安乐乡

“Los antiguos decían que Jauja era una tierra mitológica de abundancia y felicidad. Muchas expediciones buscaron el lugar para corroborarlo. Con el tiempo, la leyenda creció de manera desproporcionada. Sin duda la gente exageraba, como siempre. Lo único que se sabe con certeza es que todos los que intentaron encontrar ese paraíso terrenal se perdieron en el camino.”

片子运用了大量的景深长镜头，非常工整的风景画，有些像《哈利波特》里有魔法的照片或者简报，人物在里面走来走去。那里就是阿根廷，我第一次听是《晓松奇谈》里说那里有世界上最大最丰饶的草原。后来我来到了南美，了解到尽管如今已是科技时代，南美的工业与科技都还不发达，但这片土地所给予的丰衣足食以及流淌在人民血液里的及时行乐，它还是抚慰了现实震荡下的灵魂，并平添了一份魔幻的色彩。 影片至七十多分钟处才出现配乐，画面中是绚烂的星空，风尘仆仆行路的人终于在那底下沉睡，梦仍然是流动的。究竟是为什么放弃了家园去找寻“安乐乡”却迷失在了颠沛的路途之上？而“乡愁”终究是对放弃了原有家园的追思还是始终未能到达之地的妄念？就像有一首歌里唱的，“我们都是单行道上的跳蚤”，回不去也走不远。

苏珊·桑塔格在《中国旅行计划》中说“有什么穿过了供血充沛的胚胎外膜”，于我亦是，如若按“但求心安是吾乡”，阿根廷便是我的Jauja。在向往了十年之久后，我终于踏上了南美这片热土，又雀跃又紧张以为靠得有足够近了，却因为一场意外不得不重将自己流放一般于远方，几乎被打击得再也没有了一丝去渴望的力气。直到经历了如同影片中遇见拥有一只狗和一口井住在山洞里的“女巫”一般具有魔幻色彩的事，我暗恋了三年的男孩子在我几乎不能振作起来的时候突然邀请我去他的家乡，我开始相信“念念不忘，必有回响”。 许多人说我这样做叫“追梦“也好“随心”也罢，我自己清楚我只是选择了逃避现实，将自己放逐虚无。最近和几个“三十岁的女人”聊天，她们也都有着和我一样的迷茫，“安乐乡”究竟在哪里，在找寻的路上她们早也已经迷失。我们在小酒馆里喝了几杯，感到一种心灰意懒后的安稳，它即使短暂，即使明日我们又要再强打起精神。人生向死而生的路径之上，是永恒的寂寥与孤独，唯与你煮酒听雨方一解乡愁，另日又隔千里，但那路径之上，总算悲伤有时起舞有时，颠沛有时安乐有时。

那么，是否最终到达“安乐乡”还有什么重要。追到了也会再推远了。结尾处女儿从睡梦中醒来，较于前戏恍若沧海桑田斗转星移。不论前面是她的一场梦魇，还是与前完全独立互文的分段。那一刻的她都不再挣扎，向往远航，随即就将当初自己珍视的土著木偶抛向池底。我们寻找的是什么？什么也不是。为那些虚妄空泛的念想而流离失所是为了什么？不为了什么。这样的结局究竟是一种达观还是虚无的态度？还是说，时间一如既往的流逝中，唯有爱与知足常乐。

People are an excuse to show locations: Lisandro Alonso on Jauja from Film Quarterly by Megan Ratner

Ingeborg (Villbjørk Malling Agger) and Capt. Dinsen (Viggo Mortensen) see different futures

Few directors pit men against the elements like Argentinian Lisandro Alonso. In 《Jauja》 (2014) those elements include foreign conquistadors intent on aboriginal genocide in Patagonia. Set during the “Conquest of the Desert,” a late 1870s military campaign to wipe out the indigenous Mapuche population, 《Jauja》 is a tale of brutal folly and blinkered misery. For either side, existence is precarious. In a narrative less linear than digressive, with ironies abundant, Alonso implies but never states the film’s central theme: surrender versus conquest, awe versus fear.

As the film’s epigraph notes, “Jauja was a mythological land of abundance and happiness. People were undoubtedly exaggerating, as they usually do. The only thing that is known for certain is that all who tried to find this earthly paradise got lost on the way.” In the opening shot, Danish Captain Gunnar Dinesen (Viggo Mortensen) perches beside his teenage daughter Ingeborg (Villbjørk Malling Agger) on a boulder near a military outpost in Patagonia. Around them stray soldiers relax, feasting their eyes on Ingeborg. Dinesen tells his daughter they will soon return to Denmark, his stated plans visually undermined by their position: she faces the camera, he is turned in the other direction. She says nothing in return, later telling her father, “I love the desert. The way it fills me.” When Ingeborg subsequently decamps with one of the soldiers (Alonso regular Misael Saavedra), only Dinesen seems nonplussed.

With no idea even in what direction to search, Dinesen puts on his sabered dress uniform, saddles up, and lights out to find Ingeborg. For a while, the film follows both the runaways and the father, each party puny against a clearly indifferent and inhospitable landscape, replete with wild animals and bandits. But finally, it becomes Dinesen’s film and Dinesen’s nightmare, an oneiric expedition into confusion, disillusion, and dissolution.

Born in Buenos Aires in 1975, Alonso released his first film, 《La Libertad》, in 2001. In that debut and subsequent releases—《Los Muertos》 (2004), 《Fantasma》 (2006), and 《Liverpool》 (2008)—Alonso relied solely on nonprofessional actors, often people that he met in the far-flung areas of Argentina where he chose to shoot. Always, location precedes story for him. Shooting in the jungle, Tierra del Fuego, or Patagonia, his documentary-style semi-fictions track the ordinary work of rural survival: cutting down trees, slaughtering a goat, cadging honeycomb from a tree trunk. Intention and meaning are left up to the viewer. His loners do nothing to make themselves likable, yet are curiously compelling even while, say, maneuvering a rowboat or wielding an ax.

