elements which pushed the cinema towards the image and nothing but the image…” . The truth is that cinema, since this new audiovisual era, no longer saw with the same eyes.

正如菲尔·帕里（Phil Powrie）所言，20 世纪 80 年代的法国电影开始受到新的视听形式的影响，这使得“作者”的概念陷入危机。许多影评人，尤其是《电影手册》杂志的影评人认为，在所谓的视觉系电影中，本应是个人风格来源和批判性声音之反映的作者身份，已沦为推销性的标志和纯粹的商业品牌。现代传统的电影实践基于对某种真理的探寻，而这些作家的电影则从一开始便对这个问题寥无兴趣。现实不再是需要发现或把握的东西，世界本质上就是表象。赛日尔·杜比亚纳（Serge Toubiana）认为：“空气中弥漫的东西、广告、流行视频、短片、不断地换台，所有这些元素都将电影推向了影像，而且除了影像什么都没有……”。事实上，自从进入新的视听时代以来，电影不再被以相同的目光观看。

This post- (cinematographic?) environment serves as the platform for caraxian thought. He himself was the object of controversy and even today he can be found associated with the exponents of that cinéma du look, basically Luc Besson, and especially Jean-Jacques Beineix. Nevertheless, whereas these filmmakers emphasise beauty in itself, in Carax’s cinema the sinister as its latent opposite threatens and, at the same time, reinforces the beautiful – a good example of this can be found in the image, of an alarming frailty, of Lucie (Delphine Chuillot) dressed as a maid up a ladder in Pola X. In Lo bello y lo siniestro, the Spanish philosopher Eugenio Trías, following a line of thought tracing back to the early romantics, argues that the transition from the beautiful to the sublime implies a certain kind of pain, a hidden element that contributes to the work with vitality. The beautiful without the sinister lacks force. Carax’s films are an experience of “the shapeless, disturbed and chaotic”, an awakening of “the feeling of the sublime” that “is brought to light with complete ambiguity and ambivalence between pleasure and pain” . Whereas Beineix and Besson’s cinema looks void, Carax’s films are a look into the abyss.

这种“后电影摄影”的环境成为卡拉克斯式思想的平台。他本人也曾是争议的对象，即使在今天，他也被视为与视觉系电影的倡导者（吕克·贝松，以及尤其是让-雅克·贝奈克斯）关系紧密。然而，这些电影人强调的是美本身，而在卡拉克斯的电影中，作为其潜在对立面的恶，威胁又同时加强了美——《宝拉X》（Pola X，1999）中女仆打扮的露西（德芙妮·楚里奥特Delphine Chuillot饰）爬上梯子的一幕就是一个很好的例子，展现出惊人的脆弱。西班牙哲学家欧亨尼奥·特里亚斯（Eugenio Trías）在《美与恶》（Lo bello y lo siniestro）一书中追溯早期浪漫主义的思想，认为从美丽到崇高的过渡意味着某种痛苦，这一种隐藏的与生命力有关的元素。没有恶的美丽是无力的。卡拉克斯的电影是对“无形的、不安的和混乱的”体验，是镜头下“崇高的感觉”的觉醒，“这种崇高感在快乐与痛苦之间模糊不清和矛盾”。相比之下，贝尼克斯和贝松的电影显得空洞，而卡拉克的电影则让人凝视深渊。

Returning to the argument he put forward in his essay on Polish cinema, we find that Carax postulates a certain dichotomy between the cinema of the silent period and the talkies. In the words of Powrie, “intertexts in Mauvais sang therefore function to indicate nostalgia for a golden age of cinema, paralleled by a golden age of innocence…” . Although I wouldn’t relate innocence in Carax to a nostalgic view, I agree with Forbes when she says he: “appears able to portray a corrupt world with an innocent eye – indeed the innocent eye of the early days of the film industry” . I think this innocence is fully selfconscious, it is not the innocence of someone who has not seen, but of someone who has seen and chooses how to look. Carax has before him cinema history as a whole but he does not adopt a nostalgic stand. His films do not show sadness for a lost innocence, but rather, celebrate a cinema of the past that can be reclaimed. Carax’s vision is not nostalgic but playful. He does not demand a return to mute expression in order to go back to a golden age, but instead intends silent cinema as an element which constantly puts into crisis the cinema our age is bound to live.He adopts silent expression in order to permanently question an art form that is in danger of stagnation.

Of the above-mentioned question we cannot ignore the notion of the absurd taken in its broadest possible sense, as something opposed to reason; not only its comical aspect, of which we can find so many examples in his first three films – the skis emerging out of a hole in the front window of Maïté’s (Maïté Nahir) vehicle at the beginning of Boy Meets Girl; the scene with the kid and the policemen in the subway, probably Carax’s funniest, also in Boy Meets Girl; the tricks with fruit and vegetables in Mauvais sang; Michèle (Juliette Binoche) trying to hit the drunken guard and the bottle slipping from her hand in Les Amants du Pont-Neuf – but also its dramatic function in pushing the narrative forward.

