候鸟(2018)

| Godfrey Cheshire

February 12, 2019 |

When Cristina Gallego and Ciro Guerra’s gripping, brilliantly mounted drama “Birds of Passage” (Spanish title: “Pájaros de Verano”) opens, we could almost be watching an ethnographic documentary. It’s the late 1960s and we’re observing a family from the indigenous Wayúu people in a remote, arid stretch of northern Colombia. A girl named Zaida (Natalia Reyes) has just completed her ritual period of isolation and her people are celebrating her emergence, which symbolizes her readiness for marriage. And that prospect looms up almost immediately with the announcement by Rapayet (José Acosta), a handsome guy from a neighboring family, that he wants her as his wife.

Zaida’s mother, Ursula (Carmiña Martínez), this family’s very imposing matriarch, seems suspicious of Rapayet as soon as makes his intentions known. She decrees a dowry that she seems to assume is way beyond the man’s means; it includes scores of goats and cows – the mainstays of Wayúu subsistence – as well as some valuable necklaces. It’s not long, though, before he returns with all the dowry items in tow. The way he enriched himself enough to afford his pretty and pricey bride is where the film’s crime story begins.

Much later in the tale, a woman from another Wayúu family notes that over the centuries her people have fended off pirates, the English, the Spanish and various Colombian governments trying to control them. They are very tradition-bound folks; they believe in ghosts, magic talismans and communications with the dead, and their paramount value is honor. Yet by the time the remark about their history is made, it carries a bitter irony, because the Wayúus’ way of life has been upended by a new enemy: lust after the riches that come from dealing marijuana.

Rapayet’s entry to the business happens when he overhears a shop owner say that some young, long-haired Peace Corps volunteers, who are in Colombia to combat the threat of Communism, are looking for some pot. Rapayet and his best friend, a high-spirited black guy named Moisés (Jhon Narváez), know a source up in the mountains, and soon they are making huge wads of cash delivering big bales of the weed to gringo drug runners who fly and in out on small planes.

But the operation doesn’t run smoothly for long. One day, the hot-tempered Moisés thinks he sees evidence that the gringos are betraying them by also dealing with some of their competitors, so he whips out a pistol and kills two of them. The murders are anathema to the Wayúu, and Rapayet’s family demands he execute Moisés.

“Birds of Passage” is based on actual events from the 1960s-'80s and is told in four roughly half-hour chapters, followed by a short epilogue. Co-directors Gallegos and Guerra previously made the Oscar-nominated “Embrace of the Serpent” (she produced and he directed), which depicts the interaction over several decades between indigenous people, including a formidable shaman, and Europeans. Although reviewers used the term “psychedelic” to describe that film’s imaginative style, it examined important issues in Colombian cultural history from an informed and committed Colombian perspective.

“Birds of Passage” does much the same. Its subject is the “Bonanza Marimbera,” the era when people in the Guajira region of northern Colombia – both Wayúu and others – became involved in drug smuggling, which in subsequent decades would be the source of much domestic trouble and international infamy for Colombia, and also, more lately, fodder for big-budget entertainments made mostly by non-Colombians. In interviews, Gallego and Guerra have rightly questioned the “exploitative” nature of shows like “Narcos” that offer glorifying portraits of mass murderers like Pablo Escobar.

Their film also concerns the drug trade, reaching back to its modern origins, and it deals with the violence that destroyed many lives, families and communities. Yet it skirts Hollywood-style sensationalism in several ways. For one, the filmmakers generally avoid direct, up-close depictions of violence. Sometimes we see only its results: bloody bodies lying in the middle of a road, for example. And in the story’s final act, when two families engage in a war with military-scale manpower and weapons, we see the confrontation mainly in a single searing long shot.

Gallego and Guerra also humanize their characters via their efforts to portray their culture accurately. The actors who play Rapayet, Ursula and Zaida, professionals who do excellent work, are surrounded by faces that clearly belong to this place; the filmmakers also made their crew 30 percent Wayúu to help assure the authenticity of the film’s details. And the sense that the portrayal of this community is exacting as well as flavorful comes not only from the documentary-like visual approach and Leonardo Heiblum’s evocative score, but also in the story’s elements of magical realism, which of course reflects the influence of Gabriel García Márquez, whose maternal family was Wayúu and whose “One Hundred Years of Solitude” includes numerous Wayúu influences.

