秘境2016

帕索里尼式的神话寓言，混杂了不少晦涩难懂的宗教隐喻。熟悉这位葡萄牙导演的观众一定不会对本片的主题感到陌生，身份和性别的变异是导演的拿手戏，在他的处女作《幻影》和《在坟场中心呼唤爱情》里已有触及。而这部新片讲述的就是一个男人的变异经历：从无神论者变为皈依的教徒，同性恋意识觉醒，甚至是肉体上的变化，从Fernando变成为Anthony。我对葡萄牙宗教一点都不了解，所以后半段层出不穷的宗教隐喻令我如坠雾里也实属无奈，在森林里的段落浮现出诡秘的神秘主义色彩让我联想到泰国导演阿彼察邦。

不过，最令我感到好奇的是中国元素的融入。导演之前已有两部电影跟中国相关：一部是以China命名的短片，另一部则是关于澳门的实验片。相比起之前两部里面对待中国文化的奇异眼光，这部新作算是放弃了有色眼镜，收起了一贯居高临下的鄙夷态度。我更联想到前年在戛纳出尽风头的《一千零一夜》三部曲里，中国元素的运用更可谓炉火纯青，那同样地也出自另一位葡萄牙导演之手。这也许是美丽的巧合，然而在我看来，更有可能是显示了中国的影响力在不断扩大。随着经济发展和文化传播，越来越多外国人开始学会用正常的眼光来看待中国文化，这也算是一种不可多得的进步。

电影前三分之一，跟随鸟类学家Fernando的脚步，我们开始了好像探索频道的动物世界之旅。我也随着那望远镜里的缓慢镜头睡了过去。。。后来惊醒，发现男主人公划独木舟时遇到事故，被河水卷了过去。。。镜头转给两位在森林里徒步的中国女性，她们开始谈论起宗教，让我想起《饮食男女》里杨贵媚饰演的大女儿。在那部电影里，她和能吃的体育老师相恋，并带领着他也走上了信仰之路。好吧，指东道西，谬以千里一直是我的长项。回到《鸟类学家》，两位女士救起了昏迷的Fernando，本以为这是个美好的人性故事。她们希望他带领走出这片区域，继续朝圣之旅。但是Fernando说自己并不像她们一样，他没有信仰。

第二天，画风突变，Fernando被人五花大绑动弹不得，是那两位和善的女士干的。他央求她们，没用。然后在一个夜晚，他逃跑了。缺衣少食与外界断了联系，他陷入了一个没有尽头的丛林。电影这时候开始神秘并且惊悚了起来，好像进入了另一个未知的世界。他目睹了诡异的仪式，遇到了聋哑牧羊人Jesus并与他做爱，之后因为争执杀死了他。随后，他穿过一个时空隧道，进入了更加神秘的领域。在那儿，他和死水里的鱼交谈，把找到的药片丢弃，烧去指纹，救助了一只神迹的鸽子。醒来之后，看到狩猎的三位女士，被射中后死而复生。继而遇到Jesus的兄弟Thomas，被其刺死，完成了相貌的切换（变成了导演自己）和名字的转变，他不再是Fernando，他是Anthony。影片的最后，Anthony和Thomas携手走出森林，走向城市，与街对面的两位中国女士挥手致意。

如果说前三分之一昏昏欲睡的话，那么后面则完全跟随男主人公的脚步，进入了一个超越常人理解范畴的世界，或者说是神的世界。就像电影里说过的：有些事我们不必懂得，只需经过而后相信。当然对于像我这样没有信仰的中国人来说，还是很难理解。还有望远镜的运用让人印象深刻，从远观的客体转变成身处其中的主体。这个转变的过程和氛围把握的特别好，就是那种屏住呼吸不可亵玩身不由己的感觉。导演还把自己的同性恋倾向带到电影中，包括两位中国朝圣女士，以及Fernando和Jesus。宗教当然是这部电影最重要的部分，了解了圣安东尼的故事就会对电影理解更好。在丛林里的感觉确实很像阿彼察邦，同样的湿漉漉的雨林，同样的不可知的下一世。当然我个人更喜欢《热带疾病》，更诗化。但本片也可算作2016电影里的一个奇观。

（本文原载于作者微信订阅号 叨叨小宇宙，欢迎订阅）

English Title: The Ornithologist
Original Title: O Ornitólogo
Year: 2016
Country: Portugal, France, Brazil
Language: Portuguese, English, Mandarin
Genre: Drama
Director/Writer: João Pedro Rodrigues
Cinematography: Rui Poças
Cast:
Paul Hamy
Xelo Cagiao
Han Wen
Chan Suan
João Pedro Rodrigues
Juliane Elting
Rating: 6.5/10




A staunch queer cinema visionary and nonconformist, Portuguese filmmaker João Pedro Rodrigues’ fifth feature beguilingly takes a leap of faith onto a religious theme, a pilgrimage to Saint Anthony of Padua, conspicuously transcribing its story into the existential trials and tribulations of our titular ornithologist Fernando (Hamy), which is also St. Anthony’s birth name, stranded in a modern-day Portuguese waterway and forests.

Fernando, an atheist from the word go, embarks on his stork-scouting journey with gusto and alacrity, and the implication that it is not his first sortie in the area makes his adventure quite up his alley. Few background information is purveyed, other than he is under medication and has a male lover who is caring for him. Contrasting Fernando’s bird-watching/telescopic angle with different bird’s-eye views, it is the modus operandi brings home a numinous frisson of watching and simultaneously being watched, literally sublimates the nature’s gaze with a plethora of wild feathered friends hovering around incessantly through the film. When Fernando’s kayak is upset during the rapids, the story starts to take shape into a multi-layered religious mythology through Fernando’s various real/surreal encounters, garnished with sexual innuendos (undressed and tied-up by two young Chinese female God-bothers, a sadomasochistic position enticing one’s fantasy; the urolagnia experience in the darkness among a contingent of masqueraded roarers), and an in-the-buff dalliance with a deaf-mute shepherd boy named Jesus (Cagiao), which ends in manslaughter, a startling incident but concocted with blasé wantonness.

Conceivably, when one liquidates Jesus, there is nothing but a road to redemption beckons him, Fernando must carry on his mythical transmogrification into a pious St. Antony by dint of his self-inflicted ritual for absolution (that is where symbolic tunnel, tableaux vivants and inscrutable gestures abound), consummated by being dispatched by the alter ego of Jesus, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, if credits must be given to Rodrigues’ wheeze of contemplating a grand mythos within an entrancing temporal sphere, his didactic exegesis is less a merit to be reckoned with.

Leading actor Paul Hamy credibly shoulders on a role which requires boldness and physical exertion, instils his open-faced earthiness into the overlaying mystique and alone-in-the-woods background, which successfully retains Fernando in the cynosure, even when narrative longueur inevitably lurks. Tellingly, the film renders a captivating landscape to those eyes yearning for natural’s majestic design, whether it is the picturesque on the surface or the uncanny residing in the deep, also the foley artists (Nuno Carvalho and Martin Delzescaux) ply their own distinctive aural intrusion to that latter effect: eerie, preternatural and strident. In the end of the day, THE ORNITHOLOGIST is another contrived fable trying to mythicize religion in order to elicit a sense of meta-sanctity of our own existence, but the fruition thuddingly slumps between artsy-fartsy and nonplussing, on top of that, where are the storks, anyway?

suggested companion piece: Alain Guiraudie’s STRANGER BY THE LAKE (2013) 8.4/10.