美国国家公共电台 NPR--'1982' explores the complexities of love and war in Lebanon

'1982' explores the complexities¹ of love and war in Lebanon

Transcript²

1982 isn't your typical war film.

It's a love story set during growing tensions in the Middle East, when Israel invaded Lebanon 40 years ago. Lebanese filmmaker Oualid Mouaness, inspired by his own memories, wrote the script and directed the film.

He was 10 years old, attending an idyllic³ school in the Beirut suburbs, when the war changed life as he knew it. "I do remember everything being so beautiful and everything sort of changing," Mouaness tells Morning Edition.

"I remember that afternoon when the dogfights were going on in the sky. That's when my brother who was younger than me just completely lost it and started yelling at us to go inside because he thought the airplanes were going to fall on us," he says.

The invasion happened against the backdrop of a city divided, between a mostly Muslim West Beirut and a predominately Christian⁴ East Beirut.

Mouaness bases 1982 at a school much like the one he attended. The film is set in the mountains of Lebanon and the school is picturesque⁵. It's religiously mixed, the kids switch seamlessly from Arabic to English to French and they're not yet indoctrinated into the adult world of religious and ideological⁶ divides.

Much of the story revolves⁷ around 11-year old Wissam and what it means to live in a place separated by checkpoints. As the fear of war looms⁸, Wissam is consumed by a crush on a girl in his class – something that the filmmaker remembers experiencing from his own childhood.

Interview highlights

On the filmmaker's own memories of 1982:

We went to school. It was a normal school day and then all of a sudden literally⁹ the war got too close to home sonically, the sounds of airplanes just became very constant. And then as they got louder and louder really the teachers could not hide it anymore. And even though we had the sense that we weren't going to get bombed per se, everything was so invasive in terms of the sound and the nature and the country, that we had to be sent home.

I was fortunate to be in a very mixed school in Lebanon at the time which was not very common. There were all religions in my school. There were kids from both sides of the divide – West and East Beirut. Those kids who came from West Beirut, would have to go through checkpoints to get to the school. What became very clear that day is suddenly all the crossings were shut down and the kids could not go back to their homes in West Beirut. Nobody could get through on the phone lines.

On seeing war through the eyes of teachers and students:

It was emotional for the teachers. It was emotional for the kids. It was a separation between the adult world and the kids world. As kids, we don't really care and this film really goes there. We don't really care if someone is a Muslim or a Christian. They're our playmates. We feel the same. We can love each other. We can do everything together. As the adult world sort of starts to infringe¹⁰ on the children's world, you get to see the separation.

It's the first time that the kids realize that now there are things that are going to separate us and differentiate¹¹ us as we grow up. And the world of adults in any war is a very contaminated world. It's a world that's driven by ideology¹², by religion, by social mores¹³. In most parts of the world, there is the left and the right.

For Wissam's teacher Yasmine, her brother is on the right. The man she is in love with is on the left. And she loves both of them and she's in the middle of it – which is really a reflection of almost every mother in Lebanon at the time and in this case you have the character of Yasmine, Nadine Labaki's character, really finding herself in the midst of this polemic¹⁴, of this division in Lebanon that is very important and she is trying to bring it together.

On love trumping¹⁵ political divides:

As you grow up, you're sort of forced by society and by politics to take sides. And fear. The young kid is fearless. His brother has fear. He doesn't. And that's why his brother tells him 'Are you crazy. You want to go to West Beirut?' And Wissam doesn't care because he's not afraid. For him, being able to profess¹⁶ and see this girl is more important than anything that could come between them including a war or a checkpoint.

On the significance of using magical realism:

I knew this is where the film needed to end. This is a film about kids and about hope. Kids have unfettered imagination and they see a world differently. In this case, there are so many reasons that I felt 100-percent, this is how I should leave the audience. As beautiful as the narrative¹⁷ is, it gets really tough for the viewer – that I felt that if I managed to have the viewer be Wissam, then they would feel what I felt in the necessity of this which is basically to dream.