回到他在波兰电影一文中提出的论点，我们发现卡拉克斯以二分的假设去看待默片时代的电影和有声电影。用帕里的话说，“《坏血》（Mauvais sang，1986）中的互文表明了对电影黄金时代，也是纯真的黄金时代的某种怀想……”。虽然我不会带着怀旧的眼光去看卡拉克斯的纯真，但我同意福布斯（Forbes）的观点，“他似乎能够以纯真的眼光描绘一个腐败的世界——实际上确实是电影工业早期一双纯真的眼睛”。我认为，这种纯真是完全自觉的，并非不谙世事，而是看过了世界依然选择以纯真相待。卡拉克斯面对整个电影史，但他并没有采取怀旧的立场。他的电影没有表现出对逝去的纯真的伤感，而是赞美并重现昔日的电影模样。卡拉克斯的视野不是怀旧，而是一种俏皮和戏谑。他并不要求回归无声的表达方式，以回到黄金时代，而是将默片作为一种元素，不断输入我们这个时代注定要亲历的电影危机之中。他采用无声的表达方式，对面临这一种停滞危险的艺术形式表达永久的质疑。

在上述问题中，我们不能忽视最广义的荒诞概念，即与理性相对立的东西；不仅是其滑稽的一面，我们可以在他的前三部影片中找到许多这样的例子——《男孩遇见女孩》的开头，玛伊特（Maïté Nahir饰）的车前窗玻璃上的洞里露出滑雪板；以及在同一影片中，孩子和警察在地铁里的场景可能是卡拉克斯最有趣的一幕；在《坏血》中，水果和蔬菜的把戏；在《新桥恋人》（Les Amants du Pont-Neuf，1991）中，米歇尔（朱丽叶·比诺什 饰）试图想用瓶子打醉酒的警卫，瓶子却从她手中滑落——幽默之余，也戏剧性地推动了叙事。

The irrational–emotional element in Carax is fundamental. As Daly and Dowd note, “ [he] will later describe the genesis of his films as advancing by way of the absurd” . One cannot but fail in every attempt to fit some of the scenes and situations proposed into a rational scheme beyond a mere subjective interpretation, above all in his first two films. Scenes like Alex (Denis Lavant) taking himself hostage in Mauvais sang, and the theft of the records in Boy Meets Girl, for example, do not require an explanation. They explain themselves: Alex tries to steal some records but makes a mistake that gives him away, so he rushes towards the street. Insert shot of a crutch. Alex comes out of the record shop and takes the sidewalk to his right. Suddenly he stops, a halt that Carax stresses with a jump-cut, and, for no apparent reason, starts running in the opposite direction, going once again past the record shop and the shop assistants who, instead of pursuing him, stand still as if they were Greek statues, staring in the direction Alex had originally taken.

卡拉克斯电影中的非理性情感元素至关重要。正如戴利（Daly）和多德（Dowd）所说，“（他）后来将其电影的起源描述为以荒诞的方式推进”。如欲将其影片中的一些场景置入一个超越单纯主观解读的理性情境，无一例外会失败，尤其是他的前两部作品。例如，《坏血》中亚历克斯（德尼·拉旺 饰）将自己作为人质的场景，以及《男孩遇见女孩》中唱片失窃的场景，都都无需解释而不言自明：亚历克斯想偷几张唱片，但他犯了一个错误，暴露了自己，于是他冲向街道。插入一个拐杖的镜头。亚历克斯从唱片店出来，走右边的人行道。突然，他停了下来，卡拉克斯用一个跳切强调了这一停顿，然后，他莫名其妙地开始朝相反的方向跑去，再次经过了唱片店和店员，店员们没有追他，而是像希腊雕像一样站在原地，盯着亚历克斯最初走过的方向。

Even though Leos Carax’s work shows remarkable erudition and an excessive use of intertextuality, his are not films only for movie fans. References and quotes emerge compulsively. He quotes, not intellectually, but emotionally. He does not want us to think about the reference but evoke the feeling emerging from it. The quote in Carax is not between brackets, but articulated inside the sentence, without commas, without full stops, integrated without distorting the narration. He manages to articulate intertextuality in a way that appeals not to movie fans’ memory, but to human emotion.