Those literary elements are skillfully woven into the script by Maria Camila Arias and Jacques Toulemonde, which starts off in a world that may be poor and disadvantaged in many ways but that also has traditions of sustaining simplicity and integrity. The screenwriters’ way of describing this world’s fall from grace due to the lures of money and luxury has the power and inevitability of classic tragedy. It could be Greek or Shakespearean, though it is palpably modern and Colombian.

此影评的译文可以登录火星译客网站查看，如有翻译不准确之处，望请指出，谢谢！

译员：卖女孩的小火柴。

校对： Thibault

内核是很有意思的，但拍的太塑料、做作、虚假又潦草了，简直搞成了狗血剧。有种出卖自身文化去博人眼球商业讨好的勉强和急功近利之意，就这还勾丝十年。。片子的审美太新且现代，完全没有真实性，无法相信那个地方和民族的故事，每个人都穿着崭新的衣服，住在精致又干净的“破旧”茅屋，这是认真的吗。。

不过关于哥伦比亚瓦尤人的民俗规训还是挺有道理，对女性的崇拜和追求产生了高昂的彩礼，这是另一种方式建立的婚姻关系阐述，是基于对女性和女方家庭的尊重，双方各司其职，在很久之前，彼此都足够谦卑虔诚的时候，只会想彼此付出更多能够展现自己荣誉并以爱为荣、以付出为荣、以道德为荣的时候，这一切就与利益无关，利益只是衡量和表现这种情义的最微不足道的方式之一，但当今社会是，人们对利益太过敏感和重视，看不见物质背后承载的文化和道德的意义，其实却是另一种形式的德行的堕落，对金钱和交易、利益和商业的欲望表现。如果被伤害的一定是“心虚”的。双方都堕落，那这条在曾经很久之前作为部族荣誉的交流方式就在现代变得不再适用了，需要以不同的表现形式来强化这一层重视。

如果是彻底纯粹的氏族和接受完整信仰理念的家人是可以有这样的信任的和关系的，包括极其重视荣誉和诺言，以及对言行家庭的责任，但是任何极端都会带来暴力，尤其在经受欲望的考验时。

虽然过程狗血但影片最为凌厉的还是两个家族和其他家族厮杀最后图的是道德秩序和尊严，他们失去了一切物质包括族人性命和土地，最后留下两个仇人老小作伴，而既得利益者是西方。这看起来在情感逻辑上很牵强，失去所有人的生命都要复仇，其他人的命好像不是命，只是为了一个寓言故事所做的道具，所以，如果在传达对瓦尤人的精神理念这一方面来说故事是带着点古老的神话意味，但却给拍成了商业片形式。

不过可笑的是这样的家族规训和秩序下居然不对被惯坏的小儿子进行惩罚，所以是对待外族人严格，对自己人很宽松，律法的两面性，为了一己私欲将部族规训形同摆设，所以也教育不出来真正的瓦尤人。

造成的厮杀，事件中的每一次冲突双方似乎都在自己的立场上坚持了合理的信条，只是结果却以欲望和膨胀的自我意识来以复仇作为唯一解决的方式，于是结果就是这个部族的人火拼全死光。蒙布的脸代表失去了自己的尊严，丢失了瓦尤人真正的面庞，变成了空白的矇昧，地毯上始终走来走去的鸟脚。

几国交战不杀来使。

如果只追求结果的正义的话，一个强硬的坚持族内德行的首领是不会允许身边的人犯事，也不会使得事情出现这样的结果。但是他们追求的好像并非事物的发展，而是体验本身，甚至所有的一切金钱物质都对他们而言是游戏，可以很简单的失去，茅屋和土地生活和物质金钱生活对他们来说没有什么区别，甚至物质带来的更多是死亡。

