去里斯本的夜车

看完《去里斯本的夜车》，和片中的铁叔一样对《文字炼金师》中的描写段落着迷，跟着铁叔极具磁性的嗓音，边听边看就像去远方神游了一番，完成了一趟电影旅途后又回到现实之中。其中有太多精妙优美的句子和我自己对生活的感悟不谋而合，大有被写出心中共鸣之感，于是挑了自己觉得最值得欣赏品味的语段，摘录于下，和友人们分享：

（图文：http://www.douban.com/note/325383183/）


What could, what should be done with all the time that lies ahead of us, open and unshaped, feather-light in its freedom and lead-heavy in its uncertainty?
Is it a wish? Dream-like and nostalgic, to stand once again at that point in life, and be able to take a completely different direction to the one which has made us who we are?



We leave something of ourselves behind when we leave a place; we stay there, even though we go away. And there are things in us that we can find again only by going back there. We travel to our souls when we go to a place that we have covered a stretch of our life, no matter how brief it may have been.
But by traveling to ourselves, we must confront our own loneliness. And isn't it so that everything we do is done out of fear of loneliness. Isn't that why we renounce all the things we'll regret at the end of our life?



Is it ultimately a question of self-image, the determining idea one has made for oneself of what one has to have accomplished and experienced so that one can approve of the life one has lived?
If the certainty befalls us that it will never be achieved this wholeness, we suddenly don't know how to live the time that can no longer be part of the whole life.



The real director of life is accident, a director full of cruelty, compassion and bewitching charm.



The decisive moments of life, when its direction changes forever, are not always marked by loud and shrill dramatics. In truth, the dramatic moments of a life-determining experience are often unbelievable low-key. When it unfolds its revolutionary effect and make sure that life that it revealed in a brand-new light. It does that silently, and in this wonderful silence resides its special nobility.



I would not like to live in a world without cathedrals. I need their beauty
and grandeur against the dirty colors of military uniforms. I love the powerful words of the Bible. I need the force of its poetry. I need it against the decay of language and the dictatorship of worthless slogans.
But there is another world I do not wish to live in. A world in which independent thinking is disparaged, and the finest things we can
experience denounced as sin. A world in which our love is demanded by tyrants, oppressors and assassin. And most absurdly, people are exhorted from the pulpit to forgive these creatures and even to love them.
It is for this reason we cannot just put the Bible aside. We have to throw it away completely, for it speaks only of vain holier-than-thou. In his omnipresent, the Lord observes us day and night. He takes note of our acts and thoughts. But what is a man without secrets? Without thoughts and wishes that he, and he alone, knows? Does the Lord our God
not consider He's stealing our soul with his unbridled curiosity, a soul that should be immortal?
But who would in all seriousness want to be immortal? How boring to know that what happens today, this month, this year, does not matter?
Nothing would count.
No one here knows what it would be like to live eternally. And it's a blessing we never will. One thing I can assure you, it would be hell,
this endless paradise of immortality. It is death and only death, that gives each moment beauty and horror. Only through death is time living thing. Why does the Lord not noticed? Why does He threaten us
with a... endlessness that can only be unbearably desolate?

I would not want to live in a world without cathedrals. I need the luster
of their windows, their cool stillness, their imperious silence. I need the holiness of words, the grandeur of great poetry. But just as much I need the freedom to rebel against everything that is cruel in this world. For the one is nothing without the other. And no one may force me to choose.




Imagination/Intimacy is our last sanctuary.



In youth, we live as if we were immortal. Knowledge of mortality dances around us like a brittle paper ribbon that barely touches our skin. When in life does that change? When does the ribbon tighten until finally it strangles us?

