一诺千金1996

十五岁的年龄，本不该过早掂量生命的轻重。

他的混蛋老爸自然也不会告诉他“一诺千金”该如何书写。

青春年少本该骑着机车肆意驰骋，他却背上偿还父罪的包袱负重前行。

手持摄影睁大了眼睛，毫无遮掩的注视着这个单薄的身影。

更可悲的是，偌大一个国家的移民污点为何要让稚气未脱的男孩用泪水来洗刷？这答案如同最后远去的背影不知去向何方一样，无法作答。

现实主义的感人之处：永远无错的一方，所有的冲突都包含在物竞天择的世界真相里；一部电影的“挂件”：重复出现的符号，于电影表意似无联系但尤使人印象深刻，如同唇钉耳环；情绪光谱：一个场景的核心事件结束之后，仍要不遗余力地拓展人物的状态，如同红外到紫外的可见光谱，使人物尤其有共情力，使影片尤其有意境，侯孝贤即为一例，他甚至直接进入状态而彻底抛除事件，呈现一种鸟瞰的时空；导演在试图拉近观众的情感距离时，有两种方法，一是直白、宏大、强烈地铺陈情感如《两生花》，一是循循善诱带领观众在异世界丛林曲折穿行，而后者尤其需要清晰的叙事，本片因为环境语境较陌生，我数次尝试情感介入均受阻，但是我本身之责任，这一点启示不要试图描摹异文化陌生世界；达内的现实主义是一种极高明的艺术创造，在大众温饱的世界里描摹个人贫困有何意义？可以说他是导演个人的“道格玛95”，它洗涤着导演的创作态度，不断提醒创作者回溯自己原初的艺术使命，那本来是博爱而悲悯啊；看一个导演的片子，第一部喜欢，越看越享受，越看越洁净，不断抛除各种阅读限制，真是诗化的体验，达内兄弟的戛然式样片尾对我已成极深刻烙印。

THE PROMISE is Dardenne Brothers’ third feature, which heralds their incredible rising into the stratosphere of cinematic auteur-land, and reaping coveted top-shelf international awards almost with every each feature henceforward.

Starring a 14-year-old Jérémie Renier in his breakthrough role as the young Belgian boy Igor, an apprentice mechanic often at beck and call of his single father Roger (Gourmet, also a bonanza due to the brothers’ discovery), THE PROMISE plays its realism trump card implacably through DP Alain Marcoen’s handheld camera, staying ultra-close to the involving incidents, mostly inside a mangy tenement house dwelled all sorts of immigrants in Belgium.

Setting the story in an unnamed city’s twilight zone with a subdued palette, Dardenne Brothers resolutely eschews any imagery that betrays a semblance of a developed Western country, Roger is a stony-faced backdoor organizer of illegal immigration, in a purely business manner, all he cares is the money (transportation fee and rent), meantime, employing several immigrants to refurbish his own house, also it is not above him to sell any of them down the river when situation demands.

During a police raiding, one of the African immigrants Amidou (Rasmane Ouedraogo) accidentally falls from the scaffold and is mortally wounded, naturally Roger will not allow him to be taken to the hospital, against Igor’s supplication, and before Amidou kicks up the bucket, he solicits a promise from Igor to look after his wife Assita (Assita Ouedraogo) and their infant boy, who have newly arrived on the premise. So how far Igor, ridden with cumulative guilt, will go to keep this promise, when his inchoate moral righteousness doesn’t see eye to eye with Roger’s high-handed, callous directives?

Dardenne brothers’ no-frill narrative seldom takes our attention away from their characters, and withholds a stamina of matter-of-factness so pertinacious that the story never slumps into mushiness, for instance, Assita’s hardened hostility towards the father-son duo hardly ever relents (she appears more bemused than touched when Igor impulsively embraces her), even in the film’s most emotive moment, a simple gesture of gratitude is more than enough. In a typically veiled case of mollifying a white person’s own guilt, that is as good as that person can expect.

