BISFF Correspondence 通信计划
为了跨越种种障碍，开辟更多交流空间，我们设置了“BISFF Correspondence 通信计划”，对部分国际单元的参展作者进行系列访谈，这些访谈将在作品放映后发布在联展各个媒体平台。
Signal GPS perdu
GPS signal lost｜GPS信号丢失
Pierre Voland
Belgium｜French｜0:42:27｜2022
Asia Premiere
Q&A
Director导演：Pierre Voland
Interviewer&translator采访、翻译：黄德发Huang Defa
Q：The first question is: why do you choose the Knight of the Cart in numerous Romance of Chivalry, do you mean that anyone who is looking for true love can be called a knight, or does this chapter mean some special for you?
请问您为什么在众多的骑士传奇中选择《马车骑士》，是否意味着在您看来说任何寻找真爱的人都可以被称为骑士，还是说这一故事对你有特殊的意义?
A：Ha ha! I think any important quest, whether for true love or for something else, can make you a knight. It depends on the intensity you give it. I would rather say that this novel means something very special for me. It resonated a lot with my own experience as a gay teenager and a young gay man, and the depicted quest is very similar to what the character of the film is living on the dating app and in the woods: something about forbidden love and spirituality. This is why it was important for me to include it in the film.
In this 12th century story, the knight Lancelot searches for his missing queen, with whom he is in love. It is a forbidden love (because it is adultery), as well as the film character’s unassumed homosexual desire, and his quest for God in an apparently atheistic world. This love is so strong, howerver, that it urges the knight to a long and obstinate quest, made up of prerequisites. It begins with shame: his love for the queen drive him to jump on a kart, which was a symbol of great shame at that time (this is how criminals where exposed in villages). Later, crossing the Sword Bridge is another decisive moment in his quest, where his devotion takes on a spiritual and Christ-like aspect. In this French Middle Age tale, the author Chrétien de Troyes transfers monastic love to courtly love, and blends desire and faith. It relates to the character's questions: are love quest and spiritual quest similar ? Or do they have their own and separate path ?
哈哈！我觉得任何探险，不论最终目的是什么，都可以让一个人成为一名骑士，这最终取决于这场探险是否足够重要。《马车骑士》对我来说有着特殊的意义：它与我有些特殊的同性恋身份相呼应。而影片中所选取的这一故事的片段与另外两个叙事段落：交友软件以及丛林探险所传达的内容非常相似：关于禁忌之爱以及灵魂。这也是为什么我会选择将这个故事置于影片中的原因。
在这个12世纪的故事中，兰斯洛特骑士寻找着他深爱的不知所踪的皇后，他们之间的爱情因其通奸的性质被视作禁忌，而这种禁忌之爱就如同影片中主人公未名的同性欲望以及他在一个无神的世界中对于神的追逐。
然而，这份爱又如此的强烈，强烈到它推着骑士开始了一场漫长而顽强的探险，而这个探险有种某种命定之感。这场探险从羞辱开始：他对皇后的爱促使他跳上了一辆马车，这在当时是一种极大的羞辱的象征（在当时这是罪犯被游街示众的方式）。随后他又面临了另一个决定性的选择，在这个选择中他以一种精神的、基督式的做出了牺牲。在这个法国的中世纪故事中，作者Chrétien de Troyes将宗教式的爱转变为一种世俗宫廷意义上的爱，将欲望与信仰融合在一起，而这个故事又联系着影片中主人公的疑问：寻求爱情与寻找本心是否殊途同归，抑或是这两者实际上大相径庭？
Q：Second, it’s very obvious that love is the theme of this video, at the same time you named this video, I think this title not only describe the adventure happened in the journey of Deer-chasing, but also the sick gay dating phenomenon, do I understand correctly, and can you explain it further？
第二，很明显，这段视频的主题是爱，同时你们给这个视频命名为《GPS Signal lost》，我觉得这个名字不仅描述了追鹿之旅中发生的冒险，也描述了不正常的同性恋约会现象，不知道我的理解是否正确，或者您能进一步的解释一下这个标题吗？
A：Rather than describing the gay dating phenomenon, I would say that the title, Signal GPS lost, describes the character’s journey: getting lost in his own inner spaces – the gay desire and the desire for spirituality. Some people said the film criticises the dating apps, by showing how cold and dehumanised they are. But to me they are not necessarily dehumanised, and the film is not a criticism of them, nor of their users who would loose their ability to communicate on it and get lost. The lack of signal is rather on the character’s side: he gets lost also because he doesn’t dare to communicate clearly. He always stays on the doorstep of communication. The film tells the story of taking that step to approach one’s desires.
