九叔

找自己，从生活里──浅谈几部中国独立纪录片的人生观察
文／蘇強尼


诗人顾城说：生活是杂乱无章的，不负责任的，为我们 带来一切，把生命的碎片散落在河床上，那些细小的光—— 黄金闪耀，预示着一种可能，诗人的工作就是要把破碎在生 活中的生命收集起来，恢复它天然的完整。

诗人的任务如此，那么，持摄影机的人呢？记录是为了 反映现实，还是观照自身？影像特有的时间质地、记录者的独特视域，是否能穿过现代生活的繁复，恢复生命天然的完整？

当然，摄影机在不同人手上造就不同的形式与内容，记录者可以特写一座城市、追踪一个事件、经营某个象征，通 过影像来拼凑生命的面貌。然而，最直接的还是记录「人」。 人的处境如何连接社会，人的际遇如何反映时代，人与人的关系如何牵扯又为何中断，一直以来都是纪录片创作者关心的问题，也是观众期待透过影片认识的。若稍微卸下纪录片的社会责任，探触更私密的动机，其实银幕上的「人」有时 更像一个模板，一式图像，掏出了自己，为我们展示了生活 的多种可能，成为我们厘清、参考、反省、想象自身的素材。 今年度CNEX监制纪录片就让我们看到了独立影像工作者对人的细腻视角，但更多的是对生活的素描与对生命的提问。

刘翠兰毕业于哈佛大学南亚系，在青藏高原安多藏区研究佛教音乐期间，接触到17岁的少年僧侣吉美，开始拍摄第一部纪录长片《少年吉美》。吉美与其他奔向城市的年轻人不同，他选择出家并学习传统的嘛呢调。或许因为记录者从事音乐研究的关系，影片较大篇幅记录法事活动与诵经咏调的过程，僧侣们对经文字曲调的讲究，让藏族文化的特色被听见看见。也兴许是长期田调培养出的熟悉信任，僧侣们与记录者对话时没有正襟危坐，也没有特意经营场景，反而像是聊天一样轻松自然；吉美讲话时或坐或卧，面对（持）摄影机（的人）时而顺畅表达，时而若有所思，这样的拍摄距离取代了客观的价值判断，把少年阐述理想与困惑的细微表情放大，给予观众更直观的感受。于是，吉美还俗或留在寺院与否的挣扎也变成我们的挣扎，他的处境也对应着我们的处境。最后，记录者给出一个与片头相同的远景镜头，山区里吉美骑车的身影看起来那样渺小，没有人知道他去了哪里。

《种植人生》也是关于理想的影片，但更多了唐吉诃德的浪漫与孤独。放弃都会白领生活的老贾来到崇明岛经营农场，面对以大量生产为目标的惯行农法，老贾则是坚持不施 化肥、不洒农药的自然农法，这是他的骑士精神，吸引了她的太太尚英、许多的志愿者，以及本片的记录者顾晓刚。记录者怀着对自然的赞叹，捕捉了农场清晨安静的雾气，也大刀阔斧拍下摇曳的稻穗、跃动的水珠、来回忙碌的割稻机， 但镜头最愿意追随的还是老贾，不论是在沙龙抒发理想的神情、田间巡视的身影，还有参加过农业博览会后的深沉自省，更让他在稻田中对着镜头侃侃而谈，使老贾的形象与精神结合起来。剪接上也很流畅，繁重的农务对应紧张的夫妻关系、种子的培育呼应生命的诞生，一格一格地，老贾以农场作为理想实践的生活方式渐趋完整。然而，在所有起承转 合完美落地前，老贾到了北京，对着镜头告白自己转向另一段感情，最后只剩尚英带着孩子留在农场，继续守着节气与四季。这突来的裂隙让影片急转直下，完全印证了现实的无常，就像马克吐温的名言：「有时现实真相反而比小说杜撰的还要精彩，因为小说必须依循一定的逻辑规范，而现实往往毫无逻辑可言」，然而这正是「记录」最强大的力量，就算使劲想让生命均匀工整，却抵不住时间的激情乱流。

