一个女人没活明白的一辈子。与之有过情感纠葛的四个男人中，梁家辉的角色最为立体。本片的布景与光影均值得称道，但刻意使用偏离感强烈的机位划分割裂空间的做法，在一定程度上破坏了镜头的美感。故事层面，电影化的改编在两个小时里不足以承载这段跨越了几十年的故事，年代跳跃的频繁令人难以入戏。
人物的命运被时代推着走，导演想拍个里程碑式大电影，却太破碎，根本连不成故事，旁白也不够好，人物太干瘪，暗示性镜头太多，却又给的暗示不够。郑秀文的普通话，为什么不配音的，尤其是吵架的时候，真想让她讲广东话吵。

被遗忘的时光

文/四月

《昨日的记忆》集结了台湾四位新锐青年导演和多位优秀演员的能量，拍摄了四个以失智老人为题材的短片，用不同的影像风格、处理手法给予了四种完全不同的视角。让人们看见了不同的家庭与人情，不同的矛盾与挣扎，不同的生活状态和社会文明，乃至整座城市的特殊记忆。

何蔚庭是这个项目里唯一遵守15分钟片长的初衷的导演。2011年同年，他受邀参与了由金马影展发起的《10+10》电影联合创作计划，完成短片《100》。有意思的是，《100》同样是一个老人题材，何蔚庭以纪录片的方法拍摄了一位走山路取信的百岁老人，仅是在其中设计了一些桥段，无台词的长镜头一气呵成。而到了《昨日的记忆》中的《我爱恰恰》则转换成了剧情片，增强了故事性。影片开头老人的单独出场，导演花了近4分半钟的时间，使得这个老人看上去仿佛是在独居，但随着桌上的早餐出现，与他生活息息相关的人才慢慢地一个个出现。晚上和妻子回到家，桌上再次出现了晚餐，一个从无到有的过程，是拣拾记忆的过程。细心的观众也许会发现白天的餐桌所正对的墙面空荡荡，晚上回来已是挂满了家庭照片。结尾的设计也很巧妙，重复片头老人被闹钟唤醒的过程，开始到结束，对于他身边的人来说是种时间的重复，而对于失去记忆的老人来说，则是人生每天新的循环。这看上去很像美国电影《初恋50次》，无非主角换成一位老人，每天从一个孤独的状态中醒来，不断地偶遇，发现惊喜。就是这样一种从放空到填满的状态，你可以从不断被作特写的老人的面部神情中读取到从茫然转换成幸福的信息，这是一个被爱逐渐填满的过程。失去记忆本来是件很悲伤的事情，但是何蔚庭的拍摄却让它显得格外温暖而正面，充满了人情味。一直很喜欢蔡明亮的何蔚庭，受到《洞》里葛兰的启发，《曼波女郎》的经典片段便成为了这场戏的重要线索，串联起两位老人年轻时爱的甜蜜记忆。而此前和何蔚庭多次合作的美籍摄影师包轩鸣（Jake Pollock）也再次带来了独特而强烈的摄影风格。

同样参与了《10+10》拍摄计划的沈可尚也在此次的拍摄中递交了一份细腻的作品《通电》。这位有丰富的短片和纪录片拍摄经历的年轻导演，曾以《野球孩子》在2008年的台湾国际纪录片双年展台湾奖中获得首奖。与其他三个小品不同的是，导演侧重于表现照顾老人的家属所背负的心头沉重感。除了家庭相片外，能作为共同记忆最重要的证据的恐怕就只有家庭录影带了，导演在片中加入了这不同影片本身的8CM质感，却有了一种更真实的情感交流。三代人，三个女人，虽然生活在一起，却总是缺少一种沟通。在现实里各自都有疲惫与无奈的一面，这充满颗粒的混合记忆稀释缓和了现实里最尖锐的矛盾，不可分离和舍弃的亲情在此刻才显得格外珍贵。而影片最惊人的对比是，当母女在送老人去安抚院的路上，失智的婆婆突然在车里无知觉地说起丫丫小时候第一次坐车的小细节，而这正是隔代人已经遗忘的童年记忆。而此前时刻以为自己是歌星的老人木然面对着自弹自唱的郭采洁，看似是一种沟通的缺失，其实又有微妙的联接，她仿佛在延续着婆婆失去的那部分记忆与梦想。虽然有音乐和家庭冲突，这部片子的基调却是沉静的。此片的另一个特点还在于导演擅用镜子叙事，来折射和反观人物的内心。而郭采洁在其中所作的原创歌曲i me mine，唱道“我找不到自己回来”，像是三代人分别处于对过去、对现在、对未来的迷路状态，更是把三个女人的命运贯穿了起来，融为一体，或许这就是一种通电。这其实是这组短片的最后一部，像是呼应第一个短片《迷路》，几部短片都在面临是否要将失智老人送去安抚院的抉择，而直到《通电》作为结束短片，它最终成了一个伤感的归途。

