少年Pi的奇幻漂流，TIME雜誌評價不凡!

李安的新片少年Pi的奇幻漂流今天上映了，這篇文章也可以適時應景。我已經一年多沒有進過戲院，這次一定要抽出時間看這部電影。TIME時代雜誌的影評人Richard Corliss給予這部影片極高的評價。李安克服萬難將這部之前沒人敢挑戰的影片搬上大螢幕，還拍成3D，好詮釋片中的魔幻寫實風格，這部片的視覺成就應更勝阿凡達。說句心中話，我看阿凡達這部片的時候感到非常失望，坦白講是因為劇情太老梗，當時我甚至看到有點不耐煩。當時的3D技術也不如現在成熟，這次片中的特效結合了好萊塢一流的科技團隊，不過我個人覺得，最精采的部分除了視覺震撼之外，還有心靈的滋養與對生命的省思，這才是最厲害的餘韻。

李安是個很溫潤敦厚的人，他的片子一直有一種好萊塢影片少有的溫度與情感，我相信這部片子會大大感動觀眾，劇情我都不透露，請大家看看影評人Richard Corliss對李安的讚譽。

這部片大多在台灣拍攝，影評人都會在文章中提及台灣，以及李安的台灣背景，這是真正的台灣之光啊，不讓韓國或是日本的電影工業專美於前，我們也有自己的驕傲。請大家一定進戲院，替李安加油。這篇影評，我在百忙之中幫大家整理出來，期待大家細細品味。我最愛看影評，因為可以偷學作者的文筆與觀摩他人的觀點。上星期我上傳了羅傑叔叔豎起大拇指的007空降危機，這星期又有李安的奇幻漂流，讓人覺得活著有時候也很快樂。

大家看這個標題，storm and fang, water and wonder，標題要下得好，才能吸引人。這部片有暴風雨storm，有尖牙fang(因為老虎也是主角啊。Water當然是太平洋，wonder就是這部片奇幻寫實的地方。言簡意賅地將影片最重要的四個元素全部道盡。

這篇影評非常長，我只有結錄部分精華，想要看整篇文章的人可以進入TIME搜尋這個影評的名字就可以找到了。

Ang Lee’s Life of Pi :

Storm and Fang, Water and Wonder

By Richard Corliss

一個印度男孩跟一隻孟加拉虎能激起什麼火花?百年前的童話裡面多的是這種人獸共處且最後培養出深厚情誼的故事。一開始影評人舉了很多童書範例來說明這一點。然後再順勢引到李安這部新片。同樣是男孩跟老虎，這回男孩跟老虎被困在一望無際的太平洋海上，彼此為了生存，共譜了一個發人深省的感人故事。

An Indian boy and a Bengal tiger孟加拉虎: a tale familiar to children a century ago from Rudyard Kipling’s story of Mowgli and Shere Khan in Jungle Book and, with more unfortunate racial stereotyping, in Helen Bannerman’s The Story of Little Black Sambo. Call the boy Pi and the Bengal tiger Richard Parker, trap受困 them on a small lifeboat in unchartered Pacific waters未知的太平洋海域, set up a boy-vs.-beast battle for territory and survival男孩隊野獸，一場生存與領土之戰, and you have the essence of Yann Martel’s Life of Pi, winner of the Man Booker Prize for Fiction in 2002.這部影片改編自暢銷小說。

下面這一段說明李安經常願意挑戰不可能，越難走的路他越會去。當初讓他嶄露頭角的影片x理性與感性其實是英國文學名著，西方人當時不認為一個非英文母語的導演可以駕馭這部片，尤其劇情與對白十分細膩，對英美文化了解不深的導演，很難拍得好，可是李安就是做到了。影評說的nuances，指的就是這種細微處。

Ang Lee has often bucked long odds挑戰不可能， in his films. The Taiwan-born American director mastered the nuances of 19th-century English manners in Sense and Sensibility, set martial-artist adversaries to dancing on tree tops in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and sold the mainstream audience on the love story of two cowboys in Brokeback Mountain. 他的斷背山讓許多觀眾為兩個男人愛情留下眼淚This time, Lee sets out to astound the viewer with the hitherto至今 untapped properties of 3-D尚未有人挑戰過的3D題材. Pi builds on the triumphant innovations in James Cameron’s Avatar, and the advances in motion-capture technology evident in Rise of the Planet of the Apes, to create a tactile具有堅實質感的, spectacular world of wonder.這整句的意思是，奇幻漂流這部片，運用了阿凡達的特效團隊成功打造了劇中的視覺饗宴，此外也用了決戰猩球的電腦技術去創造了很多令人震撼的特效(如老虎，影片中的老虎是畫出來的，神奇吧?)

