去里斯本的夜车

「If it is so that we live only a small part of the life which is within us, what happens to the rest?」


「We live here and now. Everything before and in other places is past. Mostly forgotten. 」


「What could, what should be done with all the time that lies ahead of us, open and unshaped, feather-light in its freedom and lead-heavy in its uncertainty? Is it a wish? Dream like and nostalgic, to stand once again at that point in life and be able to take a completely different direction to the one which has made us who we are?」


「Consider from the standpoint of eternity that rather loses its significance.」


「We leave something of ourselves behind, when we leave a place, we stay there, even though we go away. And there are things in us that we can find again only by going back there. We travel to our souls when we go to a place that we have covered a stretch of our life, no matter how brief it may have been. But by travelling to ourselves, we must confront our own loneliness. And isn't it so that everything we do is done out of fear of loneliness? Isn't that why we renounce all the things we will regret at the end of our life? 」


「When dictatorship is a fact, revolution is a duty.」


「Is it ultimately a question of self-image, the determining idea one has made for oneself of what one has to have accomplished and experienced, so that one can approve of the life one has lived? If this is the case, the fear of death might be described as the fear of not being able to become whom one planned to be. If the certainty befalls us that it will never be achieved, this wholeness, we suddenly don't know how to live the time that can no longer be part of the whole life.」


「It's ofter easier to speak with strangers. 」


「No one here knows what it would be like to live eternally. And it's a blessing we never will. One thing I can assure you, It would be hell, this endless paradise of immortality. It is death and only death, that gives each moment beauty and horror. Only through death is time living thing. Why does the Lord not noticed? Why does He threaten us with a... endlessness that can only be unbearably desolate? I would not want to live in a world without cathedrals. I need the luster of their windows, their cool stillness, their imperious silence. I need the holiness of words, the grandeur of great poetry. But just as much I need the freedom to rebel against everything that is cruel in this world. For the one is nothing without the other. And no one may force me to choose.」


「Why is the world so cruel? God doesn't care.」


「In youth, we live as if we were immortal. Knowledge of mortality dances around us like a brittle paper ribbon that barely touches our skin. When in life does that change? When does the ribbon tighten until finally it strangles us? 」


「Why don't you just stay?」

生命会有无数种可能，而现实只是其中一种。人生会有无数条轨迹，而过往只是一条。“如果”是个神奇的词汇，开启未知。如果，你搭上了开往里斯本的夜车；如果，你没搭上去里斯本的列车……就像薛定谔的猫，选择之中化出神奇。格列戈里斯搭上了那班车。
喜欢这部电影，喜欢欧洲电影惯有的人文气质。没读过这本书，但喜欢留有余地，异于原著的结尾。一个老朽的英语老师，因一场意外，搭上了去往里斯本的列车，探究了一本书作者轰轰烈烈的短暂生命。之后，他枯燥呆板的生命，似乎在黄昏前，有了新的转变契机。影片结束在女配镜师的问句中:“你为什么不留下呢？”洒满绿色希望的留白。只是，抑制不住地想到了《廊桥遗梦》。
看似不相干的两部电影实则都试图阐述关于选择的命题。爱情或者革命都只是外衣。当摄影师近乎祈求地要和她远走高飞，她拒绝了。于是，只剩遗梦。爱情或者自我都在那个雨天随泪水消失。同样的情形似乎出现在了格列戈里斯的面前。考证了那本书作者的传奇人生，格列戈里斯应该给死气沉沉的生活一些起色。值得一提的是，作为一个克己本分的英语教师，他不顾一切地出行，滞留在里斯本，无视学监的电话就已经是在尝试其他的轨迹了。
为什么不让“如果”成真呢？！毕竟，人生没有彩排，别的活法也一直存在。

百转千回的述说着每一个内心隐秘的渴望-释放灵魂。

起初，以为可能是在描述一个现实生活中的压抑，然后，认为借由一本书中浪漫哲学的文字，说出过去时光的旁白，后来，开始了一段有点点执意的追寻，带着些命运和反抗，心灵被卷入一个陌生国度的黑暗历史中，再后来，在那些充满勇气的过去选择中，去反思人生的意义与当下的虚无，最后，在多年之后，去的去，留的留，死的死，生的生，还能在回忆的文字或口述中，一切都那么值得。因为我们曾经不顾一切选择离开创造新生活，也曾因为无法承受对方灵魂之重而分别，生活如此疯狂，所以，生命如此值得。

“我们会留下一部分的自己，当我们离开一个地方的时候。有些在心里的东西，唯有重游旧地，方可再次相聚。我们在探索自我的时候，会前往某处生活，即使只是短暂的停泊。”诗一样的对白，梦中的里斯本，轻轻敲醒茫然与胆怯，这是一部十年以后会更加感动的片子。

57岁的Gregorius是一名在中学教拉丁语，希腊语和希伯来语的语言学教师，他每天过着枯燥无味的生活，生活对于他来说也没有太多的色彩。但就在一个雷雨交加的早上，他邂逅了一个试图想要跳河自杀的红衣少女，这突如其来的邂逅竟然让他放弃了原本的生活，踏上了开往里斯本的列车，开始了一段审视灵魂的旅程。