Both Renier and Assita Ouedraogo exude an unalloyed rawness from a novice performer that befits their characters, from a street-smart, small-time crook to a brave adolescent rebelling against his violent, amoral father, Igor’s rite-of-passage is rendered with steely conviction and persuasion from Renier’s simmering, unshowy, tender presence. As for an unprepossessing Gourmet, combing an elemental savagery with a soupçon of canniness, he becomes a lodestone on the screen, and serves as a self-reflexive vector for some viewers to muse upon his outrageousness, which isn’t at all far from reality.

Also THE PROMISE has a killer ending, Dardenne brothers is judicious enough to bring down the curtain right after Igor finally makes a clean breast of that gnawing whopper (with both actors’ muted reaction and a final and finally static shot gazing at the duo walking back to grasp the nettle), and leave its aftermath merely to audience’s own imagination, yet what will happen is fairly clear, certainly no requirement of a justice-prevailing denouement to flog a feeling of satisfaction to death, since the story is hinged upon Igor, when his moral compass is set in the right direction, that is where it should end.

20-odd years after, one can feel a shade dispirited to see that THE PROMISE and its thematic refrain are still painfully topical today, but for Dardenne brothers’ unique stock-in-trade and immense humanity blossoming from their canon, we should all tip our hats to them with a this-world-doesn’t-deserve-you postscript.

referential entries: Dardenne Brothers’ THE SON (2002, 7.9/10); THE KID WITH A BIKE (2011, 8.0/10); TWO DAYS, ONE NIGHT (2014, 8.6/10).

最近在阅读吕克·达内的电影手记《影像背后》，里面有一些导演自己创作作品的心路历程，对于理解影片很有帮助。我想摘录其中关于每部电影的部分，帮助达内影迷们更好地走进达内的电影世界。

十分推荐大家阅读这本《影像背后》，达内兄弟对于哲学的思考和对于生活的观察都在其中有所体现。

影评字数不够，粘上我的短评吧：

一场道德上的自我觉醒，以戒指为线索，影票中伊格一步步摆脱情感上的顺从和亲情上的依赖，以一种失去一切为代价的姿态赎罪。善良不能从一，作恶不能而终。人性的矛盾就在这样的撕扯中形成悲剧，但同时也闪烁着道德的光辉。

4“10 1、伊戈在修车厂打工，帮一位女士修车时偷了她的钱包，却熟练地装傻糊弄过去，把钱拿出来，钱包埋在院子里。伊戈的修车厂师傅教他电焊，外面却有车喇叭不断催促，师父教训他想当学徒就不该早退，伊戈不听，离开修车厂。

9“30 2、外面催促的是伊戈的父亲，他们带着一车的偷渡客来到他们经营的地下酒店。父亲招待偷渡客，跟他们要钱做假护照，伊戈在旁帮忙。其中一个黑人把妻儿接来了，可是他赌博输光了钱，交不起房租，只好跟伊戈父亲求情，其他人也抱怨房租太贵，父亲让他们给自己装修房子来抵房租。

14“20 3、伊戈和父亲在酒店里向众人要钱，众生相。伊戈在仓库偷看新来的黑人女人，阿西塔，黑人前来问他要瓦斯给妻儿取暖，但没钱，求情，伊戈给了他。

14“50 4、伊戈父亲去酒吧见接头人，得知市长在偷渡问题上被媒体施压，警察需要抓住四个人完成业绩。

18“26 5、伊戈和朋友们玩自制改装车，父亲叫他，伊戈去帮忙招呼四名新来的，带他们去了一家餐厅，伊戈去厕所抽烟，外面警察冲进来抓走了他们。事成后父亲送了他一个和自己一样的戒指，还让他开车。伊戈在家帮忙做护照，做到阿西塔时，他用浆糊涂自己的牙齿。

23:04 6、伊戈和朋友骑改装车到酒店，看到偷渡客们聚在这赌钱，他把护照交给阿西塔，看到她正给孩子做驱邪仪式。

24:40 7、伊戈去修车厂上班迟到，正被师父骂，突然接到父亲电话又要走。师父告诉他走了就别回来，伊戈依然离开。

34“52 *****8、条子来视察，伊戈急忙回酒店通知众人，黑人正在脚手架上，听闻要跑，却摔了下来。伊戈把他藏在小巷里，黑人托付他照看妻儿，伊戈答应了。应付完警察，父亲看到濒死的黑人，回绝了伊戈要送黑人去医院的想法，让伊戈拿板子把他盖起来，这时阿西塔追着鸡经过丈夫，没有察觉。当晚伊戈和父亲把黑人埋进了混凝土里，回家洗澡清洁。父亲让伊戈去套阿西塔的话