尽管莱奥·卡拉克斯的作品显示出非凡的博学和对互文性的极度使用，但他的电影并非只为影迷而作。参考文献和引文层出不穷。他的引用并非理智上的，而是情感上的。他希望这些引用唤起我们的感受，无需过度思考，卡拉克斯的引用不是在括号之间，而是暗藏在字里行间，没有逗号，没有句号，融于叙事又不对其造成扭曲。他成功地表达了互文性，这种方式吸引的不是影迷的记忆，而是人类的情感。

Shots are joined by continuations of movements, of intensities from one shot to the immediately subsequent one, and to the scene as a whole. In spite of fragmentation, everything is held together by a certain undercurrent of emotions which keep images and sounds together. Mauvais sang, a film paradigmatic in this way – and in my opinion Carax’s masterpiece – according to Powrie constitutes what Jameson calls “schizophrenic experience”, “an experience of isolated, disconnected, discontinuous material signifiers which fail to link up to a coherent sequence” . Nevertheless, from the spectator’s point of view, the experience of the film is not at all incoherent, neither in form nor in content – aspects that, on the other hand, are not so delimited in Carax’s work. The overall sense of Mauvais sang is not at all uncomfortable, it holds a musical coherence:

镜头由动作的连续性相连，关乎从一个镜头到紧接着的下一个镜头以及整个场景的强度。尽管支离破碎，但一切都因某种情感的暗流而紧紧联系在一起，这种情感的暗流将画面和声音紧紧联系在一起。《坏血》这部影片在这方面堪称典范，在我看来也是卡拉克斯的代表作，根据帕里的观点，它构成了詹姆逊所说的“精神分裂症式的体验”，“一种孤立的、断开的、物质标记丧失序贯一致性的体验”。尽管如此，从观众的角度来看，影片在形式和内容上都并非完全不连贯——另一方面，卡拉克斯的作品中也从未并界定这些方面。《坏血》在整体上具有音乐般的连贯性：

In Carax’s cinema, the material is linked instinctively more than syntactically.

在卡拉克斯的电影中，素材之间的联系是本能而非句法。

In order to grasp the worlds Carax’s films display it may be useful to retrieve the Deleuzian notion of rhizome. The truth is that every in-depth study of the French filmmaker ends up almost of necessity resorting to the philosopher’s body of thought. Nonetheless, however useful conceptual tools like this may prove for our analysis, Susan Sontag’s reflections on the dangers of interpretation are also of great value . In my opinion, film critics and theorists should not concentrate their efforts on analysing the work with a psychoanalytical, historical, or even philosophical eye only. The exercise of writing on film should be a creative issue. Writing about a film should aim to capture the character, the spirit, of its object of consideration. We should try to move inside the film, without reducing it.

为了理解卡拉克斯的电影所展示的世界，我们不妨探索一下德勒兹（Deleuzian）的根茎概念。事实上，对这位法国电影制作人的每一次深入研究，最终几乎都不得不求助于这位哲学家的思想体系。尽管如此，无论这样的概念工具对我们的分析多么有用，苏珊·桑塔格（Susan Sontag）对阐释危险的反思也具有重要价值。在我看来，电影评论家和理论家不应将精力仅仅集中在以精神分析、历史甚至哲学的眼光分析作品上。电影写作应该是一个创造性的问题，应着眼于捕捉其研究对象的个性、精神与旨意。我们应尝试进入电影内部，而非将其削弱瓦解。

That is why I personally take cautiously books like Leos Carax, by Fergus Daly and Garin Dowd – in other respects very exhaustive and interesting – because, as can be read on the back cover, it holds as its aim to “[…]disentangle the complex web of biographical mythology, formal and intellectual cinematic concerns, flamboyant imagery and intertextual references woven by Carax […]” and direct more profitably the critical instincts “[…]in seeking the key to the visionary poetics of Carax’s cinema”. Although the study later reveals itself a lot closer to the caraxian spirit, this starting point seems very inappropriate to me.

这就是为什么我个人谨慎对待像弗格斯·戴利（Fergus Daly）和加林·多德（Garin Dowd）的《莱奥·卡拉克斯》（Leos Carax）这样的书籍——虽然在其他方面非常详尽和有趣——因为，正如在封底上可以读到的那样，它的目标是“……解开卡拉克斯迷之生平、电影观的形式与思辨，及华丽图像与互文共同编织而成的复杂网络……”，并更加趋利地引导评论，“……寻找卡拉克斯电影富有远见的诗学的钥匙”。虽然戴利和多德后来的研究更加接近卡拉克斯精神，但这个出发点在我看来是非常不可取的。

Carax proposes a dispersed cinema, instead of a strictly directed one – to direct is inevitable, the issue is to not do it in a straight line. Especially in Boy Meets Girl and Mauvais sang, he opens up possible worlds to be inhabited for a limited time, with no need for a full understanding of whatever happens, as in life itself. It is not about avoiding any interpretation at all, it is about not trying to uncover the key, to reach the truth of the work. Interpretation is a game, not a tool for disentangling. It is not about taming the film, it must be free and independent. As the authors themselves say further on in their book, “poetry seeks the senses before it makes sense” .