He goes deeper and deeper in the forest, and, at one point, the GPS tracking, which is his tool to approach his desires on the app and with the deer, doesn’t work anymore: what he is looking for seems impossible to locate, and he is, in a way, lost in himself. It’s a bit funny and ironical: you can see it as the smartphone failure (that is, no technical tool will help him to find love or spirituality, because he is indeed looking for something much bigger than what the geolocating system can offer), but you can see it also as the character failure: he went so far in non interacting that – cherry on the cake – he even looses the connection.
Above all, this particular sequence, when the sound message；‘Signal GPS lost’ pops up, is a moment of silence and suspended time. A moment of anxious loneliness, and of letting go, or giving in: the things that could help him to control the situation, whether to experience spiritual or gay desire, doesn’t help anymore. It refers to a religious state of mind: a suspended will, to let things in God’s hands. It happens after the app told him to ‘take the plunge’, and after Lancelot crossed the deadly Sword-Bridge.
It’s a moment of loss and stillness that leads to communication: afterwards, a dialogue happens. The character finally accepts to talk with someone. You could say that he remained on the doorstep of communication until this moment, and from the deeper part of the forest, he finally decides to enter the dialogue.
相比起把标题《GPS信号丢失》理解成是对同性恋约会现象的一种描述，我更愿意说这个标题是在描述片中主人公的内心之旅：一个寻找灵魂共鸣的伴侣的男同性恋在寻找的过程中逐渐迷失的过程。可能有些人会认为影片通过展示交友软件的冷漠与反人性以实现对这些软件的批判，但对我而言这些软件不一定是反人性的，我也并不试图通过这部影片去批判它们，同样我也不认为使用这些软件会让人失去和人交流的能力并且迷失。所谓的“信号丢失”更准确地说是在描述主人公本身：因为他不敢明确地和人交流致使他逐渐地迷失在软件中。他永远停在与人交往的门外止步不前。这个影片讲述了如何迈出接近自身欲望的一步。
影片中主人公不断地深入丛林，直到有一次他的GPS追踪器——既是他用来寻找鹿的工具，同时也是他使用软件必不可少的工具，故障了。这意味着他所寻找的鹿似乎不再能够被定位，而他也迷失在了丛林之中。这既好笑又讽刺：你可以把他看作是智能手机的失败（换句话说，没有任何现代科技可以帮助他找到真爱和本我，因为他确实在寻找着某种远远比GPS所能提供的更宏大的事物），但同时也可以认为是他本身性格的缺陷：他太过孤立——孤立太过以至于甚至失联。
当“GPS信号丢失”这个声音响起的特殊片段中，伴随着声音而来的是片刻的沉默以及时间的悬置。焦虑与孤独、放弃与屈服填满了这一时刻。而过去那些可以帮助他控制局面的所有事物，譬如灵魂的经历或者他的同性欲望都不再有效。而这个片段所指涉的是一种宗教的精神状态：自我意志的放逐以及听天由命的精神。这种状态发生在当软件提示他需要更冒险的措施（以匹配更多人）时，也发生在故事中兰斯洛特骑士穿越“剑桥”后。
也正是经历了迷失与寂静的时刻最终带来了交往。主人公最终接受了与人交流。我们可以认为直到这一瞬间他才终于迈出了与人交流的那一步，或者说他才终于从丛林的深处走出敞开心扉。
Q：Third, this video is shot by white and black super 8mm, why do you choose this form, are you intend to make audiences mess the medieval age and nowadays during watching? Can I think that this representation form also represent your nostalgia?
第三，这个视频是用黑白“SUPER 8”毫米相机拍摄的，你为什么选择这种形式，你是想让观众在观看的过程中混淆中世纪和现在吗?我们是否可以认为这个表现形式也代表了你的某种怀旧之情？
A：Yes, I think it relates to my nostalgia, but most importantly, it nourishes the time travel, as you mention.
