影評：《南京！南京！》
導演陸川審視南京大屠殺的嚴酷視角，強大、震撼，不容錯過。
文：Kenneth Turan，《洛杉磯時報》影評人
2011年6月17日
悲痛，卻不畏懼，野蠻的噩夢如此激蕩人心，幽閉恐怖，迫使你想離去卻又害怕離去。《南京！南京！》不同於你曾經歷的任何電影體驗，這是一部強大到足以改變你生活的影片，如果你能承受住心靈的震撼將其看完。
中國傑出導演陸川的第三部影片《南京！南京！》取臭名昭著的南京大屠殺暴行為主題。這是1937年至1938年間日本佔領了當時中國首都時的暴行，其暴行導致了大約30萬平民的死亡，以及數以萬計的性侵犯。
但統計數據，如同文字，是虛弱的，完全無力傳達那種情況下的野蠻恐怖，而這部影片能夠捕捉和傳達其非人性化的本質，使我們感受，正如《南京！南京！》痛苦的主角之一所言，「生不如死。」
顯然，陸川已完全沉浸在其主題中，（經過兩年對於證人證言記錄的研究，其撰寫了劇本）其已將其情感強度注入到每一個電影畫面，捕捉那些在恐慌和恐怖籠罩下心態扭曲的混亂和純粹的瘋狂感。
陸川通過史詩般的但同時細膩的刻畫達到這一效果。藉助演員強有力的，令人信服的演技，他將細膩，真實的感觸融入到大場面的場景中；整個過程不顯絲毫的矯揉造作，將《可可西裡》（2004）所展現的真實冷靜的敘事方式轉移到南京街頭的停屍房。
與一流攝影師曹鬱合作，陸川選擇了採用的黑白寬屏來拍攝《南京！南京！》，精巧地將各種畫面，無論是戰鬥，暴行或眼淚定格在膠捲上。像導演在一次新聞發布會上說的：「我不得不使用一個大畫面來徹底徵服觀眾。」
攝影技巧也是《南京！南京！》具有衝擊力的因素之一。影片的大部分鏡頭使用近距離手持攝影，更真實、更有震撼力。有些場面是如此真實，似乎是一臺遺忘的攝影機在某個角落記錄了那段真實的歷史。
隨著成堆屍體無處不在。婦女被無休止的強姦，男人被刺刀刺殺，有條不紊地活埋，焚燒。大片的屍體，電線上陳列的割離的頭顱，停屍車上的待處理的裸體女人。僅僅列舉一下就足以令人震驚，而實際觀看則幾近於難以承受。
讓我們駐足觀看影片的原因，除了陸川的高超技巧外，是我們不斷參與了片中衝突兩方的主角們個人故事。《南京！南京！》在中國放映時引起巨大爭議，在於陸川願意探索侵略者的心理。 「日本人是正常人，是像我們一樣的普通人，」導演說。 「是戰爭讓人們變成了動物。」
因此，我們花了大量的時間在角川（Hideo Nakaizumi）上，角川：一個年輕的日本士兵，他的多愁善感和對淳樸人類情感的不可抑止的衝動，包括他喜歡上一個「慰安婦」妓院的日本妓女。
雖然劉燁，這部電影的最大的明星，扮演的是英雄式的中國官員， 然而《南京！南京！》側重於（帶有一定的諷刺意味）納粹John Rabe身邊的這些中國人。他們自認為為John Rabe工作就會享受被保護的特權，比如姜小姐、唐先生。
被日本野蠻行為所駭然，拉貝利用他有限的權力，為平民建立了一個士兵不準進入的國際安全區，但它註定不會持久，而當它崩潰時，可怕的後果發生了。
儘管觀看這部影片會很痛苦，但我們也不敢將目光移向別處。對於那些我們因為太痛苦而不願記憶而允許自己忘記的事件，《南京！南京！》是一個必要的提醒。如果我們有更多這樣戲劇性經驗，也許我們會更加努力地確保類似事件不會在現實中再度重演。
Kenneth Turan's positive review which we will also service in print:
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-city-of-life-and-death-20110617,0,2355877.story
Movie Review: 'City of Life and Death'
Director Lu Chuan's brutal look at the rape of Nanking is powerful and not to be missed.