下面這一段細數李安過去拍過的影片，稍微介紹了一下他的背景。

But Lee, in a quieter way, is just as headstrong a pioneer是個安靜但韌性極強的先驅者. To tell him that a film project is impossible is just a way of getting him interested in it.這句話說得有趣，影評的意思是，越跟李安說這部片很難拍，他就越有興趣去挑戰。 Having come to the University of Illinois for college, and settling in New York City, Lee plunged himself into一頭栽入 an alien culture for a series of social comedies about good manners (Sense and Sensibility), gay manners (The Wedding Banquet), awkward manners (The Ice Storm) and no manners at all (Taking Woodstock). Plus two Westerns (Ride with the Devil, Brokeback Mountain), a Chinese-language exercise in erotics情慾片 (Lust, Caution) and a Marvel comics movie (the lumbering Hulk).上面都是在講李安拍過的影片，影評還幫他用manner一字來分類，非常有趣。不過翻譯成中文就失去英文的fu了。如傲慢與偏見是禮貌感，喜宴是同志感，冰風暴是家庭尷尬感，(我只能用感來翻，完全無法對應manner這個字，或許用我們常說的fu會更傳神些)

影評接著說，這部片要是十年前開拍，鐵定不可能。因為當時的特效科技不允許。當時沒有動畫來畫老虎，可能要找真的老虎來拍，試想那會是什麼景況?可能還要擔心出人命，因為老虎萬一傷害到男主角該怎麼辦?所以可能選角的時候，要找好多個相貌類似的男主角來當備胎，以便有人被老虎抓傷之後，隨時可以上陣。

A decade ago, a Life of Pi movie could not have been imagined, let alone realized — unless Lee had employed a severely sedated tiger, or summoned an endless supply of lookalike actors to play Pi and replace the ones whom a more energetic beast would have clawed or devoured. Now, thanks to advances in technique and a new generation of artist-tinkerers, it can be done.

下面一段說明，這部片除了有駭人的海上風暴與可怕的老虎之外，還有很多獨特的李安元素在裡面。接著簡單的介紹了一下劇情。片中的一家人從印度遠渡至加拿大，李安拍攝這部片也長途跋涉了好幾個個國家。少年旅程非常艱辛，對於導演來說，李安也歷經了類似的艱困跋涉(因為影片去了好多國家拍攝，過程千辛萬苦不輸劇中主角。少年Pi的這場歷險，是精神與毅力的一場挑戰，帶給了他三個重要的宗教啟發，這些領域也是劇中的精隨。

Life of Pi, from a script by David Magee, isn’t all storm-and-fang不是完全張牙舞爪的; it has recognizable Ang Lee elements.  When Pi’s father is obliged to sell the Pondicherry zoo, he books his family and the animals on a Japanese cargo ship headed for Canada全家登上了日本貨櫃船，目的地是加拿大; the storm that sinks the ship, kills his parents and disperses the creatures — another amazing sequence電影關於同一主題的連續鏡頭 — launches Pi on cross-Pacific journey that lasts seven months. That trek has its analog in Lee’s own itinerary, which has taken him from Taiwan to the U.S. to Britain and finally back to his homeland, where he built a huge tank for the sea scenes.少年旅程非常艱辛，對於導演來說，李安也歷經了類似的艱困跋涉(因為影片去了好多國家拍攝，過程千辛萬苦不輸劇中主角) Pi’s quest, which tests his spirit no less than his resolve這場旅程測試著印度男孩的精神與毅力, will lead him through three religions and a climactic enlightenment.

下面這一段，影評表示觀眾進戲院將會看到下巴掉下來。因為視覺的震撼實在美不勝收。海面有時閃亮如鏡，有時水天一線，分不清船是在天空還是海上。有時候肚子餓昏了的男主角，會產生幻覺，導演也以非常特別的魔幻寫實法去處理。這場驚險的人生挑戰，遊走於如夢如幻與驚心動魄之間，影迷應當不會失望。

The difference is that, in Life of Pi, it’s the audience that’s likely to be slack-jawed因為太訝異或驚駭而導致嘴巴合不攏. On Lee’s Pacific, the surface is a shimmering mirror閃亮明鏡; it reflects the sky so clearly that Pi seems to be both underwater and above the clouds. At times Lee follows the hallucinations 幻覺of the malnourished boy營養不良的男孩 — as in an underwater montage水中蒙太奇, where fish form a mosaic of his faraway girlfriend’s face魚群形成一張人臉般的圖案. The cinematography of Claudio Miranda (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button)這部片的電影藝術指導是由影片班傑民的奇幻旅程掌鏡 has the pellucid immediacy of a fever dream無比清澈且炙熱的夢. Instead of the ecstatic soaring of the cross-species lovers in Avatar, this dream or nightmare is taking place in the remotest part of what we call Eart(這部片跟阿凡達劇情所描繪的地球人vs.外星族之戀不同)h. We see dire悲慘困苦的 and divine美妙非凡的 events事件 unfold一件一件地展開 through Pi’s troubled spirit and, at times, through the eye of the tiger.

最後影評表示，拿奇幻漂流這部片跟阿凡達來相比，不是為了要去暗示誰才是票房贏家，大家要看的是這部片所挑戰的不可能。李安成功地將這部如詩如幻的情感佳作，與科技的強項做出完美結合，過程中他充分展現出導演善用資源，且克服萬難的勇氣與實力。

最後一句魔幻寫實真的可以既魔幻又真實，這應是影評對李安的最大恭維。

To compare Life of Pi with Avatar is not to suggest that the Lee movie will challenge the Cameron for all-time box office supremacy史上空前的票房冠軍. But Pi is a poem of emotional immediacy如詩如幻的情感體驗 — and a giant leap forward往前, outward往外 and upward往上邁進了一大步 in expanding the resources of the evolving medium of movies(嘉許李安整合資源的毅力與能耐). Magical realism was rarely so magical and never before so real.