《尋夢環遊記》：死亡，記憶與歸鄉

最新 01-11

看完《尋夢環遊記》的人可能或多或少會覺得，自己被這個中文譯名戲耍了：聽上去不像是一部會讓人淚目的電影。但哪怕是對情節不以為然的觀眾也承認，在影片的某些節點，飆淚衝動會有些難以抑制。

有人說，這是影片情感把握到位的證據；也有人說，這只不過是迪士尼賺取廉價眼淚的套路。無論你更傾向於哪種結論，超過十億人民幣的票房說明，《尋夢環遊記》在中國取得了商業上的成功。在商業成功背後，則是影片和絕大多數觀眾的一拍即合：它說出了它想說的東西；觀眾也認同了它的表達方式。

影片始於夢想，但結局卻比夢想更為複雜。雖然墨西哥「亡靈節」在中國並非廣為人知（現在或許已經流傳開來），但文化的隔閡並沒有湮沒觀眾的熱情；相反，影片的商業成功說明，異域風情背後若隱若現的是中國觀眾並不陌生的價值觀：傳統，家庭以及個人和家庭之間的糾葛與妥協。

在影視藝術範疇中，動畫片「人不像人」的表現手法距離世界的物理真實最為遙遠。神奇的是，誇張的畫面往往能讓我們突然重新意識到日常生活中熟視無睹的細節。

按照今天電影市場「推陳出新」的速度，金球獎和奧斯卡過後，《尋夢環遊記》可能不會在人們的記憶里停留很長時間，讓影片的主題曲「Remember Me」顯得有些無力。

不過，這可能也讓我們關於「死亡，記憶和生命」的探討更有趣味吧。

Sadness suddenly sinks in as your heart beats to the up and downs of the story unfolding before you, moving you to the brink of collapse so quickly that the attempt at suppressing your emotional turbulence comes to no avail. No sooner does the sharp intake of your breath give way to a controlled choke than you burst into tears along with dozens of strangers as the tune, Remember Me, echoes in the theater again.Darkness is your only protection.

In a similar manner all across China, Coco has melted the hearts of millions as the animated feature film by Disney』s Pixar tells a boy』s adventure into the afterlife to square his dream with his family』s expectation.

The experience of shedding tears in the cinema is always memorable; if not rarer these days as viewers and critics continue the tradition of blaming the flat emotional appeal of today』s cinema films on the commercial production system that serves no other purpose than of financial gain.

This has made the box office success of Coco even more of a surprise in China, where big budget superhero films and light-hearted metropolitan romances dominate the preferences of the average moviegoer.

On the Chinese film-review websites Douban and Mtime, the country』s answers to Rotten Tomatoes and IMDB, reviewers rushed to share their tearful memories about the film, eventually voting it as the best of its category in 2017.

The film』s financial success is historic.Since its release last November, Coco took its place as the second best-selling Disney feature animation in the country with a box office total of 177 million US dollars by the end of last December, overtaking Frozen (2014) and second only to Zootopia (2016).

記憶：生命的延展

電影中，死亡不是絕對終結，而換成另一種形式的存在。連接起兩個世界的，是生者對於亡者的記憶，支撐這種世界觀的，是亡靈節的背景。

死亡是一個沉重的主題。但作為一部追求老少咸宜的作品，《尋夢環遊記》用華麗的色彩、豐富的細節淡化了死亡的衝擊。同時，影片的畫面設計隱去了現代元素，模糊了故事的時間背景，讓「記憶」的載體是各個年齡層都不陌生的事物：燭台、照片、錄影帶。

所有這些設計都包含了一抹淡淡的「思鄉情節」（Nostalgia）。在這樣的情緒中，家庭和傳統的意義不言自明。

Against the Mexican backdrop of Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) is a story synthesizing the oft-seen sentimental ingredients that lend global appeal to a typical Disney production, such asaspiration and growing up through pain.

