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The point of no return in “Stray Dogs,” Tsai Ming-liang’s glum, humorless exercise in Asian miserablism, is an 11-minute scene of a homeless man smothering and devouring a cabbage with a face painted on it.
《郊游》(Stray Dogs)是蔡明亮對亞洲愁苦主義憂郁而嚴肅的嘗試，片中一個長達11分鐘的場景是一個無家可歸的男人狼吞虎咽地吞吃著一個畫有人臉的高麗菜，把影片推向無法回頭的境地。
Living on the outskirts of Taipei, where he earns a subsistence wage holding up real estate placards at a crowded intersection in the wind and rain, the unnamed character (Lee Kang-sheng, the director’s regular leading man) arrives at the dingy, abandoned apartment where he squats with his two children. Climbing into bed, he discovers the cabbage propped up on a pillow. On it, his young daughter has painted a doll face.
這個沒有名字的角色由經常在蔡明亮片中出任主角的李康生飾演，他住在臺北郊區，在車水馬龍路口高舉廣告招牌維生，風雨無阻，賺著只能維持最低生活水準的工資，他和自己的兩個孩子住在一處骯臟、廢棄的公寓。上床后，他發現枕邊有一顆高麗菜，他的小女兒在上面畫了一個娃娃的面孔。
In a fit of despair and self-loathing, he suffocates the vegetable with a pillow, eats and spits out parts, then furiously gouges out its features before ravenously consuming the rest and bursting into sobs. Augmenting the anguished mood, a drenching rain falls outside, as it does through much of the film.
在一陣絕望與自我厭惡的侵襲之下，他用枕頭悶死了高麗菜，吃了一口又吐出來，瘋狂地割掉它的臉，狼吞虎咽地吃掉了剩下的部分，最后爆發出哭泣。屋外的傾盆大雨進一步渲染了籠罩全片的痛苦氣氛。
The scene brings to mind the moment in “Gone With the Wind” when Scarlett O’Hara, half-starving, digs up a radish, bites into it, vomits and vows never to be hungry again. In a tiny fraction of the time it takes for Mr. Lee to finish off that cabbage, Vivien Leigh conveys the same desperation. But instead of lapsing into a despairing funk, she claws her way out of the abyss. Because Mr. Lee’s character has none of her gumption, it’s hard not to feel a twinge of contempt for his lachrymose self-pity.
這一幕令人想起《亂世佳人》(Gone With the Wind)中餓著肚子的郝思嘉(Scarlett O’Hara)從土里刨出一顆蘿卜，咬了一口又吐出來，發誓自己再也不會挨餓。費雯麗(Vivien Leigh)用的時間比李康生吃高麗菜的時間少得多，但傳達出同樣的絕望之感。最后郝思嘉沒有變成一個絕望的懦夫，而是從深淵中爬了出來。但是李康生的角色就沒有這樣的魄力了，看到他眼淚汪汪的自憐，很難不讓人感到一陣輕蔑。
That said, Mr. Tsai has his fervent admirers, some of whom have declared “Stray Dogs” a masterpiece. The 10th feature by this Malaysian-born, Taiwan-based director, it won the grand jury prize at the 2013 Venice Film Festival and was shown at the New York Film Festival. In the production notes, Mr. Tsai professes to have become “tired of cinema.” And “Stray Dogs,” with its glacial pace and disconnected narrative, often feels more like an art installation than like a movie.
盡管如此，蔡明亮也有他的狂熱擁躉，有些人已經宣告《郊游》是一部杰作。蔡明亮是一位馬來西亞出生的臺灣導演，《郊游》是他的第十部電影長片，在威尼斯電影節上贏得了評委會大獎，也在紐約電影節上放映。在拍攝筆記中，蔡明亮承認自己已經“厭倦了電影”。《郊游》有著冰川般的步調和不連貫的敘事，更像一件藝術裝置，而不是一部電影。
In the story, such as it is, Mr. Lee’s character slowly loses all hope as he drags his children and a female partner (played by three actresses) around the muddy fringes of Taipei. Few words are spoken. In the longest monologue, Mr. Lee, tears welling in his eyes, recites a Southern Song dynasty poem that distills the film’s fatalistic mood:
在片中，如前所述，李康生飾演的角色漸漸喪失了一切希望，他帶著孩子和一個女性伴侶（由三位女演員飾演）在臺北泥濘的邊緣地帶漫游。片中沒有多少臺詞。在最長的一段獨白中，李康生雙眼含淚，念著一首南宋詞，極好地概括了這部影片的宿命感：
I launch a shrill cry at the heavens My valiant heart loses hope My exploits are naught but mud and dust O vainglorious pain The shame of defeat is not yet washed away.
“抬望眼，仰天長嘯，壯懷激烈。三十功名塵與土……靖康恥，猶未雪，臣子恨，何時滅……”
Until it goes haywire with the cabbage scene, “Stray Dogs” sustains a hypnotic intensity anchored in exquisite cinematography that portrays the modern industrial cityscape as a chilly wasteland. We see double and triple reflections in a supermarket where a kindly clerk lets the children feast on food samples. The camera tracks family members from a distance as they inch from one end of the screen to the other. For every tableau of the people on the far horizon, there is an intimate shot of family members, bathing, brushing their teeth and urinating, sometimes in a public restroom and other times outdoors.
直到吃高麗菜那瘋狂的一幕之前，《郊游》靠精致的攝影把現代工業都市展現為一片冷峻的荒原，維持著一種催眠般的力量。在一個超市里，一個善良的店員讓孩子們飽餐食品樣品，這個時候觀眾可以看到二重和三重映像。每個家庭成員步履緩慢地從銀幕一段踱到另一端，攝影機從遠處追隨他們。許多鏡頭都是遠方地平線上的人物的靜態畫面，但有一個鏡頭反映了家庭成員之間的親密，他們洗澡、刷牙、小便——有時在公廁，有時是在室外。
Beginning with the cabbage scene, the momentum grinds to a halt. It concludes with a static 12-minute shot of Mr. Lee and his distraught partner gazing off into space as a single tear trickles down her expressionless face. One by one, they walk away. The scene suggests a parody of the final moments of “L’Avventura,” whose anguished lovers find themselves trapped in modern relationship hell.
從吃高麗菜的那一幕開始，影片的勢頭慢慢放緩，最后以一個12分鐘的鏡頭結束。在這個鏡頭里，李康生和他那個憂心忡忡的伴侶望著天空，一滴眼淚從她沒有表情的臉上流下來。兩人先后離去。這一幕是對影片《奇遇》(L’Avventura)中最后一幕的戲仿，在《奇遇》片尾，一對痛苦的戀人發現自己陷入了現代式戀情的地獄。
Oh, weep for the sadness of it all! Or not.
啊，為這一切悲傷而哭泣吧，或者不哭。