卡拉克斯呈现了一种松散而非严格聚焦的电影——导向是必需的，但不必集中于一条线。特别是在《男孩遇见女孩》和《坏血》中，卡拉克斯在有限的时间内开辟了一个充满可能的世界，又无需像在真实生活中要对所有发生的事情充分了解。这并不是要回避任何诠释，而是不要试图揭开关键，探寻作品的真相。解读是一种游戏，而不是一种解密工具。它不是要驯服电影，它必须是自由和独立的。正如导演自己在书中所言，“有意义之前，诗歌首先寻求意义”。

But let us return to Deleuze. On the contrary to the treelike structures, images of the unity of the cosmos, that have prevailed in the history of science and occidental thought, Deleuze proposes the rhizome – a concept taken from botany – as the image of multiplicity that, from his point of view, prevails in the world. Instead of starting from an initial germ that evolves into a hierarchical and unitary structure, a rhizomatic one is formed by a heterogeneity, a non-hierarchical group of lines, interconnected intensities. This is the kind of structure that Carax’s first films formally assume, also in the relationships established between the characters, a multiplicity of lonely people bound by love and the absence of love.

让我们回到德勒兹。与科学史和西方思想史上盛行的树状结构、宇宙统一性的意向相反，德勒兹提出了“根茎”——一个来自植物学的概念——作为多重性的形象，从他的角度来看，这是普遍适用的。根茎结构不是从最初的胚芽进化成等级森严的单一结构，而是由异质性、非等级性的线条群、相互关联的强度形成的。卡拉克斯的第一部电影正式采用了这种结构，在角色之间建立的关系中也是如此，一组孤独的人被爱和爱的缺乏所联结。

Here we are, still alone. Everything is so slow, so heavy, so sad. I’ll soon be old and everything will end, at last.

– Boy Meets Girl

我们在这里，依然孤独。一切都是如此缓慢，如此沉重，如此忧伤。很快我就会变老，最后，一切都会结束。

——《男孩遇见女孩》

The dichotomy between motionlessness and ecstasy as the transgression of the boundaries of the body is central to Carax’s work. His characters behave as if they live on a frontier, constantly trying to get to the other side, to escape from stillness, tear off their skin and gasp some air – that is how Mireille’s (Mireille Perier) fondness for tap-dancing in Boy Meets Girl or Carax’s fixation with making his characters run may be understood: in contrast to the concrete stomach of Mauvais sang‘s Alex, who is not able to find the smile of speed, or the long static monologues in Boy Meets Girl and Mauvais sang, fragments of verbal diarrhoea which answer to a lyrical need, not a prosaic one, words pronounced sometimes in a low voice, others like a torrent, aimed directly at a hidden corner of our memory, fired one after another.

以静止和狂喜之间的二分法作为对身体边界的侵犯，是卡拉克斯作品的核心。他笔下的人物就像生活在边界上一样，不断试图到达另一边，从静止中逃脱，撕下他们的皮肤，呼吸新鲜空气——这就是《男孩遇见女孩》中蜜蕊拉（蜜蕊拉·皮雷 饰）喜欢跳踢踏舞的原因，也是卡拉克斯执着于让角色奔跑的原因：与此形成鲜明对比的是，《坏血》中无法找到“转瞬即逝的微笑”的亚历克斯的笨拙形成对比，《男孩遇见女孩》和《坏血》中的长篇静态独白，如滔滔不绝的一个个片段，并不平淡，时而低沉，时而汹涌，一击一击地直指我们记忆深处的隐秘角落。

Carax’s first two films are poetry: the shots answer to emotional impulses and not narrative concerns; there are cracks in the image that the spectator has to fill; images participate equally from light and darkness, they are as tender as they are sinister. Compositions in Mauvais sang reach a tremendous level of abstraction, inspired by avant-garde painting of the 20th century (particularly Nicolas de Staël, the painter Godard admired the most), with a sometimes extreme spatial order which defies the laws of gravity. Where is the floor? Where is the ceiling? It is as if we were travelling on a comet, in a world different from our own.

卡拉克斯的前两部影片充满了诗意：镜头是对情感冲动的回应，而不是对叙事的关注；观众必须填补影像中的空缺；画面同样来自光明和黑暗，它们既温柔又险恶。《坏血》中的构图达到了极高的抽象水平，其灵感来自 20 世纪的先锋派绘画（尤其是戈达尔最欣赏的画家尼古拉斯·德·斯塔埃尔），达到了极高的抽象水平，有时甚至实现了无视万有引力定律的极端空间秩序。地板在哪里？天花板在哪里？我们仿佛在一颗彗星上旅行，在一个全然不同的世界。

After the death of Alex’s father, Hans (Hans Meyer) comes looking for him and they speak at Alex’s front door. Suddenly the light starts flickering and Hans steps backwards trying to solve the problem. The answering machine comes on: Prokofiev at full volume. Alex turns his head and we see his profile against the flickering light. Something magic happens, a look into the abyss, a moment out of the narrative line but full of life. A sublime instant.

