Director’s Note

导演阐述

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《Street Spirit》讲述了两个人两天的行走和对话，这两个人在电影中没有名字，既因为他们不需要以名字来称呼对方，也因为这部电影允许他们保持匿名。第一天，他们保持着礼貌的距离；第二天，他们的历史和性格，在距离的收紧下被揭露出来，触及了第一天尚未涉足的暗面——但它却常常只能被讲述、被想象。它代表着电影的暗面。

为什么要拍摄一部全程只有两个人在对话，而几乎没有多少“情节”的电影？一方面可能来源于我和朋友们的相处方式，另一方面也许是来自我对电影下意识的判断：我痴迷于那些在取景框的限制中攫取到无垠的画外世界的电影们，而“情节”(plot)也许只是一个“阴谋”(plot)。的确，电影由摄影机拍下的连续画面组成，但我可能更感兴趣的是，那些没有被拍到的部分是如何使被拍到的影像成为可能的。这也许也能反映在生活中。当我与一位朋友交谈时，ta 的语音、语调、速度、条理，总是由 ta 的全部的历史所带出的。但我只能与 ta 的话语对话，因为 ta 的历史是不可见的——对于这一部分，我只能以陌生人的方式迎接它。因此，哪怕是一个虚构的角色，也有绝对的权利保持神秘。

为什么叫“Street Spirit”？这个名字直接取自一首我最爱的歌曲。不过，对于这部影片来说，也许，Street 代表了它可见的部分，而 Spirit 则代表了那些不可见的部分，它们位于画外、位于空间的暗处、位于难以追溯的过去。

一个可能重要的幕后事实是，在我买来影片中的那台 DV 并学习了如何使用它之后，我才写下了剧本的后半段，磁带运转的规则共同书写着整部影片。我认为自己并不是一个出色的虚构家，就像这部影片只是在通过现实存在的物质来讲述虚构，去虚构“虚构”：一台有自己脾气的 DV、一些我所生活过的地区和路线，以及两位演员神奇而匿名的身体。

杨楚麒 2023.8.9

Director’s Note

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Street Spirit tells a story about two people’s stroll and talk within two days. These characters are nameless, because they don’t need to refer to one another by names, and because the film allows them to maintain anonymity. On the first day, they both kept a polite distance; on the second day, a tightening distance emerged, and their histories and personalities revealed, while the conversation plunged into the dark side untouched on the previous day. A dark side which can only be told and be imagined, the dark side of this film.

Why make a film with just two characters talking with very little “plot”? In one way, it seems to resemble the way I spend times with friends myself, while it also comes from my subconscious leaning in cinema, for I am often spellbound by such films that capture worlds beyond the camera and the frame, with infinite off-screen, where narrative “plots” are, more often than not, conspiracy “plots”. It is true that a film is a succession of moving images captured by the camera, but I am inclined to think that it is the invisible, the off-screen, somehow makes the visible a reality. Such a relationship between the visible and the invisible reflects our real lives. When I am having a conversation with a friend, their voice, tone, speed and logic are always a crystallization of their entire history. But I can only communicate with their words, their personal histories belong always to the invisible, and I must greet them like a stranger. Therefore, a character, fictional or not, should keep an absolute right to their mysteries.

Why this title, Street Spirit? It is the title of a song I love. But for this film, “Street” may refer to the part that is visible, while “Spirit” is its opposite, being the invisible world outside the frame – shadows of space, of an irreversible past.

A key tidbit behind-the-scene: since I bought the camcorder that would be featured in the film, I only managed to write the second part of the script after I learnt its mechanics, and this law of the videotape in fact became a part of my writing. I don’t consider myself a great architect of fiction, and the fiction in this film is only written from compositions of our reality: a camcorder with its suspicious temper, some places I used to lived, and the magical and anonymous bodies of my two actors.

YANG CHUQI
Aug 9th, 2023

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