Alonso details the complexity of a mastered skill, a very different form of intelligence than intellectualism. His films insist on the validity of making one’s life in the wild as at least equal to the more customary modern settings of office or supermarket foraging. Protagonists such as an ex-con (《Los Muertos》) or a merchant seaman (《Liverpool》) convey complex backstories in the way they carry themselves and resist settling down. These men are restless, defined and impeded by a narrow masculinity.

Working from thumbnail scripts, Alonso often lives among those he films, guided by their customs and open to their ideas. Prior to 《Jauja》, each film was set in the presented and used minimal dialogue, extended takes, and virtually no explanation as to who the protagonist—always male—is or how he arrived at the juncture at which the film finds him. Each film relies on a form of collaboration contingent on Alonso’s clear ability to put nonactors at ease: they appear simply to live their lives on film.

Much of this technique remains in 《Jauja》, the period setting offering yet another facet to Alonso’s cumulative account of inwardly struggling men. Under the fancy dress, the characters are still doing all they can to survive. Murder, incest, alcoholism, and ditching responsibility have all figured in the earlier work, but the fact that Ingeborg rather than the soldier appears to have plotted their flight marks a distinct shift in the filmmaker’s focus. In 《Jauja》, Ingeborg and two other female characters have agency—a novelty for which neither Dinesen, the AWOL soldier, nor any of the other men are prepared.

The images in 《Jauja》 are painterly, sometimes reminiscent of what an official military artist might have made of the scene, but with a twist: their lighting is modern, the expected sepia traded for Kodachrome. Shots are composed with the landscape as star, the humans almost an afterthought. Particularly effective is a scene in which Mortensen rides at the camera, then away from it, a long traverse that may even be covering terrain where he has already been, that renders one part of the pampas indistinguishable from another. He persists, determined to find coordinates, to marshal an obvious chaos. In one subtle image after another, Alonso shows a man lost in time and space. The captain’s travails are cyclical problems repeating across nations and histories. In a different uniform, Dinesen could easily be appearing on tonight’s evening news.

《Jauja》 screened at the New York Film Festival, where Alonso was filmmaker in residence and where this interview was conducted.

Lisandro Alonso

MEGAN RATNER: Can you remember when you first became aware that you wanted to work with images?

LISANDRO ALONSO: Wow! When I was six or seven years old my parents sent me to painting lessons. I didn’t know if I was good or not but I think I fell in love with the teacher. I took lessons for a year and a half, but once she decided to quit, I never went back to painting. That class could be the point when I started to look at images, colors, figures, and objects and whatever.

RATNER: In other interviews, you’ve mentioned your parents’ weekly trips outside Buenos Aires to their farm as formative.

ALONSO: Probably the most important thing to me was that in the first ten years of my life my parents took me every weekend out of the city. My father has a little farm about an hour from the city. I just remember being surrounded by people who were not from the city, surrounded by cows, pigs, horses, and eating grilled meat family-style. During the week I would still be thinking about things that happened on the weekend. I contrasted the city noise with the country sounds—and the silence. I think I really enjoyed that time more than life in the city. Maybe that was stuck in my mind when I had to decide what to study after high school. I got used to thinking more in green than in gray.

RATNER: What led you to filmmaking?

ALONSO: In a way, I just went back to images. I heard a rumor that there was a film school about to open and I decided, why not. I’m not a cinephile, I’ve never been a cinephile. But nevertheless I found a way to express some of my approach with outsiders, with people who live far away from civilization, who don’t have the same opportunities I do. I could express some of my ideas with the cinema.

RATNER: Did you encounter any resistance from your parents?

ALONSO: After I finished high school, my father told me do whatever you want but put some passion in it and be good at what you do. He was my grandparents’ only child. He grew up in the state of La Pampa, where I shot my first film (《La Libertad》, 2001). I think he lived there until he was five and then moved to suburban La Plata. He dropped out of school, gambled a lot, and lived on the street. He loves horses. After he met my mother he just started to relax and calm down. He moved to Buenos Aires and started a business career. I know some of my father’s childhood but I don’t think he wants to tell me a lot of things. It was not easy, I can tell.

When I told him, “I think I’m going to study cinema,” he said (head in hand), “It’s not a good thing for a living. You will not make any money.” But actually, at that time in Argentina, lots of doctors and architects were driving taxis. The future isn’t set: nobody knows what will happen, especially in countries like the one where I live.

I started studying cinema but didn’t finish my studies. I used to work as a sound assistant in short films and features, but I didn’t make enough to survive doing that. So I went back to the farm to work in my parents’ business with my brothers. Working there I discovered Misael Saavedra, who became the main character of 《La Libertad》.

Ingeborg and her soldier (MisaelSaavedra) before their escape

RATNER: Can you talk about your relationship with Misael, who has been in many of your films and in 《Jauja》 plays the soldier who the captain’s daughter runs off with?

ALONSO: He’s a friend. He’s more than a friend to me. He represents much of the luck that I feel I have making films. He’s part of it. He’s part of—how can I say it—my film life, or film career or whatever. So I really appreciated the chance to meet him. He’s like a symbol to me.

RATNER: Can you talk about the beginnings of 《Jauja》? Poet and writer Fabián Casas played a big part, right?

ALONSO: Actually I stopped making films in 2008 because... I just got bored repeating the same kind of questions in the film. So I went back to the farm. I got married, I have a kid. I just changed my life completely for four or five years until I felt that I had a reason not to completely get away from films. I started writing with Fabián and he brought me crazy ideas about crazy Indians. He’s writing a novel in parallel with the film where the main character is a dog. But I didn’t want to make a film about the dog—it would not be easy. So I used characters and dialogue from his novel and put it in this script. Then Viggo got on board.

