《敦刻尔克》：生死一线间的苦难、生存和抵抗
在克里斯托弗·诺兰(Christopher Nolan)的精彩新片《敦刻尔克》(Dunkirk)中，一架燃烧的英国飞机是最令人难忘的画面之一。电影讲述了二战初期的一场惨烈的战役，时间是在德国入侵波兰数月后，几周前希特勒的部队刚刚开始进入荷兰、比利时、卢森堡和法国。滑翔的飞机停了下来，为了避免沦为敌人的战利品，飞行员毅然放火烧毁了它。这幅画面标志着毫无异议的失败，但也象征着抵抗，预示着即将到来的惨烈大战。
It’s a characteristically complex and condensed vision of war in a movie that is insistently humanizing despite its monumentality, a balance that is as much a political choice as an aesthetic one. And “Dunkirk” is big — in subject, reach, emotion and image. Mr. Nolan shot and mostly finished it on large-format film (unusual in our digital era), which allows details to emerge in great scale. Overhead shots of soldiers scattered across a beach convey an unnerving isolation — as if these were the last souls on earth, terminally alone, deserted. (Seen on a television, they would look like ants.) Film also enriches the texture of the image; it draws you to it, which is crucial given the minimalist dialogue.
在虽然宏大却坚持人性视角的《敦刻尔克》里，这是典型的复杂而又洗练的战争场景，这种平衡既是出于美学考虑，也是一种政治选择。而且，无论就主题、影响力、情感还是场面而言，《敦刻尔克》都是一部“大”片。诺兰拍片时主要用的是大画幅胶片(在我们的数字时代显得非比寻常)，从而得以呈现大量细节。散布在海滩上的士兵的俯拍镜头，传递着一种令人不安的孤绝——这些人仿佛是地球上最后的生灵，极度孤单，完全被遗弃。(如果放在电视屏幕上，他们看起来会像蚂蚁一样。)大画幅胶片还让画面显得更有质感;你会被画面深深吸引，鉴于对话少得可怜，这一点非常重要。
The movie is based on a campaign that began in late May 1940 in the French port city of Dunkirk, where some 400,000 Allied soldiers — including more than 200,000 members of the British Expeditionary Force, the British army in Western Europe — were penned in by the Germans. The British, faced with the capture or possible annihilation of their troops, initiated a seemingly impossible rescue. Named Operation Dynamo, this mission has assumed near-mythic status in British history and been revisited in books and onscreen; it shows up in “Mrs. Miniver,” a 1942 Hollywood weepie about British pain and perseverance in the war meant to encourage American support for the Allies.
这部电影以一场始于1940年5月的战役为蓝本。在法国港口城市敦刻尔克，约40万盟军被德国人包围，其中包括20余万英国远征军，也就是驻扎在西欧的英国军队。在其军队要么会成为俘虏，要么可能被歼灭之际，英国人发起了看似不可能成功的救援。这场代号为“发电机计划”的行动，是英国历史上近乎神话的存在，已经被人在书本中和屏幕上反复重温;它曾出现在1942年的好莱坞催泪片《忠勇之家》(Mrs. Miniver)里，那部电影描绘了战争阴云之下英国人的伤痛和坚忍，旨在鼓励美国人为同盟国提供支持。
War movies tend to play out along familiar lines, including lump-in-the throat home-front tales like “Mrs. Miniver.” “Dunkirk” takes place in battle, but it, too, is a story of suffering and survival. Mr. Nolan largely avoids the bigger historical picture (among other things, the reason these men are fighting is a given) as well as the strategizing on the front and in London, where the new prime minister, Winston Churchill, was facing the horrifying possibility of diminished military muscle. Churchill is heard from, in a fashion, but never seen. Mr. Nolan instead narrows in on a handful of men who are scrambling and white-knuckling their way into history on the sea, in the air and on the ground.