亚历克斯的父亲去世后，汉斯（汉斯-迈耶 饰）来找他，两人在亚历克斯家门前交谈。突然，灯光开始闪烁，汉斯向后退了几步，试图解决问题。此时电话答录机响起：普罗科菲耶夫的音乐高奏。亚历克斯转过头来，在闪烁的灯光下，我们看到了他的轮廓。神奇的事情发生了，他的目光直视深渊，一个脱离叙事但充满生命力的时刻。一个崇高的瞬间。

Nonetheless, in Les Amants du Pont-Neuf there is no longer space for long monologues. His third film already prefigures the journey Carax is initiating towards Pola X – although, going back a bit, we already find traces of naturalism in the introduction of Alex and Lise (Julie Delpy) in Mauvais sang. The metalinguistic reflection in Les Amants du Pont-Neuf is very much diluted in favour of character development and a more fluid narrative. Also Paris no longer has that dreamlike quality, it is populated, the diegetical space already belongs to our positive experience. It is not only a possible world but a probable one. In the Nanterre sequence, Carax even makes a certain documental reality circle around his fictional character, surpassing, if you wish, the threshold of intrusion.

然而，在卡拉克斯的第三部影片《新桥恋人》中，不再有冗长的独白。已然预示着他开始走向《宝拉X》——不过回看《坏血》，我们已经在对亚历克斯和丽莎（朱莉·德尔佩 饰）的表现中发现了自然主义的痕迹。《新桥恋人》大大淡化了对于元语言的反映，取而代之的是人物性格的发展和更加流畅的叙事。此外，人口密集的巴黎不再具有梦幻般的特质，它变成了我们美好记忆中的剧情空间。在这个世界里，可能发生的也将会发生。在南泰尔的片段中，卡拉克斯甚至为其虚构的人物制作了现实背景文献，超越了入侵现实的界限。

Likewise, the film is confined within a period of time determined by the works of the restoration of the bridge – a certain personal and marginal story – and by the bicentennial celebrations – an important historical episode. Everything to do with History is contrasted in the personal experience of the characters, who live on the sidelines – fireworks in the fire that Alex vomits; the nocturnal orchestras on Alex and Michèle’s radio dial bridge; the spectacle of the illuminated boats on their own particular ride.

同样，影片被限制在一段由新桥修复与两百年纪念庆典所决定的时间之内——一个重要历史插曲下个人且边缘的故事。与历史有关的一切都与生活在旁观者角色的个人经历形成了鲜明对比——亚历克斯吐出的火中烟花；亚历克斯和米歇尔的无线电拨号桥上的夜间管弦乐；灯火通明的游船在他们独有的旅程中的景象。

Leos Carax and Denis Lavant’s partnership is a miracle, as is John Ford–John Wayne’s, François Truffaut–Jean-Pierre Léaud’s, or Tsai Ming-liang-Lee Kang-sheng’s. One of those prodigious events that sustains cinema’s mythology and feeds the annals with great works. It is difficult to conceive of Carax’s first three films without Lavant. It is difficult to imagine an Alex who is not Lavant – evidently, Guillaume Depardieu is not Alex. Pola X does not look like a Carax film: Alex is not there. In Mauvais sang Alex tells Anna that he likes reflected women: Anna can be read as a reflection of the mysterious woman on the bus; Alex is a reflection in fiction, but of whom?

莱奥·卡拉克斯与德尼·拉旺的合作是一个奇迹，如同约翰·福特与约翰·韦恩、特吕弗与让-皮埃尔·利奥德，或蔡明亮与李康生。他们的合作是维系电影神话并每年输出伟大作品的惊人事件之一。如果没有拉旺，我们很难想象卡拉克斯的前三部电影——显然，纪尧姆·德帕迪约（Guillaume Depardieu）不是亚历克斯，因此没有亚历克斯的《宝拉X》看起来似乎不像卡拉克斯的电影。在《坏血》中，亚历克斯告诉安娜（朱丽叶·比诺什 饰），他喜欢映像里的女人：安娜可以理解为公交车上神秘女人的倒影；亚历克斯又是谁虚构的映像呢？

Daly and Dowd speak of him as an orphan of chaos, as someone who “…is detached, or in the process of detaching himself from filial lineage, and engages with the social body in an increasingly precipitous and risky series of operations presided over by chaos and chance”; as an autistic chatterbox “characterised by its oscillation between poles, […] ‘langue pendue’ is his paradoxical nickname”; and as an elderly child, who has grown up without maturing . This is a very precise definition of Mauvais sang‘s Alex, probably the prototypical Caraxian character and, even though the figure of the elderly child is still not fully developed, also for the Alex in Boy Meets Girl. Nevertheless, it does not account for all of Alex.