RATNER: Was Fabián, your co-scripter, on the set?

ALONSO: Yeah, for maybe half of the shoot, near the end. Fabián is a very close friend of Viggo. In a way, Viggo is in the film through Fabián. I don’t trust words. I don’t like too many in a film. But Fabián’s poetic point of view changed how I look at things through dialogues and words.

RATNER: Until 《Jauja》, you worked only with nonprofessionals, but this time there were professional actors and an international star: Viggo Mortensen. Was it a tricky transition?

ALONSO: Having the chance to mix actors like Viggo and nonactors like Misael made me happy. Even if Misael didn’t know who Viggo is. For me it represents mixing someone who has no education, who’s been working with an axe all his life, with Viggo and together we construct something in the fantasy of cinema. There are also theater people in the cast, and some crew members, people I’ve been working with for ten or fifteen years.

RATNER: All those different life experiences are a kind of undercurrent to the film. Was there any tension around the differences?

ALONSO: There was real tension and I used it. Being around Viggo, you feel nervous because he knows a lot. In a way he had to slow down to let the other people follow. It’s a good thing, especially for this film which is about a foreign guy from Denmark trying to get make contact with the soldiers, the Indians, and that part of the land where nobody rules. It was a time when people were not so civilized, especially in our place.

RATNER: His posture and attitude have a northern European formality, more appropriate to Denmark than the pampas.

ALONSO: Yeah, he doesn’t want to take off his sword, his medal, and his jacket. He is trying to understand. He thinks if he understands he will get answers. That’s his logical way of thinking because he came from some other place. But it doesn’t help him to find the answers that he’s looking for, with his daughter, or to understand what is happening in that place. And I guess that Viggo did it in a very good way.

Looking for Ingeborg, Capt. Dinesen only manages to lose himself

RATNER: Even off his horse, he moved around as if he were trying to map the territory, to get a fix.

ALONSO: He’s trying to organize things that cannot be organized.

RATNER: Certainly he’s not the first invader to try that! Your previous films were more observational, less overtly fictional; not least because of the historical setting, 《Jauja》 seems to mark a new direction.

ALONSO: The themes of 《Jauja》 are very different from my previous films. In the other ones I just worked more with real time and with observing real people doing things that they do every day. In this film there’s more fiction. In the way, it looks and in the way people deal with each other—and it’s much more artificial. I think that is partly because of Timo Salminen (Aki Kaurismäki’s cinematographer). Timo is Finnish and has a particular way of looking at nature and his own way to approach the picture lighting. So much in Kaurismäki films is fake and artificial. If you see my work, it’s completely the other way around, so for me it was a good collaboration, just to get out from my point of view and connect with... classical narrative. And it helps to remember that there are so many ways of doing things. Many times I didn’t understand, but Timo told me: you just have to create an illusion. This is cinema; it doesn’t have to be real. For me, that is kind of like committing suicide. But little by little I started to enjoy that this is an illusion and you just have to make the audience believe a little bit in that and it will work well.

RATNER: That feeling of an illusion, or maybe better, delusion, starts with the extraordinary opening shot of the father and daughter, nestled together but facing opposite directions. Was that how you planned to begin?

ALONSO: It was in the script. The script was only like twenty pages. After we shot all the pages, the soundman Catriel Vildosola approached me—he’s like a brother to me—and said: I think we’re still not feeling the relationship between the father and the daughter, maybe there is something we can do to get the melancholic feeling about those two across. I started talking with Viggo. The next day Viggo came to me and said can we do this: he wrote the lines.

RATNER: You are open to ideas from the actors?

ALONSO: Everybody has a say. I don’t like to decide many things, so everybody can suggest an idea. I pick the crew very carefully. Not just anybody can be in it, but once you are part of the family, everybody can talk and say whatever they want. It’s like a friends-and-family thing. And we live like that during the shooting. I like it that way.

RATNER: Just to stay with the opening a bit, I was struck by how much you communicate about the father and daughter. And Ingeborg is already escaping, if only into a book.

ALONSO: The book might have been there because Villbjørk Malling Agger is not an actress and maybe needed something to hold in her hands. You need lots of luck in making a film. For instance, we couldn’t put Viggo’s full-face on camera because of continuity problems with the beard. It wasn’t full enough yet. Viggo said let’s try it with my back. You focus more on the girl’s presence and not on Viggo. And it’s like a painting you know.

RATNER: There’s a sun-washed feeling in the film, a kind of overexposure.

ALONSO: Actually, I didn’t make that decision. I just picked the locations. Timo made the color correction. He’s the one who decided to saturate the colors. But most of that was already printed in the film. He just adjusted some of the color temperatures, you know, and that’s one of the things that I really liked about his work. If you saw the last Kaurismäki film, there is a non-naturalistic way of lighting and using color which I like a lot. Especially in a period movie that it should be lit by the fire, or by candles, and you can feel that Timo put this big light on the scene, creating a great distance between what you expect and what you see. It’s ambiguous in a way, no?

RATNER: It makes it feel less specifically of one era or another because of its geographical and temporal disorientation.

ALONSO: The color worked to create a unique world that only functions inside the movie. It doesn’t come from books or history. That’s why the main couple is Danish. The more conventional choice would be English, but I don’t want people to start comparing things to books. Only three or four million people speak Danish so it’s a kind of exotic language. I like how it sounds. It also references the Scandinavian or Nordic Viking colonizadores. You know they were the first ones.

RATNER: You bewilder the viewer. There’s no clear sense of where we are or what these outsiders are up to in Patagonia.

ALONSO: You want to know what they’re doing there. Even at the beginning, Captain Dinesen says to his daughter: we don’t belong here, we should go back, soon we will leave this place. I don’t know what the hell they were doing there. I think they’ve been contracted by some government. Or they just ran away. There were people who had committed all sorts of crimes who were sent away rather than being put in jail. We don’t know what happened to the girl’s mother. It’s an open question that doesn’t matter for the film.

