为年轻刽子手的辩护

导演: Pavel Jurácek

主演: Pavel Bosek / Slávka Budínová / Eduard Dubský

上映年度: 1970

语言: 捷克语

制片国家/地区: 捷克斯洛伐克

又名: A Case for a Young Hangman

imdb链接: tt0064843

关于剧情：

本片堪称一部现代版的“格利佛漫游记”，改编自斯威福特愤世嫉俗的社会政治讽刺名著。Lubomir Kostelka扮演现代格利佛，在一次翻车后他突然醒来，走过一片森林后，他开始寻找一个神秘的国度勒普泰，因为他听说那是一个美好的地方，在路上他发现了一只死去的穿着人的衣服的兔子，从它的口袋中拿出来一块怀表，他发现那怀表的时间是反向走的，于是他继续往前走，遇见了形形色色奇怪而复杂的人和事，一场荒诞的超现实历险就此展开。

"The time in which we live baffles any logic, and reason has lost its meaning in it" -- Pavel Juracek

《为年轻刽子手的辩护》被国际上公认为祖拉契克最完美的电影杰作，是60年代捷克新浪潮电影运动中最重要也是最“声名狼藉”的一部作品。这部狂热的，稀奇古怪的政治讽刺剧完成于苏联坦克入侵之后，在其上映后立刻被当局封禁，并永远终结了祖拉契克的电影生涯。大胆的，创新的和绝对荒诞主义式的影像，《为年轻刽子手的辩护》是电影史上对格利佛漫游记最疯狂的一次改编，全片几乎摆脱了所有剧情和思维逻辑的形式和束缚，让观众们完全进入一个象征主义和符号主义的幻想世界。作为影史上所公认的“最伟大的超现实主义电影杰作之一”，这部影片呈现给我们无数古怪而充满隐喻性的画面，一只身穿衣服的兔子，一座专门研究发明创造的高等学校但里面所有的学生都是从不说话的，一个精致的“手工提供动力”的思想机器，一个没有一年中的第九个月份的国家（为了避免流感的流行）。。。我们的英雄格利佛经历并发现了这一切，在他从小人国到Balnibari前往勒普泰的路程中。“这部影片包含了所有能超出你想象的荒诞剧元素，超现实主义元素和讽刺剧元素，是乌托邦式的政治讽刺剧和怪诞的童话故事的一次完美融合。”（鹿特丹国际电影节评语）

关于导演：

"I've realized that we invent an image of the world for ourselves so we can find our way around. We get used to it and eventually mistake it for the real world." -- Pavel Juracek

