Prologue and characters of Institute Benjament

本文是碟片附带的奎氏兄弟英文手稿（手稿见电影相册）。中文由谷歌翻译过来，根据理解做了些微的修改。

序言

The Benjament Institute is a dilapidated and moribund boarding school for the training of servants, to which Jakob von Gunten enrolls. The time and place of the film are to be ambiguous: that the school is situated in the upper floor of a building behind a courtyard in a metropolis and that Jakob is conscious of living in a modern age. The locale of the film is less geographical than spiritual, the emphasis being more towards creating the occurrence of metaphors of dreams and fairy tales (by exploring Robert Walser's own reworking of the fairytales, Snow White and Cinderella). The trajectory of the film will be the narrator-hero’s attempt to discover the meaning of the nature of the school (the school being indeed the very source of the mystery):

本杰明学院是一所残旧、垂死的仆人培训寄宿学校，本片主人公雅各布·冯·冈滕（Jakob von Gunten）将在此就读。电影的时间和地点并不明确：学校位于都市某庭院后面一栋建筑物的上层，雅各布则是一个明确意识到自己生活于现代的人。这部电影的空间属性与其说是地理性的，不如说是灵性的，更着重于创造梦境和童话的隐喻（通过探索罗伯特·沃尔瑟对白雪公主和灰姑娘童话的改造）。这部电影的轨迹将是叙事英雄（narrator-hero）试图发现学校本质的尝试（而学校确实是奥秘的源头）：

"We learn very little here, there is a shortage of teachers, and none of us boys of Benjament Institute will come to anything. That is to say, we shall all be something very small and subordinate in later life. ” Through Jakob’s inner voice-overs, one will witness his ambivalent relation to the school, his characterizations of his fellow pupils (Kraus, the model student, in particular), his relations to the brother and sister (Fraulein and Herr Benjamenta) who conduct the school, the repetition over and over again of the single lesson: “Practice scenes for life”, which constitutes the curriculum of the school; other entries describe dreams emphasizing Jakob’s interior life and his reflections---- in particular, subjective visions mutually elaborated between Jakob and Fraulein B., visions of a descent into a lower depth: the "Passageways of Poverty and Privation"; Jakob’s admission to the heretofore secret world of “inner rooms” of Fraulein and Herr Benjamenta. These entries constitute Jakob’s symbolic initiation into the renunciations and disillusionments of the Benjamenta Institute.

“我们在这里学到得很少，师资短缺，本杰明学院的学生们都将一事无成。或者说，在以后的生活中我们都将变得渺小，并从属于某人。”通过雅各布的内心独白，观众将看到他与学校的矛盾，他对同学（特别是模范学生克劳斯）的刻画，及与学校管理者本杰明兄妹（Lisa和Herr Benjamenta）的关系。学校课程则是简单地重复所谓的“生活实践场景”，一遍又一遍；其他的梦境描述则意在强调雅各布的内心世界和他对周遭的反应，尤其是雅各布和Lisa间相互阐述的主观愿景，通向了更深沉之处：“贫穷与匮乏的通道” （这一句不知道怎么翻译）；雅各布被允许进入本杰明兄妹由密室（inner chambers）所组成的秘密世界。雅克布象征性地为本雅明学院的幻灭和被舍弃揭开了序幕。

The film will work more at the level of lyric juxtaposition of episodes, closer to the associative and imagistic structures of dance and poetry (as well as silent cinema) than to conventional narrative, and in this way to better score the realm of ,as Walser said, this “senseless but all the same, meaningful fairytale”.

与传统叙事相比，这部电影更像将情节进行歌词式的并置，更接近于舞蹈和诗歌（及默片）的联想和虚构结构，并以此方式来回应Walser的境界说，“senseless, but all the same, meaningful fairytale”。

人物

Jakob von Gunten: with fairytale conventions, Jakob is the “princeling”, figure who in the film, is conjured up and invoked by Sleeping Beauty (Lisa Benjamenta). We know nothing of Jakob's past life, only that he is in his late thirties, early forties, and that his sudden arrival at the institute paradoxically sets off its disintegration and demise. As the narrator-hero, he is more a silent Buster Keaton like figure, through which our vision of the world of the Benjamenta Institute is activated and narrated.

雅各布·冯·冈滕（Jakob von Gunten）：按照童话的惯例，雅各布是电影中的“王子”，被《睡美人》（Lisa Benjamenta）所召唤。我们对雅各布的前世一无所知，除了他三十多四十不到的年纪，以及他突然到达学院，出人意料地引发了它的瓦解与灭亡。作为叙述者，他更像是一个沉默寡言的基顿（Buster Keaton）式人物，由他激发起我们对本杰明学院世界的认识。

Lisa Benjamenta: is “Sleeping Beauty” figure, part sorceress, part princess with magic wand. She, like Jakob, is in her late thirties, beautiful, fragile, remote – more a symbol of pure inwardness, and who carries deep inside herself some great unhappiness for, which Jakob slowly becomes her confidant. She is the only activity teacher in the school. Both she and her brother contend for Jakob’s affection and loyalty.

丽莎·本杰明（Lisa Benjamenta）：是“睡美人”，既是女巫，又是带有魔杖的公主。和雅各布一样，她三十多岁，美丽，脆弱，让人敬而远之——更像是一个纯洁内心的符号，内心深处怀有某种极大的不幸，雅各布逐渐成为了她的知己。她是学校唯一的老师。她和她的兄长都在争夺雅各布的喜爱和忠诚。

Herr Benjamenta: is the “Ogre” figure: huge, imposing, mid fifties, Lisa's older brother, and Principal of the institute. Has allowed himself be slowly imprisoned and deformed by the school. He is a man who doesn’t seem to have ever lived, has little contact with students, indulges a pet monkey and a pathological collection of deer memorabilia.

本杰明先生：是“食人魔”，五十多岁，身材高大，庄严，而带有压迫性，是Lisa的哥哥，也是学院的负责人。他让自己被学校慢慢地囚禁和变形。他似乎是一个从未生活过的人，与学生的接触很少，沉迷于宠物猴和病理性的鹿类纪念品。

Kraus: is the model servant, one of Lisa’s “seven dwarfs”. In him is the one true celebrant of the dictates of the Institute. He is strangely ageless and eternal looking, tall, gaunt, monotonous, monosyllabic, unequivocal. Kraus is privy to the secret “inner chambers” of the Benjamentas which exerts so strong an attraction on Jakob. He is the deep, insoluble riddle ultimately proposed by the institute.

克劳斯：模范学生，是丽莎的“七个小矮人”之一。他是学院一切指令的真正拥护者。奇异的是，我们不知道他的年龄，他有着永恒的长相，身材高大，瘦削，单调，言语简短，毫不含糊。克劳斯（Kraus）对本杰明兄妹的“密室”不屑一顾，而后者却对雅各布（Jakob）产生了极大的吸引力。他是该学院最终铸成的一个深不可解的谜语。

Institute Benjamenta: There exists an essential “mysterium” at the heart of the school, and although dilapidated and moribund, it has its own inner life and its “former existences” which seem to exert and dream up on its inhabitants, symbolized by the role of the mysterious goldfish bowl room ( as through the very center of the “Fairytale” lay there)

本杰明学院：学校的中心存在一个必不可少的“奥秘”，尽管它破败不堪，但垂死挣扎，有自己的内在生活和“过往的存在”，神秘的放置着金鱼缸的房间（正是“童话”的核心之处）昭示着，它似乎在其居住者身上发挥并实现了这种奥秘。