萬瑪才旦：在審查夾縫中展示當代西藏人的生活
Pema Tseden, Pioneering Tibetan Filmmaker, Is Dead at 53
Pema Tseden, a filmmaker and author who presented an honest look at contemporary Tibetan life despite intense scrutiny from Chinese censors, died on Monday in Tibet. He was 53.
在中國審查機構的嚴密審查之下仍以真實的視角展示當代西藏人生活的電影人、作家萬瑪才旦於週一在西藏去世，時年53歲。
His death was announced in a statement by the China Academy of Art in Hangzhou, where he was a professor. The statement did not specify a cause or say where he died.
位於杭州的中國美術學院的一則聲明宣布了他去世的消息，萬瑪才旦在該校任教授。聲明沒有具體說明死因及死亡地點。
Tibet and its people have often been misrepresented with clichés. For the West, it was utopia, a fantasy based on the depiction of Shangri-La in the British author James Hilton’s 1933 novel, “Lost Horizon." For the Communist Party of China, Tibetans were serfs or barbarians in need of rescue and rehabilitation, with propaganda films portraying Han cadres as liberators.
西藏及其人民常常被刻板說法曲解。對西方來說，那裡是烏托邦，是基於英國作家詹姆斯·希爾頓1933年小說《消失的地平線》呈現的香格里拉的幻想。對中國共產黨來說，西藏人是需要拯救和改造的農奴或野蠻人，宣傳片將漢族幹部描繪成解放者。
Pema Tseden (pronounced WA-ma TSAY-ten in his native dialect), who like most Tibetans had no family name and went instead by his two given names, said that as a child, he had longed for accurate representations of his home, people and culture that existing Hollywood and Chinese films didn’t provide.
萬瑪才旦和大多數藏人一樣，沒有姓氏，而是使用他的兩個名字。他說他兒時一直渴望能夠準確地展現他的家、人民和文化，這在現有的好萊塢和中國電影裡是沒有的。
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“Whether it was the clothes, the customs, the manners, every element, even the smallest, was inaccurate,” he said in a 2019 interview. “Because of that, at the time, I thought that later on, if someone made films with even a little knowledge of the language of my people, the culture, the traditions of my people, it would be completely different.”
「無論是衣服、風俗還是舉止，每一個元素，即使是最小的元素，都是不準確的，」他在2019年的一次採訪中說。「正因為如此，我當時覺得，將來如果拍電影的人對我民族的語言、文化和傳統即使稍有了解，情況就會完全不同。」
In his films, Pema Tseden rarely depicted Tibet’s Chinese population, which swelled after the Red Army seized Tibet in 1951. To elude Chinese censors, he eschewed references to the Dalai Lama, who has been seen in China as supporting Tibetan independence. This allowed him to avoid overtly political critiques while still tackling broader themes, like the loss of traditions and identity in the face of modernization.
在他的電影中，萬瑪才旦很少描繪西藏的中國人，在1951年中共軍隊佔領西藏後，中國人口激增。為了躲避中國審查，他避免提及在中國被視為支持西藏獨立的達賴喇嘛。這使他能夠避免公開的政治批評，同時仍能處理更廣泛的主題，比如在現代化面前傳統和身份的喪失。
He was the first Tibetan filmmaker working in China to shoot a feature film entirely in the Tibetan language. He was also the first Tibetan director to graduate from the prestigious Beijing Film Academy, which cultivated the country’s leading directors. But like all artists in China exploring ethnic minorities and religion, he was subject to additional vetting from state censors and required to submit scripts in Chinese for review.
他是第一位在中國工作並用藏語拍攝故事片的藏族電影人。他也是第一位畢業於培養國家一流導演的著名的北京電影學院的藏族導演。但就像中國所有探索少數民族和宗教的藝術家一樣，他受到國家審查機構的額外審查，並被要求提交中文劇本以供審查。
“His challenge, of course, was to make films that would reflect a Tibetan sense of identity, a Tibetan cultural sensibility, while not upsetting the Chinese authorities,” Tenzing Sonam, a Tibetan filmmaker and writer living in Dharamshala, India, said by phone. “Pema Tseden navigated that fine line incredibly well.”
「當然，他面臨的挑戰是在不惹惱中國當局的情況下，製作能夠反映藏族認同和藏族文化敏感性的電影，」居住在印度達蘭薩拉的藏族電影人、作家丹增索南在電話中說。「萬瑪才旦非常好地駕馭了這條微妙的界線。」
In “The Silent Holy Stones” (2005), he depicted everyday Tibetan experiences: monks becoming engrossed with television, villagers rehearsing for a New Year’s opera performance. And in “Old Dog” (2011), images of barbed-wire fences stretching across the Tibetan grasslands examined the power of the state and the complexities of privatizing ancestral lands.
在《靜靜的嘛呢石》(2005)中，他描繪了西藏人的日常經歷：僧侶們看電視入了迷，村民們為新年戲劇表演排練。在《老狗》(2011)中，西藏草原一望無際的帶刺鐵絲網的畫面展現了國家的權力和祖傳土地私有化的複雜性。
His movies were “not just about Tibet,” Tsering Shakya, a Tibetan historian and scholar at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, said in an interview. “This is about China and people who are left behind by China’s economic miracle.”
他的電影「不僅僅是關於西藏的」，溫哥華不列顛哥倫比亞大學的西藏歷史學家和學者茨仁夏加在接受採訪時說。「也是關於中國的，以及那些被中國經濟奇蹟拋在後面的人們。」
As Pema Tseden’s clout grew, China’s film industry and its audiences began to accept Tibetan as a language used on the big screen. And by combining Tibetan traditions of oral storytelling and song with modern filmmaking formats, his movies gave rise to an entirely new genre that some called the Tibetan New Wave.