戴利和多德称他为 “混沌的孤儿”，是“……超脱的，或正在脱离世俗系统的过程中，他在混沌和偶然性的支配下，与社会主体进行一系列越来越冒险的切磋”；作为一个“在两极之间摇摆不定的”自闭症话匣子，“‘吊舌（langue pendue）’是他自相矛盾的绰号”；而作为一个大龄孩童，他长大了却没有成熟。这是对《坏血》里亚历克斯的一个非常准确的定义，他可能是典型的卡拉克斯式的人物原型，这也适用于《男孩遇见女孩》中的亚历克斯，即使那个大龄孩童的身体还未发育完全。

In Les Amants du Pont-Neuf Alex has changed. He barely speaks, he has given up his chatterbox facet, he seems older than he is and has also acquired a brutal and violent character, including a tendency towards self-mutilation. His love for Michèle is obsessive and violent. He is more real, more physical, less lyrical. In Les Amants du Pont-Neuf the characters’ faces are no longer those of Mauvais sang, where Anna is depicted with veneration, as if she were an angel, intangible, ineffable. Hans’ (Klaus Michael Grüber) features are monstrous, so are Alex’s. They are samples of a decadent carnality, of brutality. Of life already lived, to its ultimate consequences.

在《新桥恋人》中，亚历克斯变了。他寡言少语，放弃了喋喋不休的一面，看起来比实际年龄要老，性格也变得野蛮和暴力，包括有自残的倾向。他对米歇尔的爱是执着和狂暴的。他更加真实、肉欲，少了抒情。《坏血》中安娜的面容如令人心生敬意的天使，无形而不可言喻。在《新桥恋人》中，人物的面孔截然不同，里汉斯（克劳斯-迈克尔·格鲁伯 饰）和亚历克斯的面容是畸形的。他们是颓废肉欲和残暴的样本。燃尽生命，直至尽头。

This Alex is a character with no identity. We don’t know anything about his past and the only place he can call home is a bridge, a transitory place. Nowhere or any space whatsoever, where everything always leads towards somewhere else, no end in itself. Even when Alex goes to the sea, at last – the sea he never reached in Mauvais sang – he urgently needs to return to the bridge. Away from there he is no one. He is whoever he is only on the sidelines, marginalised. Alex is an extreme character, he is neither this nor that; he is this and that at the same time. He has as much of Carax, as of Lavant, as of yourself.

这个亚历克斯是一个身份缺失的角色。我们对他的过去一无所知，他唯一能称之为家的地方是一座桥，一个临时的住所。无处或任何一处，一切总是通往别处，没有终点。即使亚历克斯最终来到了大海——他在《坏血》中从未到达过的大海——他也迫切需要回到桥上。离开那里，他就什么也不是了。无论他是谁，他都只是旁观者，一个被边缘化的、极端的人物。亚历克斯是一个极端的人物，他什么也不是，又什么都是。他既有卡拉克斯的影子，也有拉旺的影子，还有你自己的影子。

He has told her… He said, do you want to? She didn’t answer yes or no. She’s a girl with a boy.

– Mauvais sang

他已经告诉她了……他说，你愿意吗？她没有回答是或否。她是个有男友的女孩。

——《坏血》

In Pola X the editor shows her doubts about the material Pierre (Depardieu) is trying to write after having met Isabelle (Yekaterina Golubeva) by telling him: “You dream about writing a work of maturity, but your charm, Pierre, lies in your total immaturity”. This comment, at first glance, could be likened to Carax himself in respect to his fourth film, now without his usual collaborators. After such a grievous production of Les Amants du Pont-Neuf it would not be so strange for him to reconsider his interests and ways of seeing (although, as we have already observed, certain elements of Pola X can be traced back to his previous productions). Nonetheless, it seems as if somewhere in the eight years that went by between the two films there were a ghost work, a missing link.

在《宝拉X》中，编辑对皮埃尔（吉约姆·德帕迪约 饰）在遇到伊莎贝尔（叶卡捷琳娜·戈卢别娃 饰）后试图创作的素材表示怀疑，并告诉他：”你梦想着写出成熟的作品，但你的魅力在于你完全不成熟：“你梦想写一部成熟的作品，但你的魅力，皮埃尔，在于你的完全不成熟”。乍一看，这番话就像是卡拉克斯自己对他的第四部电影的评价，现在他没有了他惯常的合作者们。在经历了《新桥恋人》这样一部惨痛的作品之后，他重新考虑自己的兴趣和视点并不奇怪（不过，正如我们已经注意到的，《宝拉 X》中的某些元素可以追溯到他之前的作品）。然而，在这两部影片之间的八年间，似乎存在着一个幽灵作品，一个缺失的环节。

In my opinion at least, Pola X is a film in a different direction: Carax has abandoned the minimalist plots that allowed him to give free rein to his visual imagery in order to adapt a story that binds him to narration; the poetry in his first two films has turned into prose (Herman Melville, William Shakespeare, Robert Musil); the dichotomy between motionlessness and speed has given way to imposture as the main theme; and neither is Paris a dreamlike city anymore.