But it』s by no means the first Disney film that features a rebellious child. Finding Nemo was received fairly well in China back in 2003. As for stories with aspirational child protagonists who had fraught relations with their parents, Brave (2012) and Moana (2016) left a fleeting fuss in the Chinese market, too.

What』s special about Coco for Chinese fans is the rather deep approach to subjects such as 「death and memory,」 which loom like ghosts amidst the caricature of bone-tossing skeletons populating the afterlife in the film.

「What a wonderful thing it would be if ancestors』 ghosts could call upon us the way same they do in the film!」 One viewer said on Mtime.

For Chinese viewers, the world of the dead depicted in the film shares a familiar common ground, though patchy, with the idea in Chinese mythology that often paints a more horrifying picture of the afterlife. But the film』s flowery mirroring of the afterlife to the living world, including the warm color in which the city of death is painted, with similarities to the world of the living, offers a more cheerful interpretation of death that softens what could have been a rather bleak subject matter.

The concept of 「in the living』s memory populates the last shred of the dead」 is novel from the Chinese point of view. But in a nostalgic fashion, the film』s representation ofmemoryhas succeeded in touching Chinese filmgoers.

In the scenes where the frame on the terrace displays photos of the deceased with white flames shivering on white candles in front and the shabby television wired to VCR, there is almost no trace of the 21st century. Memory is represented in a way that harks back to the 「good old days」 of the pre-mobile phone era free of the touch of modern technology in the minds of the viewers.

The nostalgic mood floating in a vaguely bygone time helps set the scene for the message to which the film holds dear in order to convey:the value of family,which is widely recognized as the X factor that won over most Chinese viewers.

The film』s logic is simple but forceful. Family ties are the most powerful force that holds human beings together in the world, so powerful in the film that family love, through memory, also mediates between the living and the dead. By giving memory the concrete form of a bridge connecting the living world and the afterlife, the film materializes the idea thatmemory is an extension of life, the universal appeal of which would hardly go unnoticed in Chinese society, which still values reverence to tradition, ancestors and the wisdom that the two embody.

思鄉：回不去的過往

影片中的家庭是中國曾見的「四世同堂」模式。隨著中國經濟的發展，社會流動性越來越強，越來越多的人選擇離開家鄉去外地發展。漸漸地，這種家族體系開始為城市中的「三口之家」所取代：家庭的連結被新的社會結構稀釋。即將拉開大幕的2018年春運、夫妻二人回誰家過年的爭執等等，都是這種結構變化的體現。

一方面，新生代挑戰自己、追求成功的決心愈發旺盛；另一方面，奮鬥的壓力讓家鄉的簡單美好越發魂牽夢繞；困在中間難以解脫的感受，讓《尋夢環遊記》的觀眾對完美平衡的追求更加迫切 — 然而卻急切難以實現。

觀看一部簡單的電影，每個人的淚點可能並非都如此複雜。但對於那些尚未對自己未來下定決心的觀眾而言，淚痕的餘溫將久久難以逝去。

But the on-and-off screen psychological connection may have extended further than simply shared values on family life. There is also a social dimension to the film』s popularity.

The free movement of population brought about by the economic boom in China over the past four decades has profoundly changed the country』s social landscape. The traditional extended family typical of agrarian societies, as shown in the film, has gradually given way to the 「nuclear family」 comprising parents and children who live where they work that』s usually far from their birthplace, an idea the film repudiates at least a bit.

Entering the 21st century, China』s economic expansion continues to encourage its people – for example the tens of millions migrant workers coming from rural areas into big cities – to chase after earthly success, but who run into issues such as inadequate social welfare protection due to uneven national development. Caught in between the absence of social protection on the one hand, the weakening ties with family on the other, people struggling on their way to personal success can feela sense of nostalgiagrowing inside that Coco satisfies.

At the end of the film, the protagonist Miguel ends his journey of weighing his music dream against the importance of family. But not everyone sitting in the cinema can see quick closure to their struggles of a similar nature. For them, it may take longer to dry up the tear tracks on their cheeks.