战争片往往有着人们熟悉的套路，其中包括《忠勇之家》这样令人哽咽欲泣的后方故事。《敦刻尔克》讲的是战场上的事情，但它也是关于苦难和生存的故事。诺兰基本没去呈现更广阔的历史画卷(这些男人上战场的原因以及其他一些东西是基本事实)，也没有赘述前线或伦敦制定战略的情形。当时，身在伦敦的新首相温斯顿·丘吉尔(Winston Churchill)面临着英国军事力量锐减的骇人可能性。片中提到了丘吉尔，但本人始终没有出现。诺兰只是着重刻画了少数几个人，他们在海、陆、空三线紧急采取行动，在历史中奋力写下自己的一笔。
By turns intimate and sweeping, the film opens with six soldiers walking away from the camera down a spookily deserted street. Their bodies are shown in full, head to toe, and they are flanked by low buildings, the sort that now look so charming in touristic photographs. Slips of paper swirl around the men like autumn leaves. A few grab at the papers. One tries slurping water from a nearby garden hose; another pokes a hand through an open window, searching for a smoke. Still another reads one of the papers, which shows a map of the surrounding area encircled by arrows and ominous words of warning in English. He then crumples it, unbuckles his belt and begins to squat.
影片开头，镜头时而贴近时而拉远，六名军人沿着一条荒芜阴森的街道渐行渐远。他们的身体被从头到脚完完完整地呈现在银幕上;他们两旁的低矮建筑，并不像旅游照片中那样吸引人。纸片像秋叶般在他们周围打旋。有几个人伸手去抓纸片。一个人试图用花园的水管喝水;另一个人把手伸进一扇开着的窗户找烟抽。还有一个人看了看其中一张纸片，那上边是周边地区的地图，标着很多箭头，还有用英语写就的不详的警告。他随后将纸片揉皱，解开腰带，蹲下身去。
It’s a somewhat perplexing, awkwardly funny moment — this is a manifestly serious situation, and you’re about to watch a man defecate. You don’t know whether to laugh, but before you decide, shots ring out and the soldiers start running, the camera quickly following. The haunted emptiness is suddenly filled with the sounds of frantic escape and whizzing bullets. And then the men begin falling, one, two, three, until just the unbuckling one remains, scrambling first over a gate and soon onto a beach where thousands of other soldiers are massed and waiting. He silently takes in the extraordinary scene and then hustles over to a dune to begin undoing his belt again.
这是一个多少有些令人困惑，同时又尴尬滑稽的时刻——形势万分严峻，你却即将看到一个人要方便。你不知道该不该发笑，但还没等你做出决定，枪声就响起了，士兵们开始奔跑，镜头快速追逐着他们的身影。诡异的虚空中突然充斥着他们疯狂逃跑的声音和子弹嗖嗖飞过的声音。接着他们开始倒地，一个，两个，三个，直到只剩下那个刚刚解开腰带的人，他先是爬上一扇门，很快来到一片沙滩上，其他数以千计的军人正聚在那里等待。他默默消化这惊人的景象，然后急匆匆地跑向一个沙丘，又开始解腰带。
Scarcely a word has been uttered up to this point, yet much has been expressed: isolation; danger; desperation; fear; relief; and sheer, extreme bodily need and effort. Throughout this de facto prologue, Mr. Nolan emphasizes the concrete details, making you acutely aware of the fine-grained textures — the sores and embedded dirt on a man’s hands — and every resonant sound: the dribbling of water, the fluttering of paper, and the sharp crack and mechanical buzzing of rifle fire that turns into muffled thuds when bullets enter bodies. By the time the surviving soldier reaches the beach, you are already closely acquainted with his heavy breathing, wild fumbling and clumsy, chaotic running.