至少在我看来，《宝拉X》是一部方向不同的电影作品：卡拉克斯放弃了曾赋予其视觉影像自由控制的极简主义情节，转而改编一个将他束缚在叙述中的故事；他前两部电影中的诗歌变成了散文（赫尔曼·梅尔维尔、威廉·莎士比亚、罗伯特·穆齐尔）；曾作为主题的静止与速度之间的二分法已让位于伪装；巴黎也不再是一个梦幻般的城市。

Here, we find a more moderate Carax in his treatment of image and sound. The intertextual and lyrical excesses have given way to a desire for naturalism that is evident, once the prologue is over, in the range of compositional scales – the environment that surrounds the characters, perfectly identifiable and realistic, is allowed to become part of the image, and the characters themselves are no longer reduced to faces or fragments – and in the treatment of sound and extradiegetical music, composed by Scott Walker.

在这里，我们发现卡拉克斯对图像和声音的处理更为温和。对自然主义的追求让位于对互文性和抒情性的渴望，序幕之后的构图中，人物周身完全可识别的现实环境被允许成为图像的一部分，人物本身也不再被简化为面孔或碎片；自然主义同样见于对声音和的配乐（由斯科特·沃克创作）的处理。

If compared to Jean-Luc Godard and later Philippe Garrel in his first works, in Pola X we find a Carax closer to Jacques Rivette – who, not in vain, has declared that for him this is the most beautiful French film of the ’90s. The Rivettian airs can be found, for example, in the importance of the ideas of conspiracy, secrecy and masks; in the shots of large interior spaces like factory buildings and chateaus; and, above all, in the treatment of time: so many meters of film are used to follow the characters’ journeys, living the process with them – at the beginning of the film we follow Pierre all the way from the chateau where he lives to Lucie’s home, including the ferry ride; similarly, at the end of the film Carax spends a lot of time following Pierre’s journey to Thibault (Laurent Lucas).

如果说《宝拉X》与让-吕克·戈达尔（Jean-Luc Godard）和后来的菲利普·加瑞尔（Philippe Garrel）的第一部作品相比，我们会发现卡拉克斯更接近雅克·里维特（Jacques Rivette），里维特曾不无自豪地宣称，对他而言，这是九十年代最美的法国电影。里维特的风格体现在对阴谋、秘密和伪装的重视，对工厂建筑和城堡等大型室内空间的拍摄，尤其是对时间的处理——大量篇幅用于追踪角色的轨迹，与角色共同行动：在影片开头，我们一路跟随皮埃尔从他居住的城堡到露西的家，包括乘坐渡船；同样，在影片结尾，卡拉克斯花了大量时间跟随皮埃尔去寻找蒂博（洛朗·吕卡 饰）。

Leos Carax has stated on many occasions that “sister” is the most beautiful word for him. Incestuous relationships are a very important theme in Pola X. Nonetheless, it is already present in the character of Helen (Carroll Brooks) in Boy Meets Girl. Stan (Robert Langlois), in whose honour the party is held, is her brother, not her partner, as the spectator might think. Furthermore, a feeling of loss is emphasised by Stan’s face superimposed over the image of Helen, as before Florence’s (Anna Baldaccini) over the image of Alex and the artist’s over the image of Maïté, suggesting a relationship which goes beyond fraternal ties.

卡拉克斯曾多次表示，“姐姐”对他来说是最美的词汇。乱伦关系是《宝拉X》中一个非常重要的主题。然而，在《男孩遇见女孩》中，海伦（卡罗尔·布鲁克斯 饰）这个角色就已经得到体现。私人聚会的庆祝对象斯坦（罗伯特·朗格洛伊斯 饰）其实是海伦的哥哥，而不是观众想象中的情侣。此外，斯坦的面孔叠加在海伦的形象上，就像弗洛伦斯（安娜·巴尔达奇尼 饰）的面孔叠加在亚历克斯的形象上，以及艺术家的面孔叠加在玛伊特的形象上一样，暗示了一种超越血缘纽带的关系。

In every Carax’ film there is a dysfunctional family structure. In Mauvais sang, for instance, Marc (Michel Piccoli) acts as the father, Hans as the mother and Anna and Alex as brother and sister – in the scenes where they play, like the one with the shaving foam, they truly act as if they were siblings. But Alex desires his sister, Anna, who is inevitably in love with their father, Marc. Also in Les Amants du Pont-Neuf, the link between the inhabitants of the bridge may be read as a family one, with Hans acting as father and Michèle both as mother and sister, taking care of Alex, “teaching” him how to sleep without drugs and helping his assimilation to the social group.

在卡拉克斯的每部影片中，都有一个功能失调的家庭结构。例如，在《坏血》中，马克（米歇尔·皮科利 饰）扮演了父亲的角色，汉斯则充当母亲，在他们玩耍的场景中，譬如拿着剃须膏的那一幕，他们真的就如亲兄妹。只是亚历克斯爱上了他的“妹妹”安娜，而她不可避免地爱上了他们的“父亲”马克。同样在《新桥恋人》中，桥上居民之间的关系也可以被解读为家庭关系，汉斯扮演父亲，米歇尔既是母亲又是姐姐，照顾亚历克斯，“教”他如何不靠毒品入睡并融入社会。

In Pola X, this dysfunctional family structure is pushed to the limit. Pierre not only calls “sister” the character of Marie (Catherine Deneuve), who we suppose is his mother, but does likewise with Lucie, Isabelle and Thibault. As a matter of fact, a certain identification between Marie and Lucie may be read as a continuation of the “tradition of light” in Pierre’s life, a perpetuation of the established order. This causes the genealogical structure to fold around Pierre, all the main characters belonging to the same generation, the same time period. A relationship going beyond
friendship between Thibault and Pierre is also suggested. Love and its opposite, hate, bind together all the characters in another, again, rhizomatic structure.

