A cat is above all else...

A DRAMATIST




This mischievous Abyssinian cat is called memsahib, meaning Her Majesty in Indian

《少女香奈兒》浪漫嗎？

說起來不是不尷尬的。問我《少女香奈兒》好不好看，答：塔圖的小男孩扮相絕對標緻得過份，但正如我們的《梅蘭芳》跟梅老師本人的（創作）生涯幾乎毫無關係，看《少女香奈兒》也不見得會對香奈兒作為香奈兒（而不是作為一個浮浮沉沉小孤女）的了解加深多少。

《少女香奈兒》似一套扮法國片的蹇腳美國片（雖然它的導演是法國人），從第一個（我以為在看《簡愛》！）到最後一個鏡頭都是徹底荷里活格局，方方正正毫無驚喜；影片關心的亦不是香奈兒這個人，而是 Coco 與 Balsan 和 Boy 一段 Ménage À Trois ，管她叫 Coco Chanel 或者 AA BB 都一樣。要真的是 Ménage À Trois ，那是法國人的拿手好戲，倒也可以很好看，可惜《少女香奈兒》只是故作「浪漫」的三角關係。因此，改個 Coco Avant Chanel 的片名，並非就能瞞天過海（也掩蓋不了影片無頭無尾的毛病）。

說故作浪漫是因為它將一段並不高尚（ noble ）的愛情浪漫化：鏡頭非常依戀 Boy 先生那些放電眼神，天濛光在海邊看漁夫的場面，刻意求工的對白，甚至那戲劇化的死亡。好一個刻骨銘心的故事，魔力足以令觀眾對以下事實視而不見： Boy 先生是一個聲稱愛你但不會跟你結婚的男人，呀，是不會跟你結婚，但又會在結婚後偷偷出來跟你短聚的男人──對不起，我實在並不覺得這有甚麼浪漫。不要說甚麼階級／社會限制（電影早早安排 Coco 家姐與貴族苦刁刁的「越級婚姻」來為 Boy 開脫，以示 Boy 娶個富家女不娶 Coco 也無可厚非），愛一個人而「不能」跟她結婚，理由無非是虛偽和懦弱──當然（有些）女人喜歡相信男人有他的「苦衷」；不跟她結婚又不 honour 自己的選擇，繼續跟她維持一種模稜兩可的關係，就是自私兼不高尚。就是談情，電影也明顯放棄深究這段情的內裡，只津津有味地刻劃表面的浪漫。

倒是 Balsan 和 Coco 的感情來得真摯和踏實。 Balsan 這個 playboy 兼老粗給人的第一印象不會太好，卻有一份真率，也落落大方，他對 Coco 漸漸發展的疼愛與關懷，是在 Boy 身上完全找不到的。

我不敢說電影的 target audience 是對「戀愛」有（過份）甜美幻想的女觀眾，因為我不知道究竟有多少女觀眾真的看得「感動」──而影片要「打動」這批女觀眾的居心，卻是顯而易見。拿著這麼好的題材，卻服膺於荷里活品味，只能夠說是浪費。

＊　＊　＊

不過其實有一幕我看得很感動。

Coco 離去時，Balsan 扁著嘴說：「你不理我了」

Coco 說：「你可以來看我。」

然後兩人緊緊擁抱。萬般感覺盡在不言中，我覺得他兩個心靈相通。這也許是片中最法國的一刻。




純粹八掛：講。鏟。片：《少女香奈兒》港版海報三度變身事件
據我所知，並不只香港有這種情況

The Surrealists' Obsession With the Eye

Buñuel, An Andalusian Dog, 1929

"Upon my asking what the word urinate reminded her of, she replied: terminate, the eyes, with a razor, something red, the sun. And egg? A calf’s eye, because of the colour of the head (the calf’s head) and also because the white of the egg was the white of the eye, and the yolk the eyeball. The eye, she said, was egg-shaped."

Georges Bataille, Story of the Eye, 1928

I am amazed at this strict resemblance of the images and the text (which had not been directly pointed out by many). As for who was having an influence on who, I am not sure. But the surrealists all influence each other (and of course they all inherited a lot from Sir Freud...)

My Notes on Time Regained (the film)

It is certainly one of the most exquisite experiences on earth having finished reading In Search of Lost Time...

Raoul Ruiz is famous for his obsession with and his skill in representation of “remembrance of things past”, or “stream of consciousness” with his hypnotic, dreamlike cinematic images, and I started watching Time Regained with such expectation.

To say it is an adaptation of Proust’s literary work, I’d rather put it as a work inspired by it. There are certain Raoul Ruiz's own input and invention in it.

I appreciate the film’s being experimental in exhausting many kinds of film languages to capture the idea of “finding time again”, or “travelling through time”, its brilliant use of mise-en-scene (especially in those scenes where there is Marcel alone), slowly and rhythmically unfolding a deep melanchly in certain scenes, the beautifully exggerated lighting and high contrast cinematography that re-creates a dreamlike ambience, and its first-person narrative in disguise of a third-person narrative (or third-person in disguise of first-person) - because Marcel, the narrator, is always there - exactly corresponding to that of the Book’s.

But, as one can expect, much of the book's poetic beauty, sadness, and sense of disillusion is lost.

The major problem being it is an adaptation of only the last volume, with a vain attempt to (sometimes) explain (certain) things in brief. It is not feasible at all to depict the last volume alone, because it's true beauty could only be realized after you have experienced all the preceding volumes. BUT it would be another issue, if one aims more at visualizing certain moments than unfolding a story, which, sadly, does not seem to be what RR is doing.

I believe this film is intended only for those who have read the book – I have difficulty imagining people who never read the book being able to make sense out of this film, let alone grasping the significance of every scene and every single line being delivered. (Yet on the other hand, for those who have read the book, all these would seem too simplified, shallow, and out of place!)

This enclosed and no-so-care-to-explain-everything approach reminds me a little bit of Tian Zhuangzhuang’s The Go Master (《吳清源》). BUT the problem with Time Regained is exactly in the parts when it tries to explain (one and one's relationship, or what had happened in the previous volumes)! For example, the scene in which Marcel, as a child, meets the “lady in pink” in his uncle's place without yet realizing her to be the Odette who later plays a very important role in his life, was a key moment in the book, key only when it is recalled, and key being it brings Marcel to the realization that "the significance of an experience is not always immediately revealed"; but the scene only functions as a flashback (not to mention it is totally misleading: as if Odette knows Marcel being the little boy - she never does). Another scene being Marcel’s confrontation with Albertine which is awkward and never for one second succeeds in depicting the power struggle and the bizarre love-torture relationship between them. These two scenes may well left unshot!

Nonetheless, as a work inspired by the original work, it was a pleasure to re-experience some of the poetic moments in moving images – only those with Marcel alone.

Because Marcel is very Marcel (take a look at the screen captures below).

Whereas the rest of the cast, except Catherine Deneuve as Odette carrying her mysterious charm, is a little bit of a disaster: The gentle and caring Saint-Loup is too disappointingly ugly; Emmanuelle Beart is sensual and enchanting as always, but she is being too much herself than Gilberte and her acting is too modern for the role. Morel is way too ordinary-looking to be the homme fatale of the whole work. John Malkovich gave a fair performance as Charlus but he is still not the charming, elegant and at once sarcastic and loving Baron to me…And see how Albertine, the elusive little kitten, the sophisticated, sad, and mischievous kitten, and one who attracts and is attacted to women, is turned into a vulgar witch (should I be glad that she, Chiara Mastroianni, being really Deneuve's daughter, was not casted as Gilberte?)...

How cute that soaked-with-tear Marcel is...