RATNER: You worked with two editors. Did they edit while you were shooting or only after?

ALONSO: First of all, I shot the whole thing and developed the film. Then I waited a couple of months to edit the film in my own home with Gonzalo del Val, a relative of my mother’s who’d just finished cinema studies. Six months later, I still wasn’t feeling secure about everything, so I Skyped with Natalia López. I needed an outside view about the editing, about whether or not the film worked. It’s about 120 scenes, that’s all; not so many, though a lot for me. The film creates its own space and time, a reality based on rhythm and timing. It’s almost a hypnosis. And then you can use whatever happens: whether it’s a little toy or whatever, it can create a big impact on the audience. You go “real, real, real” and— suddenly—something happens which is not real. The contrast makes you pay more attention. You see that things can change in a radical way in a minute.

RATNER: You place demands on your audience.

ALONSO: I make it for me. That’s the audience.

RATNER: You’ve talked about using long takes to give viewers time to be in the film, to think about something else and then come back into the film they’re watching.

ALONSO: I don’t think that they are long. I like to have the time to think about what is happening onscreen, to have the sense of someone behind the camera telling me the film. Otherwise, I feel that somebody wants to take me by the nose and make me smell different things in different situations, and that’s all. I get bored with that. I really enjoy not understanding what is happening in front of my eyes. I’m uncomfortable because it forces me to pay attention, to put myself in someone else’s shoes, and to learn something about myself. Sometimes I just get bored, but that’s not bad. I may not enjoy a film, but I can be curious about it. I can ask myself: why did it take so long to tell me about this little thing? An idea may stay with you through all the movies you see after this one. For me, that’s how cinema works. Just to feel some excitement, that there are still mysterious ways to tell things.

RATNER: Each image is about more than its current context, right? Each time anyone views something, they are bringing their experiences, both of other films and of life, to it.

ALONSO: I like to feel some kind of aesthetic pleasure. Probably it’s more like painting than narrative. I like to have the time while I’m watching a film to understand what is happening inside the main character’s head or what I would do in his situation. Maybe I’m very slow, but I need time to understand. But people are secondary. The location is central.

RATNER: At a recent press conference, you spoke about filmmaking as a means to spend time with people you would not ordinarily encounter, because it took you out of your familiar surroundings. Your earlier films were contemporary and observational, but in 《Jauja》 you’ve made a period piece. I wonder whether your own sense of disorientation in the earlier films influenced this project?

ALONSO: It’s a complicated question. I put the crew, the actors, and myself in unexpected places. We didn’t know what we would get or how I would use a particular image or frame. But that’s fine, it’s enjoyable. With my first film, I realized that I didn’t control more than twenty percent of what was going on, but nevertheless everybody was really excited. In 《La Libertad》 we took some risks, we didn’t control the images but I really like that sensation when I’m making a movie, knowing I will learn a lot from the movie or the image. There are actually a lot of questions people ask me about my films for which I don’t have answers. I’m not trying to be an idiot or an arrogant guy. I really don’t know how I choose this or that. When you see some painting you never ask why this blue or red, or what is this triangle or circle. It is what it is.

RATNER: Did you do all the shooting at once?

ALONSO: The last part of the film was the first thing that I shot, in 2012. We stopped for a year waiting for Viggo to confirm. Then he had room in his full schedule. It was a risky structure. I enjoy that: if the films are good at the end, that’s wonderful, but if they are bad, they’re not going to kill anyone. If I learn something during the shooting that’s the most important thing to me; that, and to be working with other people. When you get out of your home and you spend two months just living like gypsies, you depend on others. There’s no phone, no internet. It feels like a nice family.

RATNER: A functioning family?

ALONSO: Or dysfunctional. But to share that feeling with a guy like Viggo and with nonprofessional actors made me feel like we are all on the same level. We were working in a serious way on the film. There’s no boss. And I really like to feel that way, as if everything could be that way.

RATNER: Did having such a big star throw things off balance?

ALONSO: Viggo was the first to wake up at seven in the morning. He got the tripod and started knocking on all the doors and said: it’s time, let’s go. During dinnertime, he’d just disappear. We said: where the fuck is Viggo? He was doing the dishes for thirty-five people! So that was quite an experience for me and for the people I worked with. They thought that since Viggo is a star he was going to be a pain in the ass. At first, everyone judged him. But by the second week, everybody was having drinks with the guy, completely in love. He took a risk being in the film. He told me he liked my films, especially 《Los Muertos》, but he worried because he read that I never know how they will end. I will appreciate his risk for my entire life. I feel very lucky to get to know an actor and a producer like Viggo.

RATNER: Do you have ideas for what you might do next?

ALONSO: (Shrugs) I don’t know. Am I going to shoot with some professional actors again? I don’t know, probably yes. Am I going to a wild location? Probably yes. Should I make the next movie more artificial or go back to the more observational contemplative way? I don’t know. I’m curious to keep getting farther from the way I live, so next time I hope to be near the Amazon. It’s like a dream for me to get inside of the real jungle and see what happens.

RATNER: Have you been there already?

ALONSO: No. I only go [to a location] once I’m shooting or I get blocked. But once I finished 《Jauja》, I immediately began thinking of the jungle, probably because in this film there were no trees. I like to be surrounded by green and trees, to get a sense of what it must have felt like four hundred years ago.

RATNER: You open 《Los Muertos》 with a view of trees, in and out of focus, very much like a child’s view. It’s certainly not a city dweller’s view.

ALONSO: I prefer not to shoot in Buenos Aires, but I keep asking myself why in every film I choose to shoot people far from civilization, far away in time. But I guess we are not that different from those guys. It might seem like there’s a lot of difference between a New Yorker and an Indian guy who doesn’t know how to read, but they’re not all that different.