在《宝拉X》中，这种不正常的家庭结构被推向了极致。皮埃尔不仅称玛丽（凯瑟琳·德纳芙 饰）为 “姐姐”（我们猜想玛丽是他的母亲），对露西、伊莎贝尔和蒂博也如亲人般称呼。事实上，玛丽和露西之间的某种身份认同可以被解读为皮埃尔生活中 “传统之光”的一种既定秩序的延续。这使得“家庭”结构将皮埃尔层层包围，所有主要人物都属于同一时代的同一代人。蒂博和皮埃尔之间似乎也存在超越友谊的关系。爱和它的对立面——恨，将所有人物联结在另一个根茎结构中。

Pola X is a film which favours a psychoanalytical and philosophical approach. It is also a beautiful film. Pierre has built a mask around him – Aladdin – which he cannot remove, he is incapable of fulfilling society’s expectations of him. When Pierre kills Thibault he calls him by his surname, which they both share. This death could almost be interpreted as a suicide, as an act of transgression. It is very interesting how Carax, with the exception of Thibault’s, shoots death without showing it, out of the field of vision, in the temporal scope, not spatial; in an inner field. When a female character is dying or close to death, Carax eludes it and films Pierre’s reaction instead – the moment when Isabelle jumps off the boat is paradigmatic of this: the death of the female as the death of a part of Pierre himself. Whereas the masculine is outside of him, female characters make sense only in relation to him and to him they are bound irrevocably.

《宝拉X》是一部偏重于精神分析和哲学方法的影片。它也是一部优美的影片。无法满足社会对他的期望，皮埃尔在其周身建立起无法卸下的、阿拉丁一般的伪装。当皮埃尔杀死蒂博时，他用他的姓氏称呼蒂博，一个他们共同拥有的姓氏。这种死亡几乎可以被解释为自杀，是一种越轨行为。非常有趣的是，除了蒂博的死亡，卡拉克斯是如何不露痕迹地拍摄死亡的，死亡发生之时，镜头总是在其外的视野。每当一位女性角色即将死亡，卡拉克斯便会移开镜头，转而拍摄皮埃尔的反应——伊莎贝尔跳船的那一刻就是典型的例子：女性的死亡是皮埃尔自身一部分的死亡。在男性气质的外表下，女人们只在与他有关时才有意义，而且对他来说，这种联结不可逆转。

When Pierre disappears, Marie dies. Lucie feels the urge to follow him, she comes to the factory building to complement Pierre. She is just as much his sister as is Isabelle – the connection between the two girls becomes explicit at the end of the film, with a cross-cutting of their close-ups as they run towards where the police hold Pierre under arrest. Lucie represents his shining past life. Isabelle is the dark side, the hint of a tragic end. Isabelle is the part of Pierre that has remained buried until now, his shadow. The encounter in the woods is shot in such a way – in daylight and treated digitally,reaching the threshold of invisibility – that it looks almost like a negative image, the reverse of all previous clarity. Isabelle acquires a ghostly air. The sex scene allows us to witness the fusion between Pierre and Isabelle. They are shadows, shapeless masses that blend into a single body. “Where are we?”, asks Pierre. “Outside of everything”, she answers.

皮埃尔失踪后，玛丽也死了。露西有一种想要追随皮埃尔的冲动，她来到工厂大楼与皮埃尔相聚。她和伊莎贝尔一样，都是皮埃尔的妹妹——影片结尾处，两个女孩的特写镜头交叉切换，她们跑向皮埃尔被警察逮捕的地方时，这两个女孩之间的联系变得清晰可见。露西代表着皮埃尔闪耀的一生。伊莎贝尔是黑暗的一面，暗示着悲剧的结局。伊莎贝尔是皮埃尔的影子，是始终深藏的一面。树林中的邂逅是以这样一种方式拍摄的——在日光下，经过数字处理，达到了隐形的临界点——令画面看起来好似负片，与之前所有的清晰度截然相反。伊莎贝尔获得了一种幽灵般的气息。性爱场景让我们见证了皮埃尔和伊莎贝尔的融合。他们如影随形，融为一体。”皮埃尔问道：”我们在哪里？她回答说：”在一切之外”。

The time is out of joint. O cursed spite that ever I was born to set it right!

– Pola X

不合时宜。哦诅咒，尽管我生来就是为了纠正它！

——《宝拉X》

译/Youkee