直到此时，影片中几乎没出现任何台词，却表达了很多内容：孤立;危险;绝望;恐惧;解脱;以及纯粹是身体方面的需要和努力。通过这个相当于序幕的段落，诺兰强调了具体细节，让你真切注意到细粒度的质感——伤口和嵌入一个男人手部皮肤的污垢——以及片中回荡着的每一个声音：滴水声;纸片飘飞声;用步枪射击时的尖锐爆破声和枪械本身的声音，会在子弹射入身体之际变成人倒地时的闷响。当幸存的士兵抵达沙滩的时候，你已经非常熟悉他那沉重的呼吸，狂乱的摸索，以及奔跑时笨拙、凌乱的脚步。
Soon, the scene switches to another port, where a British teenager, George (Barry Keoghan), is helping a father and son (Mark Rylance and Tom Glynn-Carney) unload a small yacht that’s been requisitioned for the Dunkirk mission. The three men instead set sail on their own, joining a civilian fleet — a rousing, motley armada of tugs, steamers, ferries and so on — that’s racing across the Channel. A third, astounding narrative section soon opens in the air, where three British Spitfire planes are quickly engaged in battle against German planes headed for Dunkirk, racing through the vast canopy and bobbing under clouds as the sun flashes, temporarily blinding them.
场景很快切换到另一个港口，英国少年乔治(巴里·基奥甘[Barry Keoghan]饰)正在帮助一对父子(马克·莱恩斯[Mark Rylance]与汤姆·格林-卡尼[Tom Glynn-Carney]饰)从一艘被敦刻尔克行动征用的小游艇上卸货。三个男人改变主意，自己开船，加入了一支穿越英吉利海峡的平民船队——这支充满激情的队伍由拖船、汽船、渡轮等各式各样的船只组成。第三个惊人的叙事部分很快在空中展开，三架英国的喷火战斗机迅速与赶往敦刻尔克的德国飞机交上了火，飞机在辽阔的天空中划过，在云层之间穿行，闪烁的阳光令飞行员陷入片刻的失明。
Mr. Nolan’s elastic approach to narrative works beautifully in “Dunkirk,” which oscillates among its three sections, each largely taking place in distinct locations in different time frames. The events on the beach — called the Mole for the breakwater that’s used as a dock — unfold during one week. The events on the sea occur in one day, while the air scenes transpire in an hour. The locations and the time periods are announced onscreen. At first the dividing lines aren’t always obvious as Mr. Nolan cuts from daytime scenes on the ground to those in the sea and in the air, a slight merging of space and especially of time that underlines the enormity of a fight seemingly without end.
诺兰的弹性叙事在《敦刻尔克》效果奇佳，故事在三个部分之间摇摆，每个部分主要发生在不同时间段内的不同地点。海滩上的事件——这部分以被用作码头的防波堤为名——时间跨度为一周。海上的事件发生在一天之内，空中的场面则发生在一小时之内。事件发生的位置和时间段在银幕上以字幕显示出来。起初，诺兰在地面、海上与空中的白天场景之间切换，此时三个部分之间的分隔并不是非常明显，时空有轻微的融合，特别是时间，这强调出战争是多么庞大，仿佛没有尽头。
Once Mr. Nolan begins switching between day and night, the lines dividing the three narrative segments mostly sharpen. Even as each section — with its individual dramas and perils — comes closer into view, Mr. Nolan keeps them all in dynamic play with one another. Some of this he achieves with stark visual echoes, as when water rushing into a downed Spitfire engulfs the pilot and elsewhere a soldier nearly drowns. (Tom Hardy plays the most critically important pilot, while a sympathetic Jack Lowden takes on a critical support role.) At one point, Mr. Nolan pulls the three narrative strands tightly together, creating a tremendous, enveloping sense of bone-deep dread.
一旦诺兰开始在白天与黑夜之间切换，划分三个叙事部分的界线往往就会清晰起来。每个部分都有自己的戏剧性与危险事件，尽管每一个部分都在向观众贴近，诺兰依然在它们之间保持着动态平衡，这在一定程度上是通过视觉效果上的鲜明呼应做到的，比如，当水涌入坠落的喷火战机，吞没飞行员时，另一个地方也有一个士兵几乎被淹死。(片中汤姆·哈迪[Tom Hardy]饰演是最重要的飞行员，惹人喜爱的杰克·劳登[Jack Lowden]饰演一个重要配角。)在某个时刻，诺兰将三个叙事线索紧密地拉在一起，使观众沉浸在深入骨髓的巨大恐惧之中。
“Dunkirk” is a World War II movie, one told through soldiers, their lived and near-death experiences and their bodies under siege. Names are generally irrelevant here; on the beach — and in the sea and air — what counts are rank, unit, skill and the operation, although more important is survival, making it through another attack and somehow avoiding exploding bombs. Mr. Nolan’s emphasis on the visceral reality of Dunkirk leaves much unsaid; even in some opening explanatory text, the enemy isn’t identified as Nazi Germany. The soldiers, of course, know exactly who they are fighting and perhaps even why, but in the field the enemy is finally the unnamed stranger trying to kill them.