I wanted to create images difficult to situate in time, almost like archives. It is part of the different layers and anachronisms the film tries to gather and superimpose: the Middle Age novel read in old French and the GPS tracking, the clean digital dating app and the grainy Super 8... which relates to the colliding things in the character quests: his quest for gay love, set in a contemporary gay identity (associated with the dating app), and his hidden quest for the absolute and Christian spirituality, that relates to ancient times and to eternity. Assembling these heterogeneous elements illustrates the character's questions: can his desires in apparent tension, human desire and desire for the absolute, coexist?
In this inner journey, I also strongly wanted to make the audience feel the time flowing by. With Super 8, I could feel it during the shooting: when you press the camera trigger, you can ear and feel the film unroling vertically in the camera gate. And you can feel it in return as a viewer: the film flows by on the screen in front of you, in a slow and very regular way, like water. The best representation of this, I think, is the sequence of the waterfal: there, the effervescent water and the grainy film flow by verticaly together.
I also deliberately used Super 8 ‘against type’, in a very counter-intuitive way. Super 8 cameras are light and made to be held by hand: they allow you to make a lot of mouvements (same as Single 8 cameras, that were maybe more famous in Asia), but I’ve chosen to shoot on a tripod most of the time, and to attach strongly the camera. It’s part of the process of dis-embodying: in his questions about desire (how to take the step of my desires? Are they allowed or possible?), the character censored himself and became bodyless: he is only a voice and an eye, and the still images convey this disembodied aspect. By the way, it mirrors and emphasises the cinema viewers experience: to become only ears and eyes, and to stay still in the dark until the end of the film. The paradox of this apparatus is that the sound gives a huge presence to the character’s body in return (which is actually my body). The body comes back through the sound.
I also used Super 8 in a structural way. Originally, the film rhythm was derived from the length of the small Super 8 reels as they appear after being developed (about 3 minutes 20 seconds at eighteen frames per second). This time-length helped the editor Sébastien Demeffe and me to set a kind of metrical framework for the film movement – like the octosyllable verses in Lancelot’s novel. I wanted a regular and repetitive structure, to create a liturgical or ceremonial unfolding, and to carry the meditative dimension of the film. This mechanical aspect leads you to let go and to gradually get into its pace. In this, I was very inspired by Jean-Claude Rousseau’s work, a French filmmaker I admire. I was particularly inspired by his film La vallée close (The enclosed valley).
是的，选择黑白胶片的形式的确与我的怀旧之情相关，不过最重要的是，这种形式使得影片的时间质感更加醇厚。
我希望创作出难以辨别年代的图像，如同档案一样的图像。这是影片所试图实现的多维和时间错乱的不可缺少的一部分：以古代法语写就的中世纪小说以及GPS追踪，高清的电子交友软件以及高颗粒感的黑白“SUPER 8”画面……这些与主人公的探险中所经历的冲突密切相关：以现代同性恋身份（身份定位来自于他所使用的交友软件）所追寻的同性恋爱情以及他隐晦的对于古代的、永恒的绝对的基督教的宗教性的追求。当这些截然相反的元素被并列呈现时则勾勒出主人公的疑问：他的人性本身的欲望与对某种“绝对力量”的欲望，这两种极具张力的欲望是否可以共存。