同样将重心放在亲情记忆的第一部短片《迷路》是来自女导演姜秀琼的，也是四个短片中最为深情的一部。影片独特的描绘方式是让老人只出现声音和无法完全辨认全貌的相片里，而老人这个实体的角色并没有出场过。反而是震生在寻找走失的爷爷时，与旧日恋人重逢，于是，震生与爷爷，小艾与儿子，震生与小艾，日记和信件交错着牵扯出了两人的昔日恋情，更将彼此带入到那份厚实的亲情中，形成了一种生命就是一个不断丢失与寻找的过程。结尾忘带钥匙的震生呼喊敲打着期望爷爷开门，忽然就转换成了：走失的不是爷爷，而是他。关于这个短片，姜秀琼自己说“如果有一天我们孜孜追求的事情都将遗忘了，那现在的我们该追求什么？活在当下珍惜当下人人会说，但时刻清醒贯彻执行的又有几人？时间唯有在你肯狠狠注视生命时，它才会真正产生出所谓的意义。”而关于导演姜秀琼，除了纪录片《乘着光影旅行－李屏宾的摄影人生》外，在台湾已逝电影大师杨德昌的电影《牯岭街少年杀人事件》中，她曾与张震扮演一对姐弟，这是令谁都无法忘怀的昨日记忆。

另一位颇有才华的女导演陈芯宜拍摄的《阿霞的挂钟》则以最直接的方式描述了时间，是四部短片中唯一一部直接透露出老人内心孤独感的，也是最有生活根基最具人文气息的作品。待拆迁的老房子，老式的家具，停走的时钟，漏水的天花板，泛黄的旧照片，甚至透进房间的自然光，都传达了衰老的意像和时间的印痕。两个老人坐在沙发上对话，在三十年的时空里辗转反复，他们之间的记忆交集来自女人的亡夫，集中的对白把这三十年的故事都讲了出来，不同于《我爱恰恰》，这部分的情感交流，一个是失落，一个是悲伤。钥匙此刻依旧是开门的道具，却完全具备了不同的意义，既是女人封锁了三十年的记忆：一片荒芜，什么也没有留下。又展现了一个城市昨天和今天的文明进程。在开门破墙的那一刻，仿佛是费里尼《乐队彩排》的片尾，巨大的铁锤重重一击之后消除了两个世界的障碍。打碎了两位老人藏在心底对时间和记忆的困惑，也由个人记忆带出一座城市的记忆，导演在主题的宽度上由此作了巧妙的对接。人，城市都和时间同老，都会在时间的废墟里被人逐渐淡忘。“时间又开始走了”，恍神的女人嘴里冒出的这一句也是在讲给大家听：不要遗忘了过去的时光。


The Forgotten Time

FAN Yumin

Memory of Yesterday is a short film about four old men with Alzheimer disease. Created by four young prominent directors and several excellent actors from Taiwan, this short film presents us different families and people, contradiction and struggle, living condition and civilization, and to some extends, the special memory of the city.

Weiting He is the only director in this project who follows the original 15-minute-length intention. In 2011, Golden Horse Film Festival invited him to the 10+10 joint film creation plan, and he successfully made a short film 100. What’s interesting is that the topic of the short film 100 is also about the elderly. Using the method of documentary, Weiting He shot a story of an old man, who tramps over hill and dale to grab a letter. He designed some scenes and used the technique of full-length features no dialogue. As to Memory of Yesterday and I Love Cha-Cha, Wei modified them into feature film to increase their sense of story. At the beginning of Memory of Yesterday, The director spends nearly four minutes and a half to show an old man’s life. The old man appears lonely and it is the director’s intention to make the old man seems to be living alone. Along with the appearance of the breakfast on the table, the people who closely relate to him start to come into our view. Back home at night with his wife, and dinner appears again on the table. This is a progress of collecting memory. Some scrupulous audience may find that the wall against the dining table is empty in the day, but full of family photos when they are back at night. The design of the ending is also very clever – the director repeats the progress of the old man waked up by alarm clock, from the beginning to the end. It is a repeat of time to the people around him, but to the old man who lost his memory, it is a new loop of his life. This design looks very much like the American movie 50 First Dates, the only difference is that in this short film, the protagonist is an old man who wakes up lonely everyday and encounter surprises on and on. From such a condition of empty to fulfilled as well as from the facial expression of the old man, you can interpret the information that the old man’s inner world is turning from hollowness to happiness, and this is the progress that the old man is gradually filled with love. Memory loss is pathetic, however, Weiting He’s shooting makes it excessively cozy and bright. Mingliang Cai is Weiting He’s long worshiped director, his work Hole as well as Mambo Girl impressed He a lot. The classic scene in Mambo Girl is turned into an important clue in The Forgotten Time, the sweet memories of the two elderly is linked by this clue. What’s more, American photographer Jake Pollock, who had had several co-operations with Weiting He, imposes unique and strong camera style on this short film as well.