帕维尔.祖拉契克（1935-1989），捷克新浪潮电影运动中的天才导演/编剧/制片人，被誉为“捷克新浪潮电影革命中真正的灵魂”，作为整个东欧电影新生运动中最独特的剧作家之一，他创作了好几部在捷克和东欧电影史上占有重要地位的影片，1963年由他所编剧，Jindrich Polak导演的《Ikarie XB-1》是电影大师库布里克最钟爱的十部影片之一，同时也是影响其《2001太空漫游》创作的灵感源泉，1964年为捷克动画大师Karl Zeman所创作的《The Jester's Tale》是一部融合了动画，真人和奇特摄影术的幻想片经典，1966年他与新浪潮另一位著名剧作家Ester Krumbachova共同创作了《Daisies》，由Vera Chytilova执导，成为新浪潮中最独特的一部杰作，一年后他又为捷克科幻电影大师Jan Schmidt编剧了其最好的作品《End of August at the Hotel Ozone》；作为制片人，他是Vera Chytilova的名作《天堂的果实》（1969）和Jiri Menzel最富传奇色彩的电影《弦上的云雀》（1969年拍摄，1990年解禁）的执行制片；而作为一位极具创新意识的电影导演，他一生却只拍摄了两部长片和一部短片，由于69年的《为年轻刽子手的辩护》中对共产主义和极权主义的批判和讽刺，影片被当局禁映并永远禁止祖拉契克再拍摄任何影片，两年后，祖拉契克也被免去了在Barrandov电影工作室的工作，1977年他被迫流亡西德，经过6年不得志的生活后回到祖国但依然看不到重新创作电影的希望，1989年，就在捷克共产主义政权垮台的前夕，郁郁寡欢的祖拉契克在布拉格永远闭上了眼睛，终年只有54岁，他成为捷克20年的共产主义极权专政下少有的被终生禁止拍片的捷克电影导演，而他的悲哀逝去，在后来被公认为极权主义摧毁践踏所有艺术创作和优秀电影人所犯下的最惨痛的一次伤亡，世界上从此失去了一位具有创新和独特的个人风格，堪称能与费里尼媲美的电影天才。纵观他的电影生涯，几乎每部创作的作品都堪称经典，尤其是其仅存的两部导演作品更是充分展现奇思妙想的电影杰作，而由于他的影片存世很少也极难看到，以至于至今这位电影奇才依然默默无闻，2004年8月，纽约著名的CINEMATHEQUE实验院线与布拉格国家电影资料馆在两地共同举办了祖拉契克的电影回顾展，取名为“为帕维尔.祖拉契克的辩护 -- 重发现一位捷克新浪潮电影大师”，向世界范围内推荐并缅怀这位英年早逝的东欧电影奇才。

A talented, troubled, complex artist whose ill-fated career mirrored the nightmarish trajectories of his finest film works, the screenwriter and director Pavel Juracek (1935-1989) is one of the most neglected figures of the Czech New Wave, and one of that movement's most tragic casualties of totalitarianism. A visionary artist influenced by the likes of Swift, Kafka, Dante, Jaroslav Ha1ek, and Czech absurdist theatre, Juracek excelled as a creator of surrealist satire, absurdist allegory, dark fantasy, and provocative science fiction. As a filmmaker, he was a poet and dreamweaver, known for his striking imagery, melancholy lyricism, and (Czech) black humour. His 1963 medium-length film Josef Kilian, co-directed with Jan Schmidt, was an early international success for the Czech New Wave, and is still regarded as one of cinema's finest evocations of Kafka (and of totalitarian darkness). His debut feature was Every Young Man (1965), a sprightly satire of military life in the vein of Haiek's novel The Good Soldier Schweik. Juracek's supreme achievement was his second (and, sadly, last) feature, Case for a Rookie Hangman (1969), a fantastical, absurdist political satire based on Swift. "If Czech film has ever produced a portrait of Czechoslovakia as a totalitarian disaster," Juracek authority Jioi Cieslar has written, "then this is it." Rookie Hangman's timing could not have been worse: Soviet tanks had since moved into Czechoslovakia, and the film was banned outright shortly after its release. Two years later, Juracek was fired from his long-time job at the Barrandov Film Studios because of his involvement with dissident union and pro-democracy groups. He became one of the very few Czech filmmakers to be completely barred from work in the cinema by the Communist 20 regime. After joining other Czechoslovak artists and dissidents in signing the Charter 77 human rights declaration, he was hounded out of the country by the secret police. He emigrated to West Germany for an unhappy six years before returning to his homeland, and died of lung cancer only months before the Velvet Revolution of 1989.

