父与子

1. Notice the framing strategy used by the director. The Son's dream at the beginning and the Father's dream that ends the movie. Rain in spring vs. winter snow. Life vs. death. The presence of Father figure in the son's dream and the closed window (the absence of the peeping Son) dreamed by the Father. Every son is destined to shed off his son-hood to become a father, whereas the father faces death alone. The missing mother is the regeneration principle, but it is missing. Mother died; she is incapable of giving further birth. So the relationship between father and son can only be lineal and one-directional. That means, the predicaments of time, decay and loss are irredeemable.
Herein we touch the very root of human suffering. This movie is all about pain and our struggle against it. Irony is: our resistance itself is painful as well, although poetic at the same time. The lyrical is the only possibility of impossible redemption. Hence the very value of this movie. It has to be beautiful, painstakingly beautiful.

2. What is the thematic thread of this movie? Allusion to God the Father and Jesus Christ. Crucifying love. In-between the Father and the Son. Sokurov is re-inventing THE myth. How ambitious! The movie is about our fall from grace, whereas the movie intends to reverse that fall by installing in and with everyday details the mythical, the arch-typical, the eternal, and the prelapsarian. The Father and the Son have to be perfect; their intimacy has to be embodied. So, our eyes that see sex or any inklings of sex are the postlapsarian eyes, the eyes of Adam and Eve out of Paradise. Remember the skull that has to be there in any portrait of Crucifiction? That is the skull of Adam, symbol of our mortal existence and the very mortality of that existence. It is to be annihilated by the passion and resurrection of Jesus. While mis-watching Sokurov's movie, we are that skull, we annihilate the work of Jesus, of the Father and the Son. Got it?

3. Of course this movie is anti-Freudian (no sex, not homoerotic, stop that misreading, no matter how productive!), anti-Bildung (the Son refuses to grow up and leave his Father; the former is a rebel against time), anti-socialization (even though the Father eventually forces the Son to part from him; the former's kneeing alone in snow is heartrending) and anti-whatever. It is about what has been lost, irretrievable, maybe forever. Ironic again: Loss is eternal; eternity is merely THE loss. The gist of the movie is "anti-". By reversing the worldly orders, it invokes the phantom of the Sacred. The Father is ultimately all alone, kneeing in snow, wrapped up in solitude. The Son is about to go, into the world. This is a myth of our world. Our world is the Son forsaken by his Father, out of love. The last cry of Jesus: Father, Father, why have thou forsaken me? The response of the Father as offered by Sorukov's movie is: I am all alone. They are in love; love crucifies them both and redeems us all.

p.s.
Another episode worth our attention. When the Son takes the other son for sightseeing in the city, he points at the barking dog and comments that it barked when he was a child. Nothing changes in the city, for the Son, who views the city as timeless. What comes next? The other son sees a plane overhead, above those surrounding buildings that seemingly freeze the flow of time. There is another world outside. THE world, in time, in history, in human collectivities, encroaching upon the phantom realm of the sacred.

In addition to Sasha, there is still an unknown boy who spies on the Father and Son! He first appears when Father works out on the roof and the other son knocks. Also, when the Son plays with Sasha between their windows.
When the Son drags the other son out onto the stepping platform, the sound of plane can be heard.

p.p.s. I hate my Christian vocabulary and category of mind. But anyway in this case it fits. Should write something for a serious journal.

作废言论：http://shawnj.blogone.net


到了今天，我几乎忘光了《父子迷情》的所有情节，这在多年的看片经历中还尚属首例。我只记得自己用了两个晚上看完这部片子，第一次在25分的时候停了下来，两天后又从22分看起直至结束。这两天恰巧自己都困得难受，眼皮始终在睁与不睁的问题上徘徊，再加上生疏了的俄语让我如坠五里雾，挺好的片子就这么浑浑噩噩给看完了。每当想起亚历山大·苏古诺夫曾为我等小民拍过《俄罗斯方舟》这样的强片（那可真是让人振奋的看片经历！），而如今竟以这种态度对待他另一部作品，我不觉愧疚起来。

《父子迷情》的宣传语这样写道，“有时他们像兄弟，有时他们又像情人”，此语准确道出了父子俩之间的暧昧。但影片又绝非如一般人所想象的那样是一出禁忌和色欲的同性恋大戏。全片只在开场时有一段父子裸体拥抱的镜头，两人的肌肤细滑而有光泽，画面被处理的纯洁朦胧，没有一丝猥亵之感。而剩下的部分便再找不到任何情欲的戏份，故事围绕父子的日常生活展开，就像世上任何一对平凡的父子那样平淡过活，唯一泄漏天机的则是他们的眼睛。当初片子送审的时候，审查官员就说“这父子俩肯定关系不正常，从他们看对方的眼神就能看出。”审片的大人们不全是酒囊饭袋，轻而易举抓住了父子的七寸。因此你看这部片子的时候会发现，他们借以表达内心活动的眼睛所传达出来的东西，要比实际通过行动所表达出来的多得多，即使你把它称作俄罗斯的《花样年华》也不为过。

