Emily Tang：Conjugation【唐曉白：動詞變位】

Emily Tang：Conjugation【唐曉白：動詞變位】In her masterfully directed first feature film, Emily Tang Xiaobai, one of the few female directors of the Sixth Generation, draws a subtle yet harrowing picture of the despair that struck her generation after Tiananmen Square.In the cold winter of 1989, Guo Song and Xiao Qing, a young couple who have met while demonstrating on the Square, sneak into empty buses to make love at night. Later, they move in together (illegally, for they’re not married) in a hovel they try to turn into a shelter against the outside world. Guo Song, a recent graduate, has been assigned a factory job. Xiao Qing, a student, moonlights in a ‘new-style’ cappuccino bar. When Guo Song gets drunk with his buddies, they talk about one of them, nicknamed ‘Foot Finger’, still ‘missing’, and they read aloud the poems he left behind—letters addressed to an imaginary ‘sister’:Sister, sister! I am cold and lonelyShrouded in darkness.Conjugation’s elliptic structure is made of seemingly disconnected vignettes: the pathetic dance celebrating the upcoming Asian Olympic games that Guo Song and his co-workers are forced to perform; Xiao Qing’s joyless encounter with a businessman who takes her to a hotel; or Guo Song’s blank stare when the man drops her at their door. Keeping all violence off-screen, Tang focuses on small gestures, mundane situations, the fragile pursuit of personal happiness and the unbearable silence of repression, sometimes broken by a glimpse of hope.1989年，剛從北京一所大學畢業的郭松，在巷弄裏租房子和念法文系的女友曉青同居。

他被分配到一個小工廠，因為某些抵觸情緒，對工作也提不起什麽興趣來。以前的大學同學現在勞燕分飛:年輕的老師不再執鞭，書也不看了，只想做生意、賺大錢，但生意總是失敗；有辦法領到美國大學全額獎學金的小四，由家裏幫忙籌所謂的"培養費"，以逃避分配到的醬油廠工作。雖然心裏對父母愧疚無比，卻不得不走，甚至可能再也不回來。大家都為眼前的現實生活困窘著。郭松和女朋友新租的房子仿佛還算個存身之所，可他越來越感到自己不可自拔地陷入一種瑣碎之中，這使他的靈魂越來越隨著一個陌生詩人留下的詩句遠去。

他和周圍的人都忘不了那個逝去的激情夏季，也不得不在這個蕭殺的冬天承受所有令人作痛的後果。他們仿佛一瞬間喪失了各人原有的理想及目標，逐漸沉淪，把生命投擲在生活的庸庸碌碌中。當然，也有一些東西實實在在地留下，比如捐款箱裏的錢。它最終的下場是被大家心照不宣地分掉了。

但是好像這更沒引來什麽好結果，就像郭松和他女朋友坐在搬家的卡車上那種面無表情的狀態，有些東西無論如何也留不住了……