中国益智游戏

Chinese Puzzle is the new film by director Cédric Klapisch, staring Romain Duris, Audrey Tautou and Kelly Reilly. We caught up with Klapisch on the day of the film’s UK release to ask him about the film, its possible sequel and what it means to be forty.
Chinese Puzzle is the third film of a trilogy. How have you changed as a director since the first film, L’Auberge Espagnole?
I think the first one,L’Auberge Espagnole, was a lot more spontaneous, and we were working with the idea of the actors being spontaneous. So in (Chinese Puzzle), it’s a lot more about thinking things over, about preparing things, and it’s not about improvisation any more. I think it went along with the subject of the movie, because this one is about someone being forty years old, and the first one was about being twenty five years old and really improvising your life. I think that is what changed for me and what changed for Xavier (played by Romain Duris).
What’s the significance of being 40?

I think it’s about admitting that you have to take responsibility for your life, you know? You have to accept that you can’t really be a teenager forever, or have fun all the time, so you have to choose your way and accept that. I think that being forty is really about that.

Forty years old, for me, is the end of youth, but you’re not old either, so it’s an age that is interesting because of that. You can really enjoy life, because you don’t have the problems of being old: problems with your health or with your body, and yet you don’t have the excitement of the first times. When you’re twenty, you’re in love for the first time, you have a job for the first time, you’re going to new countries for the first time. When you are forty, you don’t have first times like that, so it’s not about that excitement, it’s about trying to find the enthusiasm without that kind of first time experience enthusiasm.

When I watched the film, there were some scenes that stood out for me, especially the scenes with his arrogant lawyer (Played by Jason Kravits). Which scene was was your favourite?

I really liked this scene because, as you said, I really like that character. For me it’s really about America. He says you have to follow the rules, and then at the end he says you can manage without the rules. For me America is really about that, that maybe you can improvise, but you have to follow the rules first, so I think it’s really about America for me.

I like the scene with the father, because this movie is a lot about being a father yourself. You have children and you have to experience what it is to be a father, but you also have to revisit the relationship that you have with your own dad. I really like what happens with Xavier because in order to be a father himself he has to set things straight with his own father. I really liked that.

You’ve described L’Auberge Espagnole, Russian Dolls and Chinese puzzle as a trilogy, but at the end of Chinese Puzzle, I couldn’t help but think I’d love to see these characters in another ten years. Is there any possibility that there could be a fourth film?

I have no Idea. I think that the two possibilities exist and it depends on whether in ten years I want to do a fourth one, and especially if the actors want to do a fourth one. In a sense I really can’t answer that question now.

Also about the story itself, I think that if there is a major event, if Europe doesn’t exist anymore, if there is a war, if Africa becomes what China is today or something like that, then yes, it would be really interesting to do a fourth one. It will tell a story about that, about how time changes, and about how far it can change. I think if there is a fourth one, it will be also be about change in the world and how the world can change with the characters.

The three films are set in different cities around the world, but a lot of Chinese Puzzle is set not only in New York, but in Chinatown. What elements of Chinese culture were important for you to include in the film?

The idea of the French sentence Casse-tête Chinois (the original french title), is not exactly the same as “Chinese Puzzle”. The idea is that it’s a puzzle that’s hard to solve, that’s what it means in French. It means something complicated, that we don’t understand because that’s what we think about the Chinese language, it’s hard to understand because it doesn’t have an alphabet, it has ideograms. It feels like the culture which is the furthest away.

I think what I wanted to say with that, is what Xavier always says about things being complicated to understand. It’s really about dealing with a culture that you don’t understand at the beginning, that then becomes simple. If you spend ten years in China then it becomes your culture. I think that I wanted to get across the idea that everything that seems impossible to understand and far away from yourself, it can be close, and it can be understandable at some point.

Not all the characters have made a return for this movie. Wendy’s brother, William (played by Kevin Bishop), is absent. What do you think he’s doing now?

Well, for a long time he was in the script but unfortunately there was a planning problem, (Kevin) was the main character in a TV series, so we forgot about his presence, although I really wanted him to be there. For me William’s presence – and it will happen in the next episode if it exists – is what Xavier can’t be. I think it’s funny that at the beginning of L’Auberge Espagnole he’s someone who is really unimportant and annoying, and then he becomes someone a lot more mature and a lot more trustworthy than Xavier so I think that’s what he should mean.

昨晚第三次看了这部电影，毫不犹豫地给五星。

有几个细节看到就想笑：

伊莎贝拉说到她找到的比利时保姆，曾经在巴塞罗那做Erasmus学生。然后果然就发生了什么，想到网上黑Erasmus的视频，哈哈哈。

Xavier和Wendy结婚十年后，两人吵架时，Wendy用英文而Xavier依然用法文。X到纽约后交流困难，反而是Wendy用法语沟通没有障碍。—》 这是在黑法国人的英语吗？

刚到曼哈顿Wendy的新男友家，一开门，两人身高的对比，和经济实力的对比，说话声音的对比，还有那段脑补，简直要笑喷了。


也有那么一些让人笑不出来的细节：

Xavier刚从巴黎到纽约的出租车上，音乐渐变成了轻快活力的美国流行乐，然而天气却阴雨绵绵，他的心情也大概如此。

Xavier以为自己原来的生活complicated,然而到了纽约需要为生存奔波，才真正意识到原来的自己是" So spoiled" 。不过他很快就融入了这种忙碌。而Martine说的那句, so what. if you think this is complicated, then you've never been to China. 意味深长。

在第一集大家都在吐槽爱说套话不那么natural的小美交换生时，Wendy也附和，然而转身又和小美419，并且欺骗了从英国来看她的男朋友。在和Xavier十年婚姻之后，又选择了住在纽约中央公园附近高级公寓的美国男人再婚。影片在展现Wendy的时候，并没有过多的心理活动，Wendy总是在新世界和旧世界之间徘徊，很现实无趣而少有自我表达，也不可能像Xavier一样随性地活。

后来的Wendy是不快乐的，为了婚姻在巴黎呆了十年。被责怪怎么能离开时她喊出：I stayed here ten years, for you. 喊出了心里挥之不去的“牺牲感“。想到当初在巴塞罗那两人站在阳台上讨论法语的学校(听起来像法克）一词，Wendy可爱的英式口音说：What?，心里一阵感慨。Wendy在这段感情中更像是一个成年人拽着Xavier想让他长大，然而无望最终彻底选择了功利的新世界。新男友那句：I don't know where the fuck she is 让人很不舒服确是意料之中。40岁的她坦白地追求她想要的生活，和Martine一样。

最终结局是美好的，四十岁的时候毁掉了自己的生活，然后在新的地方建立新生活。你怕没有准备好，但是不试一试又怎么知道？巴塞罗那那段美好早已成为历史，然而那段时间里遇到的人和事却陪伴了他这么多年。年轻的时候，你可以选择你想去的地方无忧无虑，而年纪大了很多时候会被生活推着走，只能在不能选择的生活中控制好自己能够控制的那部分，比如说冲到中国城车站对两小时候后要回巴黎的Martine大喊：Stay.

当年的青涩男孩札维耶转眼间已至身为两个孩子的爹的不惑之年，但对人生的困惑依旧丝毫未减，在孩子的母亲温蒂搬到纽约后，札维耶无法忍受孩子们在自己缺席的情况下长大，毅然决然也随他们移居这座世界之都，旧爱玛婷以及伊莎贝等分道扬镳的昔日室友们，也都因缘际会地与他异地重逢，再次一起上演错纵复杂的情感习题，让札维耶的生活变得天翻地覆。