在这场关于内心的旅程中我也强烈地希望能够让观众感受到时间的流逝。而黑白超8毫米相机的使用让我在拍摄的时候就可以感知到这一点：特别是当我按下快门时，我可以清晰地听到和感知到胶片在相机中垂直展开。而作为观众你也可以感受到这种时间的流逝之感：影片如水一般在荧幕上缓缓流动。我想影片最好的呈现方式就是如同瀑布一般：粗糙的影片如同沸腾的水一般奔流而下。
同时，我也有意的以一种反直觉的方式来使用“SUPER 8”毫米相机以“反类型化”。“SUPER 8”相机比较轻便可以手持，拍摄者可以用这个相机做比较多的动作（和在亚洲比较知名的“SINGLE 8”相机一样）。但我选择将“SUPER 8”相机固定在三脚架上进行拍摄，通过这种方式以实现影片的“去肉身化”：当角色对自身产生某种疑问时（比如：如何踏出追寻欲望的那一步？我可以这么做吗？），主人公主动地抹除了自己的肉体仅仅留下了耳朵和眼睛，而这种固定机位的拍摄恰好能够体现这种“去肉身化”的感觉。另一方面，以“SUPER 8”相机进行的固定机位拍摄也象征和映射出观众的观影体验：在观影中直到影片结束前观众都必须呆在一片黑暗中，而只剩下耳朵和眼睛仍然存在，肉身则被抹除。
“Super 8”相机同时也影响了这部影片的结构，影片的剪辑是基于冲洗后的小型“Super 8”胶卷的长度进行的（一卷胶卷时长大约是3分20秒，每秒18帧）。这个时间长度帮助了剪辑师Sébastien Demeffe和我为影片节奏设定韵律框架——如同兰斯洛特小说中的八音节诗一般。我希望影片呈现一种规律的、反复的结构，从而实现内容礼拜式的、仪式性的的展开，并由此达成影片的诗意性。这种影片结构能够引导观众逐渐进入影片的节奏中。在这一点上，我很崇拜的法国导演Jean-Claude Rousseau的作品给了我很大的启发，他的电影《封闭的山谷》（La vallée close）给了我很大的启发。
Q：Fourth, I have noticed that in the scenario about gay dating app Bellow, You seems to have thought a lot about the ID ‘Desire’ and ‘Blue Bear’ is it a coincidence? If not, could you explain further?
第四，我注意到在约会应用Bellow的叙事片段中，你似乎对ID的命名也有一些讲究，这是巧合吗? 如果不是的话，你能进一步解释吗?
A：Indeed, the users’ names appearing on the app have meanings. They reflect the character’s journey. First, ‘Bellow’, the name of this fictional app, is the sound of a deer calling for love. ‘Desire’ is almost an allegory of the character’s own desire. When this ID appears, the character hesitates over blocking him, the same way he hesitates over blocking his own desire, by being on the app, but not answering any message on it, nor interacting. This name, Desire, also refers to the allegories in Middle Age novels: we can find them in The Knight of the Cart, for instance, where Love and Reason are personified. Same in Le livre du coeur d'amour épris (The book of the love-smitten heart) by René d'Anjou, where all the characters are allegories of feelings and inner self: Heart, Desire, Reason, Mercy... I think this was the way European Middle Age would talk about psychology – a beautiful way, to me.
Through those ID, the film also twists gay categories. Bears, otters, wolves are originally gay categories that describes different types of body (hairy, thin or not...). Here, they somehow become part of the magical creatures in the forest the Knight proceeds in. 'Blue Bear' seemed nice enough – it's almost a blue teddy bear. He is the one that the character decides to talk to. He appears when the character finally decides to open up to someone, to take the plunge of communication.
当然了，这些出现在软件上的用户名都有特定的含义。他们象征着主人公的这次旅程。首先，“Bellow”这个虚构的交友软件的名字的含义是鹿发情的声音。“Desire”则指涉着主人公的欲望。当‘Desire’这个ID第一次出现时，主人公曾经犹豫是否要把他拉入黑名单，就如同他通过在软件中拒绝互动、回复消息一样来将自己的欲望“拉入黑名单”。这种将名称寓言化的方式也同样可见于中世纪的小说寓言中，例如在《马车骑士》中爱（Love）与理性（Reason）就被赋予了人格，在勒内一世的《痴情的心之书》（Le livre du coeur d'amour épris）中，书中所有人物都象征着情感与内心自我：真心、欲望、理性、仁爱……我想这就是中世纪的人们谈论内心、谈论情感的一种方式，对我来说，这很浪漫。
通过这些ID，影片也赋予了同性恋分类的不同含义，诸如熊、水獭、狼等词语最开始在同性恋群体里被用来描述不同身材（多毛、是否纤瘦），而在影片中，它们成为了骑士在丛林里面偶遇的神奇动物。“Blue Bear（蓝熊）”乍一看非常友好，因为他（的头像）几乎就是一只蓝色的泰迪熊。这种友好的外表促使主人公决定和他交流。而这个人也在主人公最终下定决心敞开心扉与人交流时出现。
more information：https://www.bisff.co/selection/GPS-signal-lost
Screening schedule：https://www.bisff.co/single-post/bisff-reboot