《暑假作業》 主打懷舊風的小清新電影

Looking out from his office window in Taipei with a cigarette dangling from his lips, Taiwanese auteur Chang Tso-chi says there is no better place to learn about courage than from the top of a tree.

從他的臺北辦公室窗戶往外望去，嘴裏叼着香菸，臺灣導演張作驥(Chang Tso-chi)說，樹頂是最能懂得勇敢的意義的地方。

Most humans 'have a fear of heights,' he says, 'but the view from the top is often vastly different than what you see at the ground.'

他說，大多數人都會恐高，但是在樹頂上看到的景象跟你在地面上看到的真的非常不同。

Mr. Chang, who grew up in the countryside in southern Taiwan, recalls how he and his friends would climb trees in their bare feet. 'The mountains were our playground, and the drainage ditch next to my home was so clean that we often swam to school,' he says.

張作驥在臺灣南部鄉村長大，他想起小時候經常和朋友光着腳一起爬樹的情形。他說，那些山就是我們的遊樂場，我家旁的排水溝裏的水特別幹 ，所以我們經常游泳去學校。

This strong sense of nostalgia for a simple childhood, free of tablet computers and online games, is the primary motivation behind his latest coming-of-age film, 'A Time in Quchi,' which completes Mr. Chang's trilogy on the family following 'How Are You, Dad?' (2009) and 'When Love Comes' (2010).

這段遠離平板電腦和在線遊戲的簡單童年勾起他強烈的懷舊情緒，而這正是他拍攝以成長爲主題的最新電影《暑假作業》(A Time in Quchi)的背後初衷。該片是繼2009年《爸…你好嗎？》(How Are You, Dad?)和2010年《當愛來的時候》(When Love Comes)之後的家庭三部曲的最後一部。

'A Time in Quchi' opens with Bao, a long-faced 10-year-old boy from a well-to-do family, riding in the backseat of his father's car. Bao is being shipped off from the city to spend the summer with his recently widowed grandfather in Quchi, a mountainous community outside Taipei, while his parents work out details of their divorce.

在《暑假作業》的開頭，小寶――一個富裕家庭裏的10歲男孩悶悶不樂地坐在父親的車後座上，被帶離臺北送往大山間的屈尺，和剛獨居不久的爺爺一起度過暑假，與此同時他的爸媽正在商討離婚事宜。

At first, Bao (played by Yang Liang-yu) hates his new life without Wi-Fi and television and for having to live with his strict grandfather, who remembers his deceased wife by drawing her face on a rock. Bao's disdain for the countryside is compounded by a lack of friends. While other kids keep active by climbing trees and catching insects, Bao remains earthbound, tethered by his tablet.

一開始小寶（楊亮俞飾演）恨透了他的新生活，這裏沒有Wi-Fi和電視，還要和兇巴巴的爺爺一起生活。爺爺在一塊石頭上畫着思念的亡妻。沒有朋友更加劇了小寶對鄉下的厭棄。其他孩子蹦蹦跳跳地去爬樹去捉蟲，他卻攥着平板電腦原地不動。

Bao's fortunes take a turn when he eventually makes friends with classmates in the school of 27 students. From there, he slowly matures from a boy obsessed with electronic gadgets to a young man who learns the value of love, friendship and letting go.

直到他在一所只有27個學生的學校裏結識了朋友，小寶的命運有了轉變。自那時起，他便漸漸從一個癡迷電子設備的男孩，逐漸成長爲一個懂得愛、友誼和釋懷之義的少年。

'I know kids enjoy the film because they think it's hilarious, but my target audience isn't the kids -- it's the adults,' Mr. Chang says. 'Just because your children live with you, how well do you really know them -- and do know what they are thinking?'

張作驥說，我知道孩子們喜歡這部電影因爲它很有趣，但我的目標受衆並不是孩子，而是成年人。就因爲你和你孩子住在一起，你就以爲自己真的很瞭解他們、知道他們心裏在想些什麼嗎？

As a father of a 14-year-old boy, Mr. Chang says he, too, was one of those parents who spent more time with work than with his son, recalling one instance when he saw an unfamiliar young man's back while on the set of the film and wondering who the stranger was. 'I didn't realize it was my son until he turned around.'

作爲一個14歲男孩的父親，張作驥說他也曾因忙於工作而無暇顧及兒子。他記得有一次在片場看到一個陌生少年的背影，心想這個人是誰，直到他轉過身來我才發覺那是我的兒子。

That was a wake-up call for Mr. Chang, the director of a film about the gap between parents and their children.

那件事震醒了張作驥――這位指導了以親子隔閡爲主題的電影導演。

Mr. Chang says the purpose of his film isn't to guilt-trip working parents, but to shed light on the challenges faced by those who struggle with caring for aging parents and raising children -- and the communication breakdown in families, despite all the modern conveniences designed to bring people closer.

他說拍攝電影的目的不是讓有工作的家長們感到內疚，而是讓人們看到那些上有老、下有小的中年人所遭遇的挑戰；並讓人們意識到儘管現代技術讓人們更易親近，一些家庭仍然存在着溝通的障礙。

The director -- who has been in the film industry for more than 25 years and has won several major awards, including a Golden Horse award for best feature film for 'When Love Comes' -- says filmmakers should do more to use movies as a conduit to highlight the struggles facing society's underdogs.

這位踏入電影行業已超過25年，並贏得了多項重要大獎（包括憑《當愛來的時候》贏得金馬獎最佳劇情片）的導演說，電影人應當更多地將電影用作一個媒介，去揭示社會底層人羣所遭遇的掙扎。

'I never offer any solutions in my movies, but what I do is point out the problems,' he says. 'I feel I have a duty to make sure their stories are told and their existence is acknowledged.'

他說，我從不在我的電影中給出任何解決辦法，我做的是讓觀衆看到問題。我覺得我有責任確保他們的故事能被講述，他們的存在能被感知。

Mr. Chang says his next film, which he also wrote, will center on the struggles of modern men, including the relationship between a male sex worker and a studious son who comes to the realization that all of his academic pursuits were for his mother and not for himself. (The film, which doesn't yet have an English-language title, is scheduled for completion by the end of this month. A release date hasn't been announced.)

張作驥說他的下一部電影（也由他撰寫劇本）將以現代男性的掙扎爲題材，影片將講述兩個男人的情感故事，他們一個是男性性工作者，一個是勤奮學習的學生，卻漸漸意識到所求學業是爲了母親而非自己。（該電影尚未配有英文字幕，計劃將於本月底攝製完成。發佈時間尚未公佈。）

'A Time in Quchi,' which opened Friday in Taiwan, has screened at several international festivals, including Vancouver, London and Busan.

《暑假作業》於上週五在臺灣首映，已在包括溫哥華、倫敦和釜山的多個國際電影節上展映。