A scene from "City of Life and Death." (Image.net)
By Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times Film Critic
June 17, 2011
Harrowing and unflinching, a savage nightmare so consuming and claustrophobic you will want to leave but fear to go, "City of Life and Death" is a cinematic experience unlike any you've had before. It's a film strong enough to change your life, if you can bear to watch it at all.
The third film by formidable Chinese director Lu Chuan, "City of Life and Death" takes as its subject the infamous atrocity known as the rape of Nanking. That was the 1937-38 Japanese takeover of China's then capital city that led to the deaths of an estimated 300,000 civilians as well as sexual assaults said to number in the tens of thousands.
But statistics, like words, are weak things, all but powerless to convey the brutal horror of that situation or the ability of this film to capture and convey its dehumanizing essence, to make us feel, as one of "City's" agonized protagonists puts it, "Life is more difficult than death."
As a portrait of the unspeakable things that can happen when soldiers are let loose on a civilian population, "City of Life and Death" is (as the opening section of "Saving Private Ryan" was for combat) in a class by itself as it cuts back and forth between the experiences of several individuals on both sides of the massacre.
Clearly a man possessed by his subject, Lu (who also wrote the screenplay after two years of research that focused on recorded witness testimony) has infused an intensity of emotion into every frame of this film, capturing the sense of mind-warping chaos and pure bedlam that emerge when panic and terror rule the day.
Lu has done this by managing to be both epic and intimate. Helped by powerful, convincing acting, he combines a delicate, empathetic touch with the ability to stage action on a large scale. He does it all without any sense of special pleading, by bringing the kind of cool matter-of-factness he showed in his compelling last feature, 2004's "Kekexili, Mountain Patrol," to the charnel house streets of Nanking.
Working as he did on "Kekexili" with superb cinematographer Cao Yu, Lu has chosen to shoot "City" in stunning widescreen black and white, expertly filling the frame with arresting compositions, whether of combat, atrocities or tears, images that are never expected and never without maximum impact. As the director says in the press notes, "I have to use a big frame to totally conquer an audience."
That camerawork is one of the keys to "City of Life and Death's" impact. Most of the film is shot using a peering, probing handheld camera that creates intimacy and intensifies emotion. Some scenes are so effectively re-created it's as if the film has somehow captured documentary reality with a long-forgotten hidden camera.
With piles of dead bodies everywhere, in every possible position, it's impossible to overstate how crushing that reality turns out to be. Women raped repeatedly, men bayoneted, systematically buried alive, incinerated. Huge seas of corpses, severed heads displayed on wires, a massive pile of naked women carted off for disposal. Just listing what is done is appalling enough, actually watching it is almost unbearable.
What keeps us watching, aside from Lu's surpassing skill, is our increasing involvement in the personal stories of the film's handful of protagonists on both sides of the conflict. For what made "City" controversial on its release in China, where the rape of Nanking is more infamous than Pearl Harbor is here, was his willingness to explore the psychology of the invaders. "The Japanese are normal, ordinary people like us," the director says. "War is the thing that makes people transform into animals."
So we spend considerable time with Kadokawa (Hideo Nakaizumi), a young Japanese soldier whose impulses toward sensitivity and simple human feeling, including being attracted to a Japanese prostitute working in a "comfort woman" brothel, are impossible to sustain.
Though Liu Ye, the film's biggest star, plays a heroic Chinese officer, most of "City of Life and Death" focuses, with a certain amount of irony, on the Chinese who thought they were privileged and protected because they worked for German businessman John Rabe (John Paisley), the Third Reich's official representative in Nanking. These include his assistant Miss Jiang (Gao Yuanyuan) and his complaisant male secretary Tang (Fan Wei).
Aghast at the savagery of Japanese actions, Rabe uses his limited authority to establish an international safety zone for civilians where soldiers are not allowed, but it is a system not fated to last, with horrific results when it collapses.
Hard as this is to watch, we dare not look away. "City of Life and Death" is a necessary reminder of what we've allowed ourselves to forget because memory is too painful to sustain. If we had more dramatic experiences like this one, perhaps we would work harder to see that they're never repeated for real.
(責任編輯：楊雪)