Author’s Note

Special thanks to John Wildman of the Film Society of Lincoln Center for help in arranging this interview.

“Los antiguos decían que Jauja era una tierra mitológica de abundancia y felicidad. Muchas expediciones buscaron el lugar para corroborarlo. Con el tiempo, la leyenda creció de manera desproporcionada. Sin duda la gente exageraba, como siempre. Lo único que se sabe con certeza es que todos los que intentaron encontrar ese paraíso terrenal se perdieron en el camino.” 片子运用了大量的景深长镜头，非常工整的风景画，有些像《哈利波特》里有魔法的照片或者简报，人物在里面走来走去。那里就是阿根廷，我第一次听是《晓松奇谈》里说那里有世界上最大最丰饶的草原。后来我来到了南美，了解到尽管如今已是科技时代，南美的工业与科技都还不发达，但这片土地所给予的丰衣足食以及流淌在人民血液里的及时行乐，它还是抚慰了现实震荡下的灵魂，并平添了一份魔幻的色彩。 影片至七十多分钟处才出现配乐，画面中是绚烂的星空，风尘仆仆行路的人终于在那底下沉睡，梦仍然是流动的。究竟是为什么放弃了家园去找寻“安乐乡”却迷失在了颠沛的路途之上？而“乡愁”终究是对放弃了原有家园的追思还是始终未能到达之地的妄念？就像有一首歌里唱的，“我们都是单行道上的跳蚤”，回不去也走不远。 苏珊·桑塔格在《中国旅行计划》中说“有什么穿过了供血充沛的胚胎外膜”，于我亦是，如若按“但求心安是吾乡”，阿根廷便是我的Jauja。在向往了十年之久后，我终于踏上了南美这片热土，又雀跃又紧张以为靠得有足够近了，却因为一场意外不得不重将自己流放一般于远方，几乎被打击得再也没有了一丝去渴望的力气。直到经历了如同影片中遇见拥有一只狗和一口井住在山洞里的“女巫”一般具有魔幻色彩的事，我暗恋了三年的男孩子在我几乎不能振作起来的时候突然邀请我去他的家乡，我开始相信“念念不忘，必有回响”。 许多人说我这样做叫“追梦“也好“随心”也罢，我自己清楚我只是选择了逃避现实，将自己放逐虚无。最近和几个“三十岁的女人”聊天，她们也都有着和我一样的迷茫，“安乐乡”究竟在哪里，在找寻的路上她们早也已经迷失。我们在小酒馆里喝了几杯，感到一种心灰意懒后的安稳，它即使短暂，即使明日我们又要再强打起精神。人生向死而生的路径之上，是永恒的寂寥与孤独，唯与你煮酒听雨方一解乡愁，另日又隔千里，但那路径之上，总算悲伤有时起舞有时，颠沛有时安乐有时。 那么，是否最终到达“安乐乡”还有什么重要。追到了也会再推远了。结尾处女儿从睡梦中醒来，较于前戏恍若沧海桑田斗转星移。不论前面是她的一场梦魇，还是与前完全独立互文的分段。那一刻的她都不再挣扎，向往远航，随即就将当初自己珍视的土著木偶抛向池底。我们寻找的是什么？什么也不是。为那些虚妄空泛的念想而流离失所是为了什么？不为了什么。这样的结局究竟是一种达观还是虚无的态度？还是说，时间一如既往的流逝中，唯有爱与知足常乐。

作者 / 罗莎·玛蒂尔德·泰希曼

译 / tunmii

首发于《拉美电影迷宫》公众号：//mp.weixin.qq.com/s/_Uu_ZG_p8leyUFrY1PFZuQ

引言

本文通过解读利桑德罗·阿隆索 (Lisandro Alonso)的电影《安乐乡》 (2014)，阐释了米歇尔·福柯提出的乌托邦和异托邦概念，以便通过电影来理解福柯的理论基础，及阿隆索对此的批判性看法和他采用的叙事结构。我们试图表明，这部电影和阿隆索其它的作品都在经历着从乌托邦到异托邦的转变，他借用一种新的讲述方式，在不失连贯性的情况下对空间进行着穿越与弥合。

关键词：安乐乡，乌托邦，异托邦，转变

“古人说，安乐乡是一个神话般富饶、幸福的土地。许多探险队都在寻找它，证实它的存在。时间逝去，这个传说逐渐失信。唯一可以确定的是，所有试图寻找这个天堂的人，都在旅途中迷失了方向。”

引自《安乐乡》（Jauja,2014）

历桑德罗最新的电影《安乐乡》（Jauja）以此题词开头。这片土地——真实抑或想象，人与空间的关系，居住者与行者，物质和精神——便是其戏剧性发展的源泉。显然，《安乐乡》隐射的并不是秘鲁的某一城市，而是一个中世纪的传说，一个富饶的、自得其乐的领土。当西班牙殖民者到达美洲，尤其是当皮萨罗到达了安第斯城市Jauja时，大肆挥霍着财富与食物，安乐乡的神话因此被改写。让我们对上面的引言感兴趣的是阿隆索最后的那句话。到达、迁移和寻找一样毫无意义，因为所有试图去向那里的人都“在旅途中迷失了方向”。我们从中可知，阿隆索不再试图将目光放置于寻找的旅途，对乌托邦的盼望以异托邦终结。

换句话说，从幻想到确定，从一个不存在的空间到另一个空间，这是未能接近乌托邦空间的挫败感的产物。因此，这篇文章便是为了研究《安乐乡》中的旅程是如何以福柯于1966年12月7日在法国文化无线电会议作为理论支撑的，其致力于探讨乌托邦和文学的关系，即乌托邦和异托邦。