苏古诺夫的作品兼顾光彩与诗意，拿《俄罗斯方舟》为例，这部用DV拍摄的单镜头长片（全片98分钟一镜到底）从头到尾都不见丝毫粗砺。除去长达8个月的辛苦调度和计算之外，单就画面而言它便足够精致华美。无论是对梦境的表现，还是现实世界的折射，通过后期的精雕细琢它一扫DV固有的缺憾，将最完美的画面呈现出来。而他的诗意部分就一如数百年历史的横断跳跃，洋洋洒洒将整个俄罗斯民族的生存发展史浓缩在98分钟的影片里，有如一首绵长的史诗，厚重不失典雅。

在《父子迷情》中，苏古诺夫抛弃前作的浩大，而将目光放在小人物的身上。一般来说俄罗斯导演的作品趋于温和、平淡，偶尔这样一个惊世骇俗的题材也给处理得温文尔雅。没有豪言壮语和曲折离奇，最普通的语言和平淡无奇的日常生活反而最能反映父子内心深处的强烈激荡。看他们在黄昏的屋顶上嬉戏，远处是被夕阳染成金色的大海，那画面竟是如此感人。这时才发现，原来以前一切海誓山盟的台词是如此可笑。那拙劣的对话远远抵不上这一幕的力道，父子情深尽现于此，还真得是大师的功力。

  以一个梦境开始 又以一个梦境结束
 梦里面是父亲和儿子耳语般的对白
 应该说 这部片子的剧本并不好 没多少故事情节 比较枯燥和无序 但是真正当你置身于那个场景的时候 那种清冷和飘逸之感会沾满所有感官 这就是一部简单的叙事电影 没有跌宕的情节 没有鲜明的人物性格 但这似乎并不影响其最终传达出来的效果 清新 朦胧 画意 找不到一个合适的词语来概括 每一个场景都是一副画 看着让人觉得十分舒服 或者说 这样的剧本 只有俄罗斯人 在俄罗斯 才会拍出那样的感觉 同样的剧本 如果换作世界上其他地方拍摄 可能效果会大不相同
 看完电影 你会明白俄罗斯这个国家的一些特质 那里的人的生活方式 性格等等 俄罗斯人刚烈但是含蓄 他们内心有非常强烈的情感 但是表现出来的却是阴郁而寡言 所以在本片中 你能感受到的和你所看到的是不成比例的 也就是说电影本身表现出来的不多 留给人遐想的空间很多 主人公把最深沉的感情留给了时间 留给了空白 或者说留给了观众 这和欧美电影的架构有很大不同 但是我们不能说俄罗斯人不懂的渲染感情
 这部电影就情节确实没有出彩之处 但是画面感特别强 让人回味悠长
 

   这部电影看起来真是怪级了
   不知是否真有这样的父子，基本在国人的惯性思维里，说父子无非要和父权冲突深重的人性压抑联系起来。就连蔡明亮那厮说到父子乱伦都是父权丧失后，也要将父亲对儿子的情欲急冲冲的表现出来，那种隐忍的压抑之痛在沉闷中爆发或瓦解。
   而这部电影却完全没有压抑的色彩，明亮的微微发黄的光彩笼罩圣彼得堡，电影只是一遍一遍说这对父子怎样极度的爱着对方。却时不时要伤害对方，以便检验另一个对自己的爱，却在这个当中伤害和利用到其他人。儿子在有父亲观看训练中的屡屡失手，父亲为了自己没有出现在儿子的梦中而暗暗生气，儿子讨厌父亲提到自己小时侯的事，原因就是他是父亲一手拉扯大的，事实的提醒他与他爱的人是父子关系。我想他们之间的感情，应该就是比其他父子更亲密的一种感情吧，包含了父子之情，也包含了兄弟和朋友的感情，而且非常浓烈。至于有没有乱伦电影没说，我猜要是捅破说了也就失去电影现在这种统一而温暖的基调了吧。

   儿子女友妒忌男友和父亲过于亲密那段拍的非常美，两张美丽的脸在隔着那扇不停说着情话，儿子痛苦矛盾的表情都抓的到位，父亲的演员非常英俊，级有成熟男人的feel。