秘境2016

English Title: The Ornithologist
Original Title: O Ornitólogo
Year: 2016
Country: Portugal, France, Brazil
Language: Portuguese, English, Mandarin
Genre: Drama
Director/Writer: João Pedro Rodrigues
Cinematography: Rui Poças
Cast:
Paul Hamy
Xelo Cagiao
Han Wen
Chan Suan
João Pedro Rodrigues
Juliane Elting
Rating: 6.5/10




A staunch queer cinema visionary and nonconformist, Portuguese filmmaker João Pedro Rodrigues’ fifth feature beguilingly takes a leap of faith onto a religious theme, a pilgrimage to Saint Anthony of Padua, conspicuously transcribing its story into the existential trials and tribulations of our titular ornithologist Fernando (Hamy), which is also St. Anthony’s birth name, stranded in a modern-day Portuguese waterway and forests.

Fernando, an atheist from the word go, embarks on his stork-scouting journey with gusto and alacrity, and the implication that it is not his first sortie in the area makes his adventure quite up his alley. Few background information is purveyed, other than he is under medication and has a male lover who is caring for him. Contrasting Fernando’s bird-watching/telescopic angle with different bird’s-eye views, it is the modus operandi brings home a numinous frisson of watching and simultaneously being watched, literally sublimates the nature’s gaze with a plethora of wild feathered friends hovering around incessantly through the film. When Fernando’s kayak is upset during the rapids, the story starts to take shape into a multi-layered religious mythology through Fernando’s various real/surreal encounters, garnished with sexual innuendos (undressed and tied-up by two young Chinese female God-bothers, a sadomasochistic position enticing one’s fantasy; the urolagnia experience in the darkness among a contingent of masqueraded roarers), and an in-the-buff dalliance with a deaf-mute shepherd boy named Jesus (Cagiao), which ends in manslaughter, a startling incident but concocted with blasé wantonness.

Conceivably, when one liquidates Jesus, there is nothing but a road to redemption beckons him, Fernando must carry on his mythical transmogrification into a pious St. Antony by dint of his self-inflicted ritual for absolution (that is where symbolic tunnel, tableaux vivants and inscrutable gestures abound), consummated by being dispatched by the alter ego of Jesus, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, if credits must be given to Rodrigues’ wheeze of contemplating a grand mythos within an entrancing temporal sphere, his didactic exegesis is less a merit to be reckoned with.

Leading actor Paul Hamy credibly shoulders on a role which requires boldness and physical exertion, instils his open-faced earthiness into the overlaying mystique and alone-in-the-woods background, which successfully retains Fernando in the cynosure, even when narrative longueur inevitably lurks. Tellingly, the film renders a captivating landscape to those eyes yearning for natural’s majestic design, whether it is the picturesque on the surface or the uncanny residing in the deep, also the foley artists (Nuno Carvalho and Martin Delzescaux) ply their own distinctive aural intrusion to that latter effect: eerie, preternatural and strident. In the end of the day, THE ORNITHOLOGIST is another contrived fable trying to mythicize religion in order to elicit a sense of meta-sanctity of our own existence, but the fruition thuddingly slumps between artsy-fartsy and nonplussing, on top of that, where are the storks, anyway?

suggested companion piece: Alain Guiraudie’s STRANGER BY THE LAKE (2013) 8.4/10.

帕索里尼式的神话寓言，混杂了不少晦涩难懂的宗教隐喻。熟悉这位葡萄牙导演的观众一定不会对本片的主题感到陌生，身份和性别的变异是导演的拿手戏，在他的处女作《幻影》和《在坟场中心呼唤爱情》里已有触及。而这部新片讲述的就是一个男人的变异经历：从无神论者变为皈依的教徒，同性恋意识觉醒，甚至是肉体上的变化，从Fernando变成为Anthony。我对葡萄牙宗教一点都不了解，所以后半段层出不穷的宗教隐喻令我如坠雾里也实属无奈，在森林里的段落浮现出诡秘的神秘主义色彩让我联想到泰国导演阿彼察邦。

不过，最令我感到好奇的是中国元素的融入。导演之前已有两部电影跟中国相关：一部是以China命名的短片，另一部则是关于澳门的实验片。相比起之前两部里面对待中国文化的奇异眼光，这部新作算是放弃了有色眼镜，收起了一贯居高临下的鄙夷态度。我更联想到前年在戛纳出尽风头的《一千零一夜》三部曲里，中国元素的运用更可谓炉火纯青，那同样地也出自另一位葡萄牙导演之手。这也许是美丽的巧合，然而在我看来，更有可能是显示了中国的影响力在不断扩大。随着经济发展和文化传播，越来越多外国人开始学会用正常的眼光来看待中国文化，这也算是一种不可多得的进步。