“安乐乡”一词没有在电影里出现过，只出现于题词。这指涉了一个真实的乌托邦，归因于福柯的定义过程：

没有实体的国家和没有年表的历史都存在。城市、行星、大陆、宇宙，它们的踪迹无法在地图上被定位，也无法在天空中被识别，这仅仅是因为它们不属于任何空间。毫无疑问，这些城市、大陆、行星都是由人的头脑所构造，又或是从话语的间隙中产生的。口传的故事、梦中出现的场景，都是内心的空虚。我所指的，以上所有，都是那甜蜜的乌托邦。（福柯，2008）

影片中唯一可能提到乌托邦——一个甜蜜的乌托邦空间——的地方，就是当皮塔卢加中尉提到祖鲁阿加上尉的时候，后者就像是原住民的乌托邦世界的管理者。但迪内森船长的目标不是去找到这一乌托邦，他希冀能找到另一个被称为“苦痛”的乌托邦空间。对祖鲁阿加领土的影射切合了整个故事。因此，人们可能想知道为什么阿隆索会以一个乌托邦空间来命名自己的电影。只有向乌托邦迈出第一步，才能更接近它的幻灭。对福柯来说，它的“踪迹无法被定位”。乌托邦所指的是一场重大的价值探寻，而它不存在于任何地方。而同时，与此相反的，他深刻描述了“人类头脑中”的构想，以及是什么驱使着他们走向疯狂，就像阿基尔或迪内森上尉。

迪内森船长出发寻找女儿，她的缺席在短短几分钟内就使他产生了“内心的空虚”。尽管知道，对于一个本就不属于这个地方的人来说这样的寻找十分困难，他还是出发了。皮塔卢加中尉提出要陪伴他，但他拒绝了：这是他的使命，他必须前往一个一无所知的终点（潘帕斯草原是如此相似），但他相信他最终能够到达某一个地方。这条道路是唯一一个能将他与他的文化、他的空间、他的生活联系起来的重逢之路，但也同时是一条与本我分离的道路。当他知道自己的血统已经丧失，他便出发去寻找血统。这是一条充满挫折与困顿的旅程。

然而，我们认为，这部电影最主要的发展并非一种乌托邦式的愿景，而是与福柯相吻合的异托邦理论；或者更确切地说，正是由于乌托邦，观众才发现了异托邦：与空间相对，其它空间成为了“对我们所处的现实空间的神话式的、现实的反驳”。（福柯，2008）因此，阿隆索勾勒了一个恒定的异托邦空间，这是一个没有终点的、没有时间的、边缘化了的空间。简而言之，他者与无数的镜像空间都会不断出现。为了与《安乐乡》相对应，我们将参考福柯所提出的异托邦学说和异质拓扑学原则，通过文本解读来进行分析。

第一个原则，他假设“或许任何社会都存在异托邦”（福柯，2008）。《安乐乡》中描绘的社会就是建构的社会。实际上，迪内森船长正在构造着什么。在潘帕斯草原之中，没有房子，没有城市化，空间里唯一的住宅空间是几个零星的帐篷，以及一个显然只能侥幸寄居的洞窟。就其整体而言，这个空间处于另一种社会的边缘位置，它有组织、法律、传统，例如有能力组织一场舞蹈。影片中提到的战队领袖不住在潘帕斯，他或许住在某个城市，住在一个端庄的、资产阶级的、受人尊敬的地方，在那里甚至可以举办一场宴会。然而，潘帕斯平原开阔、奇异的空间与掌权者所在的地方不同，它是一个“椰壳”般的空间，人们通过工具手段一点一点地对其进行侵略，以此消除了它是异质空间的可能性。占有空间是支配空间的前提。

考虑到广阔无边的潘帕斯平原也同样存在着边缘自治社群，祖鲁阿加上尉——他居住在一个被现行法律所抵制的地方——便是这个异质空间中的一个有趣的阻碍因素。他像一个疯子，福柯会把他放置于他所提到的异质空间：精神病院。他对异托邦异常性的描述为：“这样的地方为那些行为与平均的、正常的行为有所偏差的人设立”（福柯，2008）。祖鲁阿加上尉从一开始便产生了偏差，那是一个受法律所管控的地方。换句话说，在这个已然是另一个潘帕斯的平原，有着印第安的、椰壳”般的领地，有着一个空间专门为那些脱离了现世社会而存在。如果从克里奥语来看异托邦，从原住民的角度来看乌托邦：迪内森船长作为文明世界中一个土生土长的欧洲人，是为了什么而来到这样一个不同的空间？在那里，他唯一的愿望是保护他的女儿、他最宝贵的财富，以免受来自南方的、其它大陆和文化的污染，并在那一空间中屈服。他想由支配者转为受配者，也或许是以免转变为他永远不想成为的另一个人？如果他的女儿茵格不反抗他，没有在幸福的“安乐乡”土地上追求自由和独立的爱情，她会怎么样？因此，潘帕斯可以被认为是丹麦女孩茵格的乌托邦，在这里她有幻想爱和自由的空间；同时这也是她父亲的异托邦，它使他摈弃了现实的桎梏，将他复制为一个新的居住者。

因此，我们可以看到，这一故事角色们所在的重要空间有着有趣的模糊度和复杂度，这有助于将故事视为能被不同居民所能感知到的移动的、动态的空间。在此，电影对凝视、感知的兴趣，不仅仅在角色们在功能维度的兴趣，还有观众的兴趣——他们必须不断地变更自己对故事发展的看法，且持续对微弱的情节保持注意力。而微弱的故事并不是零叙事。“比起能给多少信息，我的电影更注重和观众的直觉交流。如果没有观众，我的电影就没有信息。”（克拉普，2014）