隨著萬瑪才旦的影響力越來越大，中國的電影業和觀眾開始接受藏語電影。通過將西藏的口述故事和歌曲傳統與現代電影製作形式相結合，他的電影產生了一種全新的類型，有人稱之為西藏新浪潮。
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“The stories his films contained — which are always meticulously framed and exquisitely modulated — speak powerful truths in the gentlest of voices,” said Shelly Kraicer, a Chinese cinema curator and researcher who wrote subtitles for some of Pema Tseden’s work. “He’s a key world filmmaker.”
「他的電影裡的故事呈現構圖仔細、編排精妙，這些故事用最溫柔的聲音講述了強有力的真理，」曾為萬瑪才旦的一些作品翻譯字幕的中國電影策展人兼研究員謝楓(Shelly Kraicer)說。「他是一位重要的世界電影人。」
He sought to build a tight-knit network of Tibetan filmmakers, including Sonthar Gyal, Dukar Tserang, Lhapal Gyal and Pema Tseden’s, son, Jigme Trinley, who went on to direct their own films. Drivers, assistants and other members of the crew sometimes juggled more than one role, appearing as extras and coaching actors in regional dialects.
他試圖建立一個由西藏電影製作人組成的緊密網路，其中包括松太嘉、杜嘎次讓、拉巴嘉和萬瑪才旦的兒子久美成列，他們後來都執導了自己的電影。司機、助理和其他劇組成員有時會兼顧多個角色，充當臨時演員或給演員進行地區口音培訓。
“He created from scratch an embryonic Tibetan film circle, film industry,” Françoise Robin, a professor of Tibetan language and literature at the National Institute for Oriental Languages and Civilizations in Paris who knew Pema Tseden for over two decades, said by phone. “He’s very faithful in friendship. Some people worked with him for 10 years.”
「他從無到有創建了一個處於萌芽狀態的西藏電影圈、電影業，」巴黎國立東方語言與文明研究所藏語文學教授弗朗索瓦茲·羅賓在電話中說，她認識萬瑪才旦20多年。「他對友誼非常忠誠。有些人和他一起工作了10年。」
Pema Tseden was born on Dec. 3, 1969, in Qinghai Province, part of a northeastern region of Tibet traditionally known as Amdo. His parents were farmers and herders.
萬瑪才旦1969年12月3日出生於青海省，屬於藏區東北部，過去稱為安多。他的父母是農民和牧民。
He was raised by his grandfather, who asked him to copy out Buddhist scriptures by hand after school, a practice that instilled in him an early appreciation for Tibetan language and culture. He worked as a teacher for four years before studying Tibetan literature and translation at the Northwest University for Nationalities in Lanzhou. He then worked for several years as a civil servant in his home province.
他由祖父撫養長大，祖父要求他在放學後手抄佛經，早早為他灌輸了藏語和藏族文化之美。在蘭州的西北民族大學學習西藏文學和翻譯之前，他曾當過四年教師。隨後，他在家鄉青海擔任公務員多年。
Starting in 1991, he published short stories set in Tibet, written in both Tibetan and Chinese, about individuals confronted with sweeping changes. They underscored the importance of forging a connection with nature and animals, showing “the complexity of life in the simplest language,” said Jessica Yeung, a professor at Hong Kong Baptist University who knew Pema Tseden for a decade and translated his work. He later adapted some of his stories into films.
從1991年開始，他以藏文和中文發表了以西藏為背景的短篇小說，講述人物故事，這些人面對著翻天覆地的變化。這些小說強調了與自然和動物建立聯繫的重要性，「用最簡單的語言展示了生活的複雜性，」認識萬瑪才旦10年並翻譯了他的作品的香港浸會大學教授楊慧儀說。後來，他將自己的一些故事改編成電影。
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After attending the Beijing Film Academy in the early 2000s, he released “The Silent Holy Stones” to critical acclaim, as well as several other films. A decade later, “Tharlo” (2015), about the journey of a shepherd who must travel outside his isolated village to register for a government ID, premiered at the Venice Film Festival. It won numerous awards, including a Golden Horse Award for best adapted screenplay in Taiwan. Among Tibetans, it also became a seminal work for aspiring filmmakers within a few years.
“A Tibetan film should show Tibetan life,” Pema Tseden said in an undated interview that was recently released by Kangba TV, a Tibetan-language broadcaster. “In my case, from my first film onward, I wanted my movies to absolutely include characters who are Tibetan, who would all speak Tibetan, and whose behavior and way of thinking were Tibetan. This is what makes Tibetan films different.”
「西藏電影應該展示西藏人的生活，」萬瑪才旦在藏語廣播公司康巴電視台最近發布的未註明日期的採訪中說。「就我而言，從我的第一部電影開始，我就希望我的電影中必須包含藏人角色，都會說藏語，並且有藏人的行為和思維方式。這就是西藏電影與眾不同的地方。」
Pema Tseden’s subsequent films benefited from his higher profile. “Jinpa” (2018), about a truck driver who runs over a sheep and then picks up a hitchhiker, was produced by the Hong Kong auteur Wong Kar-wai’s Jet Tone Films and premiered at the Venice Film Festival, where it won the Orizzonti Award for best screenplay. “Balloon” (2019), about a family coping with an unexpected pregnancy amid China’s family planning laws, also premiered in Venice. A forthcoming film, “Snow Leopard,” about the tense relationship between humans and predatory animals, is currently in postproduction. At his death, he was working on another film.
Information on survivors in addition to his son was not immediately available.
有關其子以外的遺屬信息無法在第一時間獲知。