梦境的导引实在是有些赘述，甚至起不到魔幻作用，反而有些啰嗦，力度太弱，主要还是没有在这方面真正的下功夫去呈现。

其他部族联合的复杂对抗其实可以花更多篇幅展现，简直是庞大的政治乱斗。

整部影片重心散乱，拍的跟流水账似的。

缘起大概是人类最本初的欲望，男女之情欲，宿命则是男主好像一直都心知肚明的。看完感觉很沉浸，是一种排除了一切干扰的沉浸体验。配乐和诗歌很不错。想起十几年前看的教父三部曲，真是“前已有的后必再有，前已行过的后必再行，太阳之下并无新事。”人类从历史中得到的唯一教训就是人类从不吸取教训。

3星，作为历史真实事件，还是值得看一看的，虽说是毒贩黑帮，但只是小规模村民武装械斗的规模。而且刁民格局太小，竟然是裤裆捂不住造成了灾祸，最后被外来的雇佣兵捡了大便宜。上演了一幕悲剧，让人印象深刻的是南美人民结婚也要找媒人，还要给彩礼，而且份额很是不少啊，突然觉得很有亲切感，符合咱们国情。 影片缺点是南美片风格明显， 节奏慢悠悠，还喜欢用寓意。

候鸟是哥伦比亚北部La Guajira沙漠的常客。四季的更迭间，它们从沙漠上空掠过，见证了20世纪六十直八十年代间这片哥伦比亚的边缘地带上的好运与灾祸。当卡车代替了骡子和马，当鸡尾酒会的乐队代替了传统的笛声，也许它们也在疑惑，下一年凿开坟墓后，拖出的究竟是尸骨还是枪支？哥伦比亚导演西罗·格拉（Ciro Guerra）的新片以《候鸟》为名，以La Guajira为背景，讲述了20年间大麻交易给这片沙漠带来的滋养和毁灭。

西罗·格拉无疑是近几年西语世界最受瞩目的导演之一。2015年，西罗·格拉的第三部长片《蛇之拥抱》在导演双周首映后立刻获得不俗反响，于双周获奖后又获奥斯卡最佳外语片提名，成为了哥伦比亚历史上第一部奥斯卡提名影片。新片《候鸟》以开幕片身份回归双周并不令人惊讶，该片由西罗·格拉和克里斯蒂娜·加列戈（Cristina Gallego）联合导演，后者曾为《蛇之拥抱》制片。

《候鸟》的故事发生在始于1968年哥伦比亚的La Guajira沙漠，叙述被按时间顺序分为5个章节，导演将他们命名为5首歌：野草，坟墓，繁荣，战争，地狱边缘（Limbo）。片中，导演花了大量篇幅来描述Wayuu部落的仪式。影片开篇，便是Wayuu部落女孩Zaida的成人仪式，她张开手臂、撩起裙角，在快节奏的音乐和族人的欢呼声中飞速起舞兜转，步步紧逼对面的男舞伴，直至对方难以抵抗，只能怏怏离场。结束这场狂欢的是Rapayet，他来自Wayuu部落的边缘氏族，配不上Zaida的身份和地位。Zaida母亲通过部落里的信使，也就是Rapayet的叔叔，向Rapayet传达了迎娶Rapayet的条件：50头牛，20只羊，和3串项链——而在当时看来过于苛刻的嫁妆条件，却成了日后哥伦比亚与美国大量大麻交易的源头。

在第一次成功与美国人交易大麻后，Rapayet和伙伴Moises坐在角落里一块石头上，望着不远处群魔乱舞式的嬉皮士们。Moises说：“这是世界快乐之所在。” Rapayet冷冷地回答了一句：“这是他们的世界中的快乐。”

而这也恰恰是电影想讨论的问题之所在。对于这些生活在哥伦比亚北部几乎被隔绝的人们来说，当一场名为“现代”的冷风袭卷过炎热沙漠，他们究竟会被裹挟到哪里？导演格拉和加列戈不只想讲述历史，还想探索一种叙述历史——尤其是原住民在历史中的身份——的新视角。在这点上，两位导演的意图与去年阿根廷女导演卢奎西亚·马特尔（Lucrecia Martel）同为西语片的新作《扎马》（Zama）不谋而合。大麻种植使沙漠中央的部落们处于毒品交易的中心，成为积极且有利可图的参与者；而汽车、飞机、枪支和财富、权势随之而来，却也使得他们所崇尚的族群关系和家族纽带陷入一片血泊当中。