福柯的第四条原则陈述如下：

事实证明，异托邦通常与单一的时间片段有关。如果各位能够接受，这是一种异时性……最后，还有一些异托邦与通道、转化和再生有关，而不是节典。（福柯，2008）

在这里，福柯所指的是19世纪的学校和军营，它们的存在是为了让青少年、男性和监狱承担二十世纪的再生功能。我们能明显地在《安乐乡》中看到迪内森船长穿越潘帕斯草原这一异托邦将他卷入了另一个时间，一个错位的、制造了有趣转变的时间。从个人层面而非社会层面来说，迪内森进入了一个不确定时间，一段架空的历史，可能来自梦，也可能来自幻觉。洞穴——另一个异托邦——隐藏在社会空间的暗处，是一个躲避社会的地方（就像福柯提到的妓院），成为了帮助船长认识自己、观察自己的空间。这不仅仅发生在某一边界或边缘地带。空间已不再重要，唯独时间。之后，观众对一系列的都会镜头感到疑惑。比起在另一空间内的表现，更重要的是它们在另一个时间内。对这一系列镜头的疑问各种各样：我们看到的是迪内森船长的梦境、想象，在那里他为女儿规划了一个幸福的未来，其中却没有他自己的存在——他是与潘帕斯草原同化了，又或许是已然死亡？若我们看到的正是船长诗意的死亡的隐喻及其危险旅程的终点，如同一场没有指南针的寻找（指南针在茵格手中，洞穴中的女人却拥有了它），这是否说明了我们看到的影像便是对上尉死亡的确认？

或许，所谓阿隆索借用了大卫·林奇风格的这一说法很难让人理解：

“人们能梦见自己从未见过的东西吗？这些东西拓宽了我的局限”，阿隆索说，他询问了另一种意见，又或是在思忖是否与他的相似；但他很快就把它放在一边，“我发现很难找到电影中用以描述事物发生的语言，我更愿意沉溺于图像。这就是我经常遇到的情况，比如，我没有兴趣和林奇进行比较。你不知道某事为什么会发生，但总有什么在等待着你，就像我看到一幅我很喜欢的画一样；也许我无法解释、破译它们，但这些东西令我望而却步。它们从未将我拒之于外，可总有什么是存在的。这一点我希望能通过电影来表达。（克拉普，2014）

电影的最后一段是否对应了一个空间，一种拓普斯，或一个女孩失去了双亲的现实？她迷途而返，渴望着“四处跟随她的人”；这个人就像一条异化为人的幼犬，它一直想念着她，并因她的缺席而困顿？我们相信，出于分析和解释的目的，质疑、提问比提供答案更为重要，这促使我们找到这部电影的意义：从乌托邦过渡到异托邦的公路电影，将观众带入了一种感性之旅，改变了他们对故事的感受。它削弱了透明度和因果关系，却向诗的维度、幻想的维度开放。

福柯的最后一条原则指出：

正是在这一点上，我们无疑接近了最重要的异托邦。所有这些对其它空间的挑战皆以两种方式来进行：要么像阿拉贡所说的那些妓院，它们谴责现实世界，使得除其自身之外的现实成为幻觉；又或者正好相反，它们创造了另一个如此现实的完美世界，它是那么细致和整洁，而现实世界却如此失序、混乱。（福柯，2008）

这最后一点无法不令人联想到与电影可能的联系。迪内森船长出发去寻找一个乌托邦世界：他要在某处找到自己的女儿，无人知晓如何抵达，彼处又会是哪里；他拒绝当地人的帮助，带着军刀和武器，穿着制服独自上了路。

要在荒芜的潘帕斯草原上实现乌托邦式的愿望，不论怎么看，他都会被一个不属于他的空间所淹没——这一空间属于他者，属于那些创造乌托邦以及异托邦的人——他承载着这种挫折，企图创造一个“真实的、完美的、细致且有序的空间”，就像洞窟——一个想象性的空间——“当我们的空间是无序的、混乱的、令人困惑的”。寻找乌托邦的徒劳无获使他创造了一个异托邦：洞窟。在其中，他发现了一个混合了现实和想象的容器空间（福柯反复命名的妓院构建了异托邦，于此处人们在现实世界中寻找违禁品），它允许宣泄，用自己偏好的言语进行对话，一种满足饕餮盛宴的可能性。

又或许：茵格已经老去；在迪内森船长想象中的乌克兰世界中，这个女人没有忘记自己的语言，没有伴侣，只有一条狗的陪伴？这一空间甚至可以成为另一个空间的发生装置：它清晰、明亮，是一片失落的故土；一个年轻女子侥幸留下，爱犬围着她，她幸福却失落。人的心灵能否制造这样的空间，以保护自己免受苦难和不幸？就像阿隆索提出的：“你能梦见一些你从未见过的东西吗？”问题的答案，就在《安乐乡》的图像中。

从乌托邦到异托邦

在第二部分里，我们将不再以此前的分析来解读影片的叙事策略。专注于空间价值的基础概念让我们能够继续深入研究历桑德罗·阿隆索电影中独特的叙述方式。因此，我们回到之前引用的前言，它正是可作为参考文献，并具有指示功能的目标文本。

一开始，古人将自己确定为知识的主要载体，而这个定义脱离了语境，含义模糊。语言的歧义便是阿隆索想要在电影的结构中展示的意图：一种模棱两可的语汇，通过特定的叙事加以表述。古人是谁？答案可以有很多，每一个都可以成立。他们可以是单独的个体，多样的村落，甚至是征服者本身。那么，这些古人都在预言着什么？乌托邦存在，那是一片富足的、幸福的、神话般的土地。