一点个人感受：

《为年轻刽子手的辩护》祖拉契克的第二部长片也是其最后的一部作品，被后来者公认为继齐蒂洛娃的《雏菊》之后最具独特魅力的新浪潮电影，而两部影片的编剧同为祖拉契克。影片从一开始就给我们展现出一个奇特的超现实世界，一个男人开着车在空无一人的乡间山道上行驶着，突然车子翻下山谷，镜头一转，男人睁开眼，原来是一场梦，男人继续往前走，一只穿着衣服的兔子死在路中间，男人俯身下去拿出衣服口袋中的一块怀表，赫然发现指针是倒着转的，男人继续往前走过一片田野，来到一座空无一人的白色建筑前，走进去，里面杂乱无章，墙壁上挂着一件和兔子身上一模一样的衣服，男人自然上去摸摸口袋，突然总口袋中飞出无数蝴蝶，男人本能地闭上眼，等他再睁眼一看，所有杂乱的东西都消失了，而自己却身处一个一尘不染的白色大厅中。。。之后突然晃动的地板，从房顶上坠落却突然进入一个陌生的房间，一群人仰头观看一头牛被判的绞刑。。。无数具有象征主义的画面和高超的剪辑技巧使这部影片成为一部完全以影像说话的杰作，这部影片在超现实的影像上绝不亚于布努艾尔和达利的《安达卢奥犬》或《黄金年代》，而被送上绞刑架的牛则暗示着极权主义的最终命运。影片中那些精致而有创意的摄影来自新浪潮著名的电影摄影师Jan Kalis。

IMDB评论:

A Salvador Dali's Film.

This motion picture tells us about the special trip of a very special gentleman named Pan Gulliver who was really surprised found on the road a rabbit Oscar worn the checked shirt with the short trousers. Two minutes later we found out about the Balnebard's country where the people keep silent one day a week sparing the air, where there is an immortal poet living on the railway-station.This strange surreal world where black is white and white is black is headed by a king who is working now as a doorman in Monte-Carlo.Now there is only one person living in the castle - Prince Milevin - who's got nothing except drinking all the wine-storage in the castle.Too much uncertain questions with too few certain answers.

A great cameraman's and director's work who perfectly created the specific space of Balnebards's terrarium.

Movie about our childhood dreams.

This movie is about our childhood dreams. Lemuel Gulliver is seeking his love (who he lost in teenage years) in strange land full of strange people. But the story isn′t so main for this movie but atmosphere and feelings. You find yourself dreaming about your childhood dreams, strange adult world around you and maybe you find there are still interesting places and miracles in the world around you.

Eastern European reaction to totalitarian Communist oppression found expression in surrealism, in retreat into the subjective and fantastical. The enemy might be dealt a deeper blow by indirect mockery and artistic inference than by explicit attack. Whereas realism is limited to the specific, allegory encompasses everything, the entire calamity of the human circus. There is no crueler criticism than laughter.

Jurácek structures what has been called his "masterpiece" around the 3rd book of Jonathan Swift's "Gulliver's Travels." His ultimate source, however, is Kafka, who, not coincidentally, he imitated in his first feature, "Josef Killián -- A Character Needing Support." The protagonist, Lemuel Gulliver (Lubomir Kostelka), picaresquely stumbles his way up the ever higher social echelons of the absurdist lands of Balnibari and Laputa, only to find no one at the top, no one in control, a theme familiar, of course, to Kafka. Man's hunger for justice, for moral harmony and logic, for resolution of subconscious conflicts, for at least someone or -thing responsible, are forever frustrated.

The haphazardness and disassociation inherent to dream language tends to inevitable incoherence. It is difficult, if not near impossible, to transpose the entirely idiosyncratic symbols of one subconscious, an author's, into the universal language of art. Very few have been successful (again, Kafka) and then only by resorting to classic mythology, literature, and religion as frames of reference for the personal and subjective. Jurácek, however, for all his visual and dramatic creativity and unbounded imagination, loses hold of his unruly and chaotic subject, piling one absurdity on another, ultimately rambling rather than building or leading anywhere.

Some images work better than others, especially, at the beginning of the film, e.g., a bouncing wooden floor through the cracks of which appear unapproving strangers and the bleached body of Lemuel's drowned childhood sweetheart. The continual chase and harassment of Lemuel by hostile Balnibarians, however, at times seems without purpose, merely there for dramatic effect and to impel events.

Still, the joy ride, the experimental adventurousness of it all, is fun, a welcome release from the oppressive here and now into all things possible and impossible.