39“30 9、次日伊戈在工地见到阿西塔，帮她做了点事，她说酒店的供暖停了，伊戈把酒店的炭炉搬了过来。这时有人上门讨债，黑人欠了钱，她问伊戈她丈夫是否因赌债而消失，伊戈说不知道后离开。父亲责怪伊戈不欺骗她。

43“40 ***10、伊戈找到酒店里他父亲的人，让他转交一千块给阿西塔。父亲得知这事，打了他一顿，之后安抚他，帮他纹身，并让他不要再去找女人，还问起了他是否有过性生活。

47“05 11、父亲带伊戈去酒吧找女人，唱歌喝酒。

51“30 12、酒店里，男人强奸阿西塔，父亲出现救了她，假装询问黑人的事，并提议她离开这里，她执意要等丈夫，还说要去报警。原来强奸者是父亲给了钱特意安排的。听到阿西塔的回答后，父亲去找公证人密谋什么，并支开伊戈让他去招待新来的韩国人。

58“40 13、晚上，伊戈来到酒店，找到黑人的收音机，拿给阿西塔。她让他进屋，抓了只鸡来占卜，说丈夫没有走远，就在附近。伊戈有些紧张。这时来了一封电报，号称是黑人来信，让她明天到车站见。伊戈要走时，父亲在门外，她说她丈夫要她明天去车站见，父亲提议开车送她。伊戈和父亲回家，父亲责怪他又去见阿西塔。

1”00“47 *****14、次日父亲开车接阿西塔，伊戈趁父亲不在，开车带她离开，并告诉她黑人不在车站，她不解，拿刀威胁他停车。伊戈只能告诉她，电报是父亲发的，他要卖她去做鸡。阿西塔要求伊戈带她去警察局。

1“04”58 15、二人在警察局录笔供后，去码头等待，阿西塔被两个人从桥上尿了一头，还开摩托车把她一直带在身上的神像压坏了。

1“07”45 16、伊戈带阿西她去修车厂过夜，她提到有个亲戚在意大利，伊戈想让她去意大利找亲戚，可她不愿意，执意等丈夫，伊戈很着急，二人一番争执后，伊戈突然抱住阿西塔哭泣。

1“13”18 17、伊戈在车里抽烟，给父亲打电话，告诉了父亲他开走的面包车的下落。回到修车厂后发现阿西塔不在那，他去街上寻找，发现阿西塔在拦车，她的儿子生病了，要去医院。阿西塔责怪伊戈，说他们都要害自己，儿子才会生病的。

1“14”23 18、在医院看病，伊戈没有钱，一个黑人清洁工看到，上前把钱付了。

1“18”57 19、二人跟着黑人清洁工，来到一个非洲巫师家，巫师的占卜显示，阿西塔的丈夫没有死了的迹象，但是建议她去意大利找亲戚。三人离开巫师家，但阿西塔没有护照去意大利，清洁工答应把自己的护照给阿西塔用。

1“21”44 20、伊戈把父亲送自己的戒指卖掉，在公车上遇到玩车的朋友，朋友打趣他说他有了女人就不玩车了，伊戈没有否认。

1“28”04 ****21、二人在修车厂，伊戈帮阿西塔修断掉的神像，父亲出现，扭打中，伊戈把父亲锁了起来，并说他必须告诉阿西塔真相。父亲狼狈地说他做这一切都是为了伊戈，为了给伊戈买个房子，求他放开自己，伊戈没有理他。

1“31”17 22、伊戈和阿西塔走去车站，在车站，伊戈告诉了阿西塔黑人死去的真相。阿西塔没有说话，走开，伊戈站了一会，追了上去，二人走远。