在时间弦上走着的，还有九叔。华灯初上的街道，一个着制服的瘦小长者扯着嗓门开骂，那样的暴躁与江湖气味，与喧嚣热闹的夜市毫无违和感，反而翻滚出特属市井的生命力，这就是《九叔》破题式的开场，那么入世，百般红尘滋味。然而记录者吴建新并没有把夜市当作奇观收集场，画面没有太多的炫技，声音的处理也很低调克制，只专心地把镜头对准九叔，以及所有摊商最担心的问题：拆除夜市。这预留的伏线牵动我们看待九叔的眼光，想知道以夜市为家的他将会何去何从，但记录者并未在政策上着墨太多，反而更忠实地记录九叔工作、喝酒、骂人以及溺爱小孙子的生活模 样，使得影片成为接近传记体的人物画像（portrait），但这画像充满庶民生活的痕迹，充满时代变迁的立体感，九叔的个人生命与城市的集体记忆隐然结合在一起。最终，市政府仍 没明确表示夜市是否拆迁，九叔的身影就如三十年来的每一天，没入街道，夜市灯亮，没有阑珊。

而上述三部影片似乎也有奇异的相似，吉美最后的去向、老贾再度转向的人生、九叔最终的归宿好像同时在放映，影像的调度都予人开放的想象空间，同时也反映了持摄影机的人对记录现实的思考。这或许是当代中国独立纪录片的特色之一，有别于以报导方式处理公众议题与社会现象的一脉，这群记录者更关心时间，关心时间在人身上起的作用，于是镜头深入人们生活的场景，这样的探触带动了个人生命史的记录、累积了常民生活的图像文件案，这正是酝酿着、待开发，专属于独立纪录片的电影诗学（ Poetics of Cinema）。


Find Oneself in Life: Observations about Life in Chinese Independent Documentaries
By Johnny

The poet Gu Cheng once said, “life is messy and irresponsible; it brings us everything, yet it scatters its own broken pieces on a riverbed. The twinkling light, the golden and the glistening predict a certain possibility. A poet’s job is to pick up these shattered pieces of life and restore its entirety as it naturally was.”

If that is a poet’s job, what about a cameraman then? Does one document to reflect reality, or to gain insight of oneself?

Could it be possible for the special temporal quality of images and the unique perspective of a filmmaker to find a way through the complexity of modern life and restore life intact as it naturally was?

Of course, different people bestow different styles and content with a camera. Filmmakers could focus on a city, follow an event, or create symbolism to make up images with the shape of life. Nevertheless, the most straightforward way is to document “people.” How was a person’s situation related to a society? How did the twists and turns of a person reflect an era? How was the relationship of one with another, and how was it cut off? These have always been some questions documentary filmmakers cared about and wanted to inform their audiences. If we briefly set aside the social responsibility conferred in a documentary and explore more private motives, we can see that “people” on screen are sometimes examples or demonstrations, exhausted to show us various possibilities of life and become materials for our own clarification, reference, reflection and imagination. This year, documentaries produced by CNEX introduce several independent filmmakers who show such vivid demonstrations of people and sketches of life along with questions about life.

Cuilan Liu graduated from the Department of South Asian Studies at Harvard University. During her research on Buddhist music in Amdo, Tibet, she met a 17-year-old monk, Jigme, and started her first, feature documentary, Young Jigme . Jigme was different from other young people who headed straight to the cities. He chose to become a monk and to study traditional Buddhist chanting. As a result of the filmmaker’s researched interest in music, a great portion of the film documents the process of Buddhist ceremonies and chanting. Thus, the characteristics of Tibetan culture are seen and heard through the monks’ fastidious work in the wording and tones of their scriptures. Maybe through the familiarity and trust built during their long period of field research, the monks and the filmmaker did not strike serious conversations in formal settings. Instead, conversations flowed naturally. Sometimes, Jigme spoke while sitting, sometimes while lying. He faced the camera (its holder) with eloquent expressions, sometimes deep in thought. The distance to the subject replaced objective judgments on values. By magnifying the subtle expressions of the young man talking about his dreams and his conflictions, the audience receives an even more direct viewing experience. Consequently, Jigme’s struggle with staying or leaving the temple becomes ours too. His situation is an echo of our own. In the end, the filmmaker gives a long shot, similar to the one shown during the beginning scene. Jigme disappears, riding into the mountains. No one knows where he will end up.