1 complexities   

复杂性(complexity的名词复数)； 复杂的事物

参考例句：

• The complexities of life bothered him. 生活的复杂使他困惑。
• The complexities of life bothered me. 生活的杂乱事儿使我心烦。

2 transcript   

n.抄本，誊本，副本，肄业证书

参考例句：

• A transcript of the tapes was presented as evidence in court.一份录音带的文字本作为证据被呈交法庭。
• They wouldn't let me have a transcript of the interview.他们拒绝给我一份采访的文字整理稿。

3 idyllic   

adj.质朴宜人的，田园风光的

参考例句：

• These scenes had an idyllic air.这种情景多少有点田园气氛。
• Many people living in big cities yearn for an idyllic country life.现在的很多都市人向往那种田园化的生活。

4 Christian   

adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒

参考例句：

• They always addressed each other by their Christian name.他们总是以教名互相称呼。
• His mother is a sincere Christian.他母亲是个虔诚的基督教徒。

5 picturesque   

adj.美丽如画的，（语言）生动的，绘声绘色的

参考例句：

• You can see the picturesque shores beside the river.在河边你可以看到景色如画的两岸。
• That was a picturesque phrase.那是一个形象化的说法。

6 ideological   

a.意识形态的

参考例句：

• He always tries to link his study with his ideological problems. 他总是把学习和自己的思想问题联系起来。
• He helped me enormously with advice on how to do ideological work. 他告诉我怎样做思想工作，对我有很大帮助。

7 revolves   

v.（使）旋转( revolve的第三人称单数 )；细想

参考例句：

• The earth revolves both round the sun and on its own axis. 地球既公转又自转。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• Thus a wheel revolves on its axle. 于是，轮子在轴上旋转。 来自《简明英汉词典》

8 looms   

n.织布机( loom的名词复数 )v.隐约出现，阴森地逼近( loom的第三人称单数 )；隐约出现，阴森地逼近

参考例句：

• All were busily engaged,men at their ploughs,women at their looms. 大家都很忙，男的耕田，女的织布。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The factory has twenty-five looms. 那家工厂有25台织布机。 来自《简明英汉词典》

9 literally   

adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实

参考例句：

• He translated the passage literally.他逐字逐句地翻译这段文字。
• Sometimes she would not sit down till she was literally faint.有时候，她不走到真正要昏厥了，决不肯坐下来。

10 infringe   

v.违反，触犯，侵害

参考例句：

• The jury ruled that he had infringed no rules.陪审团裁决他没有违反任何规定。
• He occasionally infringe the law by parking near a junction.他因偶尔将车停放在交叉口附近而违反规定。

11 differentiate   

vi.(between)区分；vt.区别；使不同

参考例句：

• You can differentiate between the houses by the shape of their chimneys.你可以凭借烟囱形状的不同来区分这两幢房子。
• He never learned to differentiate between good and evil.他从未学会分辨善恶。

12 ideology   

n.意识形态，(政治或社会的)思想意识

参考例句：

• The ideology has great influence in the world.这种思想体系在世界上有很大的影响。
• The ideal is to strike a medium between ideology and inspiration.我的理想是在意识思想和灵感鼓动之间找到一个折衷。

13 mores   

n.风俗，习惯，民德，道德观念

参考例句：

• The mores of that village are hard to believe.那村子的习俗让人难以置信。
• We advocate a harmonious society where corruption is swept away,and social mores are cleared.我们提倡弊绝风清，建设一个和谐社会。

14 polemic   

n.争论，论战

参考例句：

• He launched into a fierce polemic against the government's policies.他猛烈地抨击政府的政策。
• He wrote a splendid polemic in my favour.他写了一篇出色的文章为我辩护。

15 trumping   

v.（牌戏）出王牌赢（一牌或一墩）( trump的现在分词 )；吹号公告，吹号庆祝；吹喇叭；捏造

参考例句：

• Reality has a way of trumping art, and human-climate change is very real indeed. 现实总有它的王牌艺术，受人类影响的气候变化的确成了事实。 来自互联网
• This quirky aversion may be a case of psychological security trumping physical comfort. 这种奇怪现象可能是缘于一个心理上的安全感战胜生理上的舒适感的例子。 来自互联网

16 profess   

v.声称，冒称，以...为业，正式接受入教，表明信仰

参考例句：

• I profess that I was surprised at the news.我承认这消息使我惊讶。
• What religion does he profess?他信仰哪种宗教？

17 narrative   

n.叙述，故事；adj.叙事的，故事体的

参考例句：

• He was a writer of great narrative power.他是一位颇有记述能力的作家。
• Neither author was very strong on narrative.两个作者都不是很善于讲故事。