《敦刻尔克》是一部关于第二次世界大战的电影，它以士兵的视角，通过他们生死一线的经历与遭受围困的身体来展开叙述。影片中的名字通常无关紧要;在海滩上——以及在海上与空中——重要的是军衔、小队、技能与行动，但更重要的是生存，是挺过下一波攻击，想办法躲开轰炸。诺兰强调敦刻尔克的本质现实，因此也留下了很多东西没有去讲明;甚至在一些开场的解释文字中，敌人也没有被确定为纳粹德国。士兵们当然知道他们正在与谁战斗，甚至知道他们为什么战斗，但是在战场上，敌人终究只是试图杀死他们的无名陌生人。
The soldier who scrambles over the gate and onto the beach is called Tommy (Fionn Whitehead) in the credits, but I don’t remember hearing or reading his name. Mostly, I just thought of him as Our Boy, less because of his youth than because of the vulnerability communicated through Mr. Whitehead’s slight figure and tangible physical performance, his small and large gestures and moves: the darting, panicked eyes; the nervous, abrupt gestures; the hunched shoulders. In time, Tommy is joined by other soldiers waiting and running and ducking on the beach, the most important played by the equally fine Aneurin Barnard and the singer Harry Styles.
那名爬过大门来到海滩上的士兵，在演职员表中被称为汤米(Tommy，菲恩·怀德海特[Fionn Whitehead]饰)，但我不记得在片中听到或看到过他的名字。多数时候，我只是把他当成“我们的小伙子”，不仅仅是因为他的青春，更是因为他的脆弱，怀特海特单薄的身材和清晰的肢体表演，所有大大小小的姿态和动作都传达了这一点：一闪而过的恐慌眼神;紧张而生硬的手势;还有蜷缩起来的肩膀。随着时间过去，汤米与其他等待的士兵们一起奔跑，在沙滩上四处躲避，其中最重要的两个角色由阿纽林·巴纳德(Aneurin Barnard)和歌手哈里·斯泰尔斯(Harry Styles)饰演，他们的表现同样精彩。
Mr. Nolan’s unyielding emphasis on the soldiers — and on war as it is experienced rather than on how it is strategized — blurs history even as it brings the present and its wars startlingly into view. “Dunkirk” is a tour de force of cinematic craft and technique, but one that is unambiguously in the service of a sober, sincere, profoundly moral story that closes the distance between yesterday’s fights and today’s. Mr. Nolan closes that distance cinematically with visual sweep and emotional intimacy, with images of warfare and huddled, frightened survivors that together with Hans Zimmer’s score reverberate through your body. By the time that plane is burning — and a young man is looking searchingly into the future — you are reminded that the fight against fascism continues.
诺兰坚决地强调士兵，以及战争中的体验，而不是战争如何部署——因此影片虽然把那个时刻与那时的战争惊人地呈现出来，同时也模糊了历史。《敦刻尔克》是电影技巧与技术的杰作，但无疑也是一个冷静、真诚、深刻的德育故事，拉近了昨日的战斗与今日的战斗之间的距离。在电影语言方面，诺兰通过视觉效果的广度与亲密的情感方式拉近这种距离的：战争的场面，挤作一团、备受惊吓的幸存者，还有汉斯·季默(Hans Zimmer)的配乐在你体内久久回荡。在那架飞机开始燃烧的时候——一个年轻人正用探究的眼神注视着未来——你会意识到：反法西斯的战斗仍在继续。
