Review: ‘Rebels of the Neon God’ Gets a New York Screening
In addition to having one of the best titles ever, “Rebels of the Neon God” marks the start of one of modern cinema’s great careers. This film, which in spite of a worldwide cult following has never received a proper United States release, was the first feature directed by Tsai Ming-liang, whose subsequent work would establish him, alongside slightly older contemporaries like Hou Hsiao-hsien and Edward Yang, as a leading figure in the Taiwanese New Wave of the 1990s. (A retrospective of his work starts Friday at the Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria, Queens.)《青少年哪吒》不仅有个极为精彩的标题，也标志着现代电影史上一段伟大历程的开始。该片尽管在全球都拥有狂热拥趸，但却从未在美国正式发行。它是蔡明亮导演的首部电影，他后来的其他作品令他跻身较为年长的侯孝贤、杨德昌等人之列，共同成为20世纪90年代台湾新浪潮的领军人物（周五他的回顾展映将于皇后区阿斯托利亚电影博物馆上映）。
Made in 1992, “Rebels” feels anything but dated. Youthful disaffection never gets old, and the four alienated 20-ish Taipei residents who drift through Mr. Tsai’s artfully angled frames bear an evident kinship to the characters in Jean-Luc Godard’s “Band of Outsiders,” Harmony Korine’s “Spring Breakers” and a hundred other movies produced since World War II. They ride around the city on motorbikes, stopping to smoke cigarettes and hang out in video arcades, all-night restaurants and love hotels. They are bored, restless, antisocial and vaguely in search of some kind of intensity.
《青少年哪吒》摄于1992年，却并不觉得过时。年轻人的不满情绪永远不会老，四个二十多岁、不合群的台北人在蔡明亮精心设计、角度独特的画面中飘荡，与让-吕科·戈达尔(Jean-Luc Godard)的《法外之徒》(Band of Outsiders)与哈莫尼·科林(Harmony Korine)的《春假》(Harmony Korine)等百余部“二战”后的影片显然具备亲缘关系。他们骑着摩托车环游城市、停下来抽烟，流连于录像厅、通宵饭馆和色情小旅馆。他们烦闷不安、反社会、懵懂地寻找着某种激情。
In the films that immediately followed — “Vive L’Amour,” “The River” and “The Hole” — Mr. Tsai would enrich this stark, sad vision of life in Taipei and refine his melancholy, absurdist style. Although “Rebels” tells a slighter, somewhat more conventional story than those movies, it could hardly be mistaken for anyone else’s work. The camera movements are minimal and precise, turning what might seem like ordinary shots into sly jokes. There is water everywhere — torrential downpours sweeping the streets and a mysterious flood in a main character’s apartment.
这部影片后，蔡明亮很快推出了其他作品：《爱情万岁》、《河流》和《洞》，在这些续作之中，他进一步描述了荒芜悲哀的台北生活，奠定了自己忧郁、荒诞的风格。与他的其他作品相比，《青少年哪吒》讲述了一个更微小、某种程度上更加传统的故事，但它也同样有着蔡明亮独特的痕迹。镜头运动细微而精准，让本来可能是平平无奇的镜头变成狡黠的玩笑。到处都是水——湍流般的倾盆大雨横扫街道，一位主角的公寓里出现神秘的洪水。
Above all, there are performers who would become fixtures of this director’s imaginative universe. Chief among them is Lee Kang-sheng, a slender, nearly silent man with a Keatonesque deadpan who has appeared in all 10 of Mr. Tsai’s features so far. Here he plays Hsiao-kang, an unhappy student living with his parents (Lu Yi-ching and Miao Tien) and halfheartedly attending classes. Friendless and celibate, he develops an obsession with Ah-tze (Chen Chao-jung, a petty criminal who specializes in robbing pay phones and vending machines).
最重要的是，这部影片中的演员们后来都成了蔡明亮幻想世界中的重要组成部分。其中最主要的就是纤瘦沉默的李康生，他如同巴斯特·基顿一般面无表情，蔡明亮迄今执导的10部电影长片中都有他的出现。在这部影片中，他饰演小康，一个不快乐的学生，与父母（陆奕静与苗天饰）住在一起，每天无精打采地去上学。他没有朋友，也没有恋人，后来迷上了相貌英俊、专门洗劫收费电话亭与自动售卖机的罪犯阿泽（陈昭荣饰）。
Our attention swings between these two young men. Ah-tze periodically ditches his best friend and partner in crime (Jen Chang-bin) to pursue a desultory romance with Ah-kuei (Wang Yu-wen), a comparatively cheerful young woman who works in a roller disco and has trouble holding her liquor. The strands of the plot converge at the end in a flurry of sex, vandalism and violence.
我们的视线在这两个年轻人之间摇摆。阿泽有时会摆脱自己的好朋友兼犯罪同伙（任长彬饰），同女友阿桂（王渝文饰）有一搭没一搭地谈着恋爱，阿桂是个相对活泼一点的女孩，在迪斯科旱冰舞厅工作，时常酗酒。各种情节的分支最后汇聚在一场慌乱的性爱、无目的的破坏与暴力之中。
The plot really isn’t the point, though. Mr. Tsai typically uses narrative as a tool for exploring the moods and meanings that link his characters with one another and with the city that awakens, contains and frustrates their desires. They seem very much stuck in their world, but because that world is the creation of a wildly original artist coming into his own, it also feels alive with possibility.
不过情节并不重要。蔡明亮通常使用叙事作为工具，探索维系着片中角色们之间，乃至他们与这座城市之间关系的情绪与意义，这座城市唤醒并包容了他们的欲望，却又令他们备感挫折。他们仿佛被困在自己的世界，但正因为这个世界是一个极具独创性的艺术家在头脑中建构出来的，因此又充满了各种可能性。
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