Planting for Life is also a film about an ideal, but with a stronger Don Quixote kind of romance and loneliness. Lao Jia gave up his white-collar city life for farming on Chongming Island. In competition with conventional agriculture, which aims at mass production, Lao Jia insists on the practice of natural farming which uses no pesticides or fertilizers. With his chivalrous spirit, he attracted his wife, Li Zi, many volunteers, as well as the director of this film, Gu Xiao-gang. With his passion for nature, the filmmaker captured the quiet morning mist on the farm, while boldly filming waving rice spikes, dancing water droplets, and rice harvesters busily cropping. In any case, the camera intently follows Lao Jia, whether he looks as he talks about his ideal in a salon or his moves as he inspects a field. The in-depth self-examination, after attending an agricultural fair, also prompts Lao Jia to talk away in the field in front of the camera, which brings together his image and spirit. The editing of the film is also smooth. The heavy work on the farm corresponded to the tension between the couple. The cultivation of seeds echoes with the birth of life. One square after another, Lao Jia gradually practices his ideal life to its fullest extent. However, just before the story meets its perfect ending, Lao Jia arrives in Beijing, confessing his new relationship to the camera. At the end, only Li Zi stays on the farm with her child, continuing on as the time passes. This sudden split also brings an abrupt turn to the film, proving the temperamental nature of reality – Just as Mark Twain once said, “Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. Truth isn't.” Nonetheless, this is the most powerful strength of this documentary. Even if one tries his or her best to neatly mold life, he or she cannot resist the strong turbulence of time.

Another traveler of time was Ninth Uncle. On a street where night life is just beginning, a small, old man in uniform shouts angrily. However, the irritated, mobster mannerisms do not appear strange in the busy bustling air of a night market. In fact, it rolls out the unique vigor belonging exclusively to the marketplaces. This is the head-on opening of Ninth Uncle, so secular and rich in the tastes of the mortal. However, the filmmaker Wu Jian-xin does not treat the night market as a collecting point for wonders. There aren’t many splendid techniques in this scene. Sounds are kept quiet and simple. He simply aims the camera at Ninth Uncle and the problem most worried by all market venders comes to view: the demolition of the night market. This anticipated thread guides us the way we saw Ninth Uncle as we wonder about his future without the night market as his home. Nevertheless, the filmmaker does not focus much on relevant policies, but instead, he truthfully documents the life of Ninth Uncle, such as the ways Ninth Uncle works, drinks, scolds people, or spoils his grandson. These moments make the film more like a biographical portrait filled with day-to-day traces of ordinary people, as well as the magnitude of a changing era. Ninth Uncle’s personal life is vaguely embedded in the collective memories of the city. In the end, the city government doesn’t explicitly express the future of the night market. Like in his past thirty years, Ninth Uncle walks down the street, disappearing into the light of the market that has yet to be dimmed.

There is something strangely similar among the three films mentioned above. The final destination of Jigme, the swiveling life of Lao Jia, and the final resting place for Ninth Uncle seem to play simultaneously. The arrangements of these images give people room to imagine, while reflecting on the filmmakers’ thoughts about documenting realities. This may be one characteristic of contemporary independent documentaries in China, different from the handling of public issues and social phenomenon through journalism. These filmmakers are more concerned about time and its effect on people. Therefore, the cameras look deep into scenes of people’s daily life. This style of investigation drives the documentation of a personal history, while gathering up visual files about every individual’s life. Exclusive to independent documentaries, this is cinema’s poetry – just starting and waiting to be developed.