Nostalgia for the Future: Home Landscape in the Films of Jia Zhangke

This paper proposes an alternative strategy of therapeutic healing and recovery of planetary existence in China by examining the structure of nostalgic feeling in two films by Jia Zhangke, a Chinese filmmaker who is noted for his distinct filmic narratives that unsettle and dislodge the authority of official, ideological accounts. His film, Still Life (Sanxia haoren 三峽好人), exposes the audience to powerful cinematic images of ruined homes, painful displacement, and cultural loss, which enable them to develop a strong nostalgia for the lost affinity with nature as well as Chinese cultural roots, so as to foresee the devastating consequences of the Three Gorges Dam project. Jia's latest short film Smog Journeys (Ren zai maitu 人在霾途) interweaves the realistic, nostalgic, and speculative fictional insights into the serious issue of smog in today's China. Since China embraced modernism at the turn of the twentieth century, the traditional belief in the harmony between humans and nature (天人合一) has been dissolved and abandoned. Taking cues from Svetlana Boym's term ＂reflective nostalgia,＂ I argue that nostalgia, rather than a passive escapism or naive utopian pursuit, can serve as an effective means to resist the current money-driven progress and help Planet Earth recover and revitalize its future prospects by looking back.

關鍵字

Chinese ecocinema ； anticipatory nostalgia ； landscape ； home ； Jia Zhangke

並列摘要

本文通過對賈樟柯導演的兩部影片中鄉愁抒發及喻示的分析，針對中國的情境，以星球存在意識為導向，提出非規範的生態療癒策略。賈樟柯是一位廣為人知的中國導演，善用獨特的電影陳述語式來鬆動并解脫官方意識形態的權威性。他的電影《三峽好人》，透過賦有渲染力的畫面，向觀眾揭示了鄉村拆毀的農舍，村民們遷離家鄉的痛苦，以及文化根源的隔裂，從而讓觀眾對與大自然契合的斷裂，和中國傳統文化根基的失落，油然產生出強烈的懷舊感，同時使他們能預感到三峽大壩工程或將導致毀壞性惡果。賈樟柯新近拍的短故事片《人在霾途》把當代中國嚴峻的霧霾危機，通過寫實、懷舊、推測遐想而交織於一體的多層次啟迪。自中國二十世紀初全盤接受現代主義以來，傳統中國文化對天人合一之和諧的敬仰已分化并失落。筆者呼應斯維特拉娜．博伊姆倡導的「思辨性的懷舊」，認為：懷舊本非被動地逃避現世，也非幼稚地追尋無有鄉；而為一種抵制時下以金錢為動力的「進步」，以回首憶舊，為地球未來機遇的療救和振興出力。