Where the Truth Lies

昨天晚上看了一部NC17的片子Where the Truth Lies，这是我所喜爱的电影导演Atom Egoyan的新片。他之前拍摄的Ararat我以前也介绍过。但是这部电影真得很怪。

根据wikipedia的介绍：“In 1957, a girl is found dead in the hotel room of a Martin & Lewis-like comedy team. Both had alibis and neither was accused, although the death breaks up the act. Years later, a young journalist (Lohman) tries to find out the truth behind the breakup. She becomes sexually involved under false pretenses with one of the comedians, Lanny Morris (Bacon), while pursuing an interview with the other, Vince Collins (Firth), who manipulates her with sex and drugs in order to keep her from reporting what she knows, and from finding out more. When she finally puts all the pieces together, however, she finds out more than she was expecting to.”

电影里Alison Lohman 饰演的Karen O'Connor带着问题去采访Vince Collins ，想了解Maureen O'Flaherty之死的真相。之后她又和她自己的偶像Lanny Morris 发生了关系。虽然Vince Collins 和Lanny Morris 都对Maureen O'Flaherty的死负有责任，但是最后证明是Lanny 的助手杀了人。这两个男人，因为拒绝承认他们之间的爱情 （Lanny：“We love each other, but we are not queers.”），而不得不分道扬镳了。影片对此的处理非常别扭，而且女记者Karen超强的逻辑推理和判断能力使人怀疑她是不是福尔莫斯转世。

影片所要讲的是没有绝对的真实，每个人的回忆都经过他们自己有意识或者无意识的加工。所谓追寻事实的真相，不如说追寻每个人提供不同说法的原因和目的。这样刨根问底找到的东西，往往是An Inconvenient Truth。影片的结尾处，导演笼统地责任推给观众，“好了，我的故事就是这样了，你们自己去解释吧”。这与此前Atom Egoyan拍摄的有关他的故乡亚美尼亚的Ararat截然不同，在那个电影里，虽然最后影片的主人公也没有找到大屠杀的真相，但是他寻找的过程也是成长的过程，很值得回味。这部电影显然是按好莱坞“八荣八耻”的标准拍摄的，以为有了悬念、色情和暴力就能吸引观众，结果因为有threesome 的情节和同性恋的情节，被评为了NC17级别。这对于商业影片来说，是票房的死亡之吻。难怪影评都不看好此片，票房也是惨败。Critical responses were similarly harsh; among other critics, BBCi panned it for "strained storytelling" , while Rolling Stone called it a "monumental misfire" and compared it with the infamous flop Showgirls。

p.s. All the NC17 movies only can be shown after 12:00am on TV. Do TV station know that young people go to bed later than their parents?