格拉和加列戈力图在片中表现Wayuu独特的部落文化，小到编织技术、氏族间”信使“传话的交流方式，大到各类丧葬仪式习俗和神话传说，这些异域文化符号本身就为影片带来了无数天然的视觉奇观。然而，《蛇之拥抱》中亦真亦幻的黑白影像在《候鸟》中被简化为了泾渭分明的现实与梦境指代，虽然从剧情上讲更容易被接近和理解，却也丧失了许多风格化的表达。另外，在《候鸟》中，两位导演颇为露骨地表达了向类型片叙事方式靠拢的意图，可遗憾的是，类型元素与导演自身的影像特色并未充分磨合，虽然《候鸟》沿用了《蛇之拥抱》的摄影师大卫·盖勒格，但整体失衡的美学风格却暴露了两位导演的这次类型片试水仍操之过急，类型片手法反而钳制了导演的个人表达。

疾速的舞步和野蛮的狂风可以卷起砂石，飞驰的装载着大麻和枪械的卡车亦可。当他们在沙漠之中建起了一座纯白色的后现代主义城堡，摆上了平整的席梦思，Zaida和Rapayet最终还是在破旧的吊床中相拥入眠。候鸟和蝗虫在这片沙漠上来了又去，亦如在这里生活的人们。

首发深焦DeepFocus

剧情中两次重大冲突，第一次因莫伊斯擅自击毙毒贩而引起，这卷毛小哥恰恰是外人。第二次因老太太儿子列奥尼达斯 Leonidas 侵犯了瓦尤家族富商阿尼瓦尔的亲生女而引起。拉法耶 Rapayet 实际上代表了部族的潜在意识，在暴风雨般袭击的危机面前，有着强烈的求生欲望，而且充满了智慧，以柔克刚而非硬拼，所以拉法耶一再明确地委曲求全、不计成本地退让和赔偿，来谋求对方的原谅。不过瓦尤富商阿尼瓦尔在别有用心的合伙人的挟持下，拒绝和谈、残忍地杀害了信使。

老夫人在战火蔓延的危险关头，呼叫部族长老们出面，她个人付出了保管辟邪符和珍贵项链的代价后，确实荡平了阿尼瓦尔的势力，使其不能再卷土重来。但对方那嚣张的合伙人恰恰又非族人。在瓦尤族人重视荣誉高于一切的观念之下，阿尼瓦尔依然要复仇，于是这个合伙人投了重金带来了外来武装力量协助他，实现了老夫人全家玉碎的惨剧，也彻底收编了阿尼瓦尔的资产地盘。

全剧演绎了瓦尤部族深远的大局观意识、富有意味的生存技巧，和面对外界势力屠戮时的无助，毕竟部族实力从各方面看都极为有限，这也是现代社会中不断淘汰这些历史身影的进程。

拉法耶确实是个聪明人，他的伙伴莫伊斯自始至终对他是忠诚的，拉法耶没有看错人。只是这个非常热爱音乐、浪漫热情的卷毛小哥，比较容易控制不住自己。包括老夫人的儿子列奥尼达斯，常沉迷醉酒，说明酒后误事。

老夫人的谨慎，其实正是犹如影片开始时其自述“可帮助避免和化解灾祸”。只要当事人来自于瓦尤部族之中，就可以用部族长老的力量来对其制衡，不至于恶化事态。老夫人对拉法耶的警觉是合理的。这和孟子“ 是故知命者不立乎岩墙之下 ”的思想也很接近。

另外，老夫人对子女的教育成败并非关键影响因素，毕竟其子正值青春期，所犯下的是社会上常见的不法侵害犯罪，而非灭族之类的大恶，社会上很多人也会犯有同样的罪行，导致部族逐渐走向衰败的主要矛盾并不是这个，而是历史变迁对社会环境的改变。