这个形容词的使用可以达到同样的效果。“安乐乡”在想象中的真实社会里是一个神话，但在叙事中，它对很多人来说似乎是一个现实的存在。皮塔卢加中尉也如此承认，并非毫无怀疑。“安乐乡”是一个可被理解的空间。但如果从乌托邦中选取一个地点，不论怎么样，那都会是一个将永远被找寻的空间；也就是说，会开始一场冒险、一条行路、一种企图，以便寻找一个或许存在的实体，哪怕人尽皆知这一可能性的渺茫（“人们一如既往地奢求”）。他们探寻着很早就知道了的东西（“他们清楚地知道”），搜索是毫无意义的。这一模糊的歧义变成了矛盾，在文本的最后被清晰呈现：所有试图到达安乐乡的人都失去了方向。简而言之，正如上文所说，寻找的目的便是为了不再寻找。具有价值的正是寻找行为本身，对乌托邦的探索、对真实异托邦的发现都是值得的。我们相信这便是阿隆索创作这一叙事结构的原因，在他之前的作品中便可见其端倪，尤其是《再见伊甸园》（2004）和《利物浦》（2008）——角色们出发去寻找，但无从得知他们是否找到了他们所寻找的东西，甚至很难去设想他们是否能够找到。这不是去寻找女儿或母亲，或再一次寻找女儿。这其中有太多意义需要在旅途中被找到；若没有找到，一种变革性的体验也会在途中出现。

《安乐乡》可以被认为是一部典型的公路电影。虽然作为主角有着明确的旅行目的，但最重要的，是在这一寻找的路途中发生了什么，是对这片土地的探索，以及他是如何转变的。而这种私密的转变甚至和人物的心理有关。人物的转变并不是这部电影唯一感兴趣的东西。影片中，涉及变化的有多个不同的层次，这其中包含了一种复杂的概念框架。只有通过分析性的视角，我们才能观察到电影中不同的过程、段落与转变，以便重新定义乌托邦向异托邦的过渡。

首先是迪内森船长作为主角的转变——从寻找女儿到寻找自己的身份；寻找乌托邦的目标向寻找异托邦的目标进行转化——寻找他的女儿，便是寻找他的幸福、他的欲望、他的安适，寻找一个静止的空间，或甚至是寻找自身与祖鲁阿加土地（同时也是“安乐乡”的土地）之间的可能关联；这一特殊的空间直接指向了与库尔兹上尉1所在空间的互文：他正在寻找一个收容空间，收容他寻而不得的痛苦。从潘帕斯草原到洞窟，每一个他者空间都孕育着梦幻的、通灵的、如真实一般虚幻的扭曲。

第二点，乌托邦景观的转变明确指向了物理空间；而乌托邦景观指向的即是心灵空间。其次，则是从现实景观到梦幻景观的一种转化。或许反之而言，在《安乐乡》里，什么是梦境，什么又是现实？整部电影都可以被看作是一个当代的丹麦姑娘住在乡间别墅时所做的一场梦；也就是说，电影在最后的几分钟之内改变了观众对故事的看法。

第四点便是逻辑的转变，同时也是叙事方式的转变：从因果到联想。电影反映现实的观念在慢慢转变，对梦的现实性、无序中的意识和出于联想的理性因果论的限制都在逐渐消除。第五点，观众的转变：信息从被动地给予到策略性的刻意隐瞒，观众的感知和认知因此发生改变，“一种让我们观察去观察的电影，它激发感知，最终作用于思想（……）它让观众不禁自问：‘这是什么电影？’”（贝登多夫，2007:35）通过这样的方式，利桑德罗·阿隆索在接受帕梅拉·比恩佐巴斯的采访时解释说：

“我想在主角意识到他不会再见到女儿的那一刻之后，他一定会受到情感的冲击。我想把这一时刻作为将电影的分节点，因为我觉得这个角色开始崩溃，这看似奇怪，实际是开始了另一个维度的叙述、另一个层次的阅读，等等。如果观众始终保持平静，他则是想拿走这份平静。他一点点加大力度，给观众施加刺激——我也喜欢看那些给我带来这种感觉的电影，这施与我压力——并让他们去观察这个故事能发展到何处。”（比恩佐巴斯，2015）

第六，与之前的作品不同，我们可以在这部电影中看到利桑德罗·阿隆索对摄影策略的改变：一条重要的线索保持了电影的连贯性，这让我们能把它看做一个复杂的、多维的整体。利桑德罗本人也指证了这一点：这部作品相较于过去的确是一个转变（或转型）？从一种混合了叙事与非叙事的粗糙的、极致的现实主义到人为参与。这一迹象在这部作品中得到集中体现。阿隆索选择帝莫·萨尔米宁作为该项目的摄影指导并非巧合，后者指导了大部分阿基·考里斯马基的电影摄影，其电影的摄影风格都以非自然主义为标志。

“有时候我会问：‘帝莫，这光是哪来的？这看起来像在拉斯维加斯。’他会看着我，回答说：‘光来自灯。我们必须创造一种幻觉。’对他来说，电影正是为了制造幻象。如果你创造了幻觉，那就忘了它，不要害怕人们是否会思考它是否真实。这是一个新的尝试。过去，我的电影都不会激励我，因为我觉得那很假。我不敢放手去做或制造幻觉。我其它的电影更贴近现实，都是真实的、确切的行为，它拒绝谎言、伪造，从不试图去说服什么，而是尽可能地保持客观，而不是通过我的双手来组织故事。”（比恩佐巴斯，2015）

结语

利桑德罗·阿隆索的电影是异托邦电影，一种置身于另一个边缘空间的电影，设计了不同的制作和叙述模式，位于主流之外。爱德华多·卢梭将阿隆索电影中的差异性定义如下：

阿隆索一直在设计的那种影片，除了专注于讲故事（一种基于良知的、围绕着假定命题而建立的永恒使命），还要求这一艺术形式具有更基础的意义：为某种文化作出视觉和声音的贡献，扩大观众对时空构成的视听认知。（卢梭，2011:20）

注释 1弗朗西斯·科波拉 (Francis F. Coppola) 1979 年电影《启示录》中的角色。