「If it is so that we live only a small part of the life which is within us, what happens to the rest?」


「We live here and now. Everything before and in other places is past. Mostly forgotten. 」


「What could, what should be done with all the time that lies ahead of us, open and unshaped, feather-light in its freedom and lead-heavy in its uncertainty? Is it a wish? Dream like and nostalgic, to stand once again at that point in life and be able to take a completely different direction to the one which has made us who we are?」


「Consider from the standpoint of eternity that rather loses its significance.」


「We leave something of ourselves behind, when we leave a place, we stay there, even though we go away. And there are things in us that we can find again only by going back there. We travel to our souls when we go to a place that we have covered a stretch of our life, no matter how brief it may have been. But by travelling to ourselves, we must confront our own loneliness. And isn't it so that everything we do is done out of fear of loneliness? Isn't that why we renounce all the things we will regret at the end of our life? 」


「When dictatorship is a fact, revolution is a duty.」


「Is it ultimately a question of self-image, the determining idea one has made for oneself of what one has to have accomplished and experienced, so that one can approve of the life one has lived? If this is the case, the fear of death might be described as the fear of not being able to become whom one planned to be. If the certainty befalls us that it will never be achieved, this wholeness, we suddenly don't know how to live the time that can no longer be part of the whole life.」


「It's ofter easier to speak with strangers. 」


「No one here knows what it would be like to live eternally. And it's a blessing we never will. One thing I can assure you, It would be hell, this endless paradise of immortality. It is death and only death, that gives each moment beauty and horror. Only through death is time living thing. Why does the Lord not noticed? Why does He threaten us with a... endlessness that can only be unbearably desolate? I would not want to live in a world without cathedrals. I need the luster of their windows, their cool stillness, their imperious silence. I need the holiness of words, the grandeur of great poetry. But just as much I need the freedom to rebel against everything that is cruel in this world. For the one is nothing without the other. And no one may force me to choose.」


「Why is the world so cruel? God doesn't care.」


「In youth, we live as if we were immortal. Knowledge of mortality dances around us like a brittle paper ribbon that barely touches our skin. When in life does that change? When does the ribbon tighten until finally it strangles us? 」


「Why don't you just stay?」

先看了里斯本夜车这本书。戈列格里斯遇见一个女子后，开启了一段异国旅程。说走就走的异国他乡，总会经历磨难，经历内心的挣扎，克服一切走到最后的人或许更能发现自己的内心世界。书里无论是格里戈里斯旅行中的心路历程，亦或是普拉多对人性的探索，都深深的打动我心。显然，我认为电影的深度不够，也可能我没发现电影的妙处。

如果你有两天时间，请看一遍书吧。

【里斯本夜車】改編自 Pascal Mercier 的同名原著，寫一位踏入暮年的教授，因為一位神秘的紅衣女郎和一本書，毅然拋下熟悉的生活，到里斯本追尋書本作者的下落。在旅途上，老教授不單了解到那位作者的過去，更明白到自己過往的生活如何單調乏味。可是，他會否有勇氣將這個短暫的旅程延續下去？

看電影的時候，頗能感受到編導的用心。他們為故事添加了不少神秘氣息，又嘗試將老教授的旅程，與書本作者的過去扣上關係，交替在銀幕上呈現，無奈最終出來的效果依然是差強人意。首先，現在與過去那兩條線，關係薄弱至極；硬要加句：「知道他的經歷，才明白到自己的人生是多麼的蒼白」，讓栗哭笑不得；其次，原著的佳句摘錄，在電影中所起的作用幾近無──單聽又不及看動人，而事後回望，所選的句子其實跟所說的故事，完全沾不上邊。不錯，片首拍得富有電影感，可是栗又忍不住想，如果沒看過原著，會否覺得故事奇怪呢？

一向不同情那些眼高手底的編導，但今次的失敗，除了因為編導未夠功力以外，還因為原著是屬於不宜拍成電影之類。其實以現在那個劇本框架去寫另一個故事，效果應該不俗。但若是將原著改至面目全非，又何必要硬與它扯上關係呢？不過，書與電影的交纏，就跟別人的家事一樣，我們這些小觀眾無從置喙！