Another director Kesahng Shen, who had also joined the 10+10 joint film creation plan, handed in a delicate work named Power Connection this time. This young director has noticeable experience in short films and documentary films, and he had won the first prize of Taiwan Award in The Taiwan International Documentary Biennale 2008 with his work Baseball Boy. Power On is different from the other three, in this film, the director focuses on the mental pressure of the family members who take care of the elderly. Apart from family pictures, home video seems to be the most important evidence of shared memories. The director uses 8 CM texture, which is not suitable in this film to express a more authentic emotion exchanges. Three generations, three women, though live together, they always seem to lack communication. They each has their own tiredness and helplessness in real life, but the granular sensation of mixed memory dilutes and relaxed the most acute contradiction in their life, and the inseparable kinship becomes extremely precious under this circumstance. The most astonishing comparison in this short film is when the old lady’s daughter and granddaughter send her to the nursing home, the demented old lady starts to talk about some details of her granddaughter’s first ride on bus, and that is the lost memory across generation. Earlier in this movie, the old lady thought she is a singer and when she saw Caijie Guo singing, she was astonished. It seems to be a lost of communication, but actually, the two has exquisite linking — Guo is continuing the old lady’s lost memory as well as her dream. The emotion keynote of this movie is quiet, though it contains some clash between music and family. Another feature of this movie is that the director is skilled in narrating with mirror, to reflect and look back in the inner world of the characters. In Caijie Guo’s original song I Me Mine, the line I can’t find way to come back, seems to reflecting the three generations’ confusing condition to the past, present and future. It’s more likely that it links the destiny of the three generations together as a whole, maybe it is a kind of power connection to some extend. Power Connection is the last one of this short film group, so it is a kind of echo to the first movie Lost. In the four movies, those demented elderly all face the choice whether to go to the nursing home, and Power Connection as the last one, shows us a pathetic ending as a conclusion of the group.

The first short film Lost in this group also lays emphasis on family memories. Directed by female director Xiuqiong Jiang, this one is the most sentimental one. In this film, the old man does not actually appear on the screen, instead, there are only the old man’s voice and fragment of photos. What we see is that when Zhengsheng went to look for his lost grandfather, he encountered his ex-lover. The interwoven of Zhengsheng and his grandfather, Xiaoai and his son, Zhengsheng and Xiaoai, dairies and letters brings the past love story. This makes each other feel the deep family love, and presents that life is a progress of lost and find. In the end, when Zhengsheng forgets to take keys with him and knock the door hoping his grandfather would open the door for him, the scenario changes suddenly to that the lost one is Zhengsheng himself instead of his grandfather. The director Xiuqiong Jiang says, “If one day, we even forget the thing we diligently pursue, then what would we pursue now? Everyone knows we should live in the moment and cherish the present, but how many of him or her really carry this out? Time is only meaningful when you really paid attention to your life.” As to director Xiuqiong Jiang, besides her documentary Travel with Shadow—Pingdong Li’s Photography Life, her portray as a sister in the late famous Taiwan movie director Dechang Yang’s A Bright Summer Day is also an unforgettable memory.

Another talented female director Xinyi Chen’s work A Xia’s Wall Clock describes time in a most direct way, and this short film is the only one that expresses the inner hollowness of the elderly, thus the most real and cultural one. All the things convey the image of aging and the past of time—the old house to be demolished, outdated furniture, stopped clock, slack ceiling, old photos, even the nature light project in the room. Two old men talk to each other on the sofa, and their common memory comes from the women’s late husband. Through the dialogue, stories happened in the past thirty years all come into appearance. Different from I Love Cha-Cha, this part shows a frustrated and sorrowful emotion of the two. The key still plays as a tool to open the door, but the meaning is completely different. It is not only the women’s 30-year dust-laden barren memory, but also the civilizing process of the city. At the moment when the door is hit open, the ending of Fellini’s Band Rehearsal seems to reappear— the giant hammer breaks the obstacles between the two different worlds. It breaks the two old men’s hidden confusion to time and memory, and it also drag out a whole city’s memory from personal memory. The theme of this movie is thus exquisitely extended. People, city and time grow old together, and all will be forgotten in the time wreckages. In the end, the dreamy woman says, “The time starts to go on again”, and this line is also for all the audience.

（译/汪雅璐）