金球獎大贏家《少年時代》到底是一部怎樣的影片
Shot over 12 years, Richard Linklater’s film about growing up is a devastatingly plausible biography of a real person – and a terrifying reminder that life is short.
歷時12年的拍攝，導演理查德•林克萊特借這部電影真實地記述了一個人的成長曆程，卻也提醒了大家——人生苦短。With so many movies contriving to be dumb, formulaic and yet messily over-complicated, the pure simplicity and clarity of Richard Linklater’s masterly Boyhood makes a glorious change. It is a marvel, particularly its refusal to bend itself into any traditional screenplay-seminar narrative structure. Like life, like old man river, it just keeps rolling along.
當許多電影失去了表現力、結構趨於程式化、情節過於複雜而又毫無章法，理查德•林克萊特的這部《少年時代》巧妙地讓極簡純粹之風華麗逆襲。這是一部奇蹟之作，它不拘泥於任何傳統劇本的敘述結構，如同時光、如同老人河（美國密西西比河的別稱），兀自流淌。
The central conceit was endlessly and excitedly compared by critics to lots of different things when it arrived – largely Michael Apted’s 7-Up series and François Truffaut’s Antoine Doinel movies – but the remarkable thing was that it really hadn’t been done before. The nearest attempt was probably Michael Winterbottom’s honourable attempt in his film Everyday.
《少年時代》一經上映，其主題就曾被影評家們不斷拿來與各種影片熱火朝天地比較，對比最多的當屬邁克爾•艾普特的《人生七年》紀錄片系列、以及弗朗索瓦•特呂弗的影片《四百擊》。而《少年時代》的出彩之處正在於它並沒有因襲舊作。相比之下，邁克爾•溫特伯頓的佳作《日復一日》也許是最爲接近的作品。
Linklater took a child, Ellar Coltrane, and filmed him playing a kid called Mason in various naturalistic settings and situations for a few weeks every year for 12 years. He then stitched together the result: a devastatingly plausible biography of a real person. Before our eyes, the child became a man in a movie time lapse. The movie was loose and open-ended because that was how it had to be. The filming procedure was like life. Actually, it was life. How incredible to have a repertory cast of actors ready to commit, like family, to such a project over such a length of time.
12年間，林克萊特每年都會抽出幾周時間，記錄男孩梅森（艾拉•科爾特蘭 飾）在各種現實場景中的故事。當他將這些片段剪輯在一起時，一段無比真實的個人自傳就誕生了。只是一部電影的時間，一個男孩就這樣在我們眼前成長爲男人。影片結構鬆散，留下了（現實本該有的）開放式結尾。同時，電影的推進就如同生活本身。而它確實就是真實的生活。像這樣如同一家人一般的演員陣容每週固定出演，還能持續這麼久，確實令人難以置信。It is impossible to Watch this movie and not be moved and awestruck by an obvious truth: grownups were once children. The adults and the kids we see in movies, or outside in the streets, in real life – they are not separate races or tribes. They are the same. Ethan Hawke, playing the dad – he used to be a kid. Patricia Arquette, so wonderful as the mom – she used to be a kid. And Lorelei Linklater, equally wonderful as Mason’s sister: she is, then was a kid. She, too, demonstrates a real-time growing up.
《少年時代》最令人動容、最讓人感概之處莫過於影片將一個鮮明的事實展現在了我們的面前：每一個大人都曾是孩子。不論是在影片中，還是在真實的生活裏，成人與孩子從來都不是身處兩個“陣營”中的獨立“物種”。他們就是彼此。影片中的父親伊桑•霍克，曾經也是個孩子；影片中的母親帕特里夏•阿奎特也一樣；和母親一樣出色的姐姐羅蕾萊•林克萊特（也是主人公現實生活中的姐姐），同樣擁有她的童年，同樣有過成長的經歷。And there is another simple, powerful truth that Boyhood demonstrates, one that I can’t remember seeing expressed with such force in any other film, or indeed any novel or play. And it is simply that life is terrifyingly short. It really is over in an instant. Watching this film as a parent is almost unbearably sad, especially when Patricia Arquette’s mom bids farewell to Mason as he heads off to college, cheerfully unconcerned about his parents’ empty-nest anguish.
《少年時代》所展現出的另一個簡單而強大的事實則是：人生太短暫，總是稍縱即逝。而這也是我從未在其他電影、小說或是表演中所強烈感受到的。爲人父母，看這部電影時更能感到無法釋懷的憂傷，尤其是看到梅森的媽媽帕特里夏•阿奎特送他去上大學時告別的一幕。孩子離開時滿心歡喜，卻絲毫不知道父母心中的“空巢之痛”。Boyhood is a film that inspires love. There can hardly be anything more worthwhile than that.
《少年時代》喚起了我們的愛——這世上最珍貴的存在。
