Shot over 12 years, Richard Linklater’s film about growing up is a devastatingly¹ plausible² biography of a real person – and a terrifying reminder³ that life is short.

历时12年的拍摄，导演理查德•林克莱特借这部电影真实地记述了一个人的成长历程，却也提醒了大家——人生苦短。

With so many movies contriving⁴ to be dumb, formulaic and yet messily over-complicated, the pure simplicity⁵ and clarity of Richard Linklater’s masterly Boyhood makes a glorious change. It is a marvel⁶, particularly its refusal to bend itself into any traditional screenplay-seminar narrative⁷ structure. Like life, like old man river, it just keeps rolling along.

当许多电影失去了表现力、结构趋于程式化、情节过于复杂而又毫无章法，理查德•林克莱特的这部《少年时代》巧妙地让极简纯粹之风华丽逆袭。这是一部奇迹之作，它不拘泥于任何传统剧本的叙述结构，如同时光、如同老人河（美国密西西比河的别称），兀自流淌。

The central conceit⁸ was endlessly and excitedly compared by critics to lots of different things when it arrived – largely Michael Apted’s 7-Up series and François Truffaut’s Antoine Doinel movies – but the remarkable⁹ thing was that it really hadn’t been done before. The nearest attempt was probably Michael Winterbottom’s honourable¹⁰ attempt in his film Everyday.

少年时代》一经上映，其主题就曾被影评家们不断拿来与各种影片热火朝天地比较，对比最多的当属迈克尔•艾普特的《人生七年》纪录片系列、以及弗朗索瓦•特吕弗的影片《四百击》。而《少年时代》的出彩之处正在于它并没有因袭旧作。相比之下，迈克尔•温特伯顿的佳作《日复一日》也许是最为接近的作品。

Linklater took a child, Ellar Coltrane, and filmed him playing a kid called Mason in various naturalistic settings and situations for a few weeks every year for 12 years. He then stitched together the result: a devastatingly plausible biography of a real person. Before our eyes, the child became a man in a movie time lapse¹¹. The movie was loose and open-ended because that was how it had to be. The filming procedure was like life. Actually, it was life. How incredible to have a repertory cast of actors ready to commit, like family, to such a project over such a length of time.

12年间，林克莱特每年都会抽出几周时间，记录男孩梅森（艾拉•科尔特兰 饰）在各种现实场景中的故事。当他将这些片段剪辑在一起时，一段无比真实的个人自传就诞生了。只是一部电影的时间，一个男孩就这样在我们眼前成长为男人。影片结构松散，留下了（现实本该有的）开放式结尾。同时，电影的推进就如同生活本身。而它确实就是真实的生活。像这样如同一家人一般的演员阵容每周固定出演，还能持续这么久，确实令人难以置信。

It is impossible to watch this movie and not be moved and awestruck by an obvious truth: grownups were once children. The adults and the kids we see in movies, or outside in the streets, in real life – they are not separate races or tribes. They are the same. Ethan Hawke, playing the dad – he used to be a kid. Patricia Arquette, so wonderful as the mom – she used to be a kid. And Lorelei Linklater, equally wonderful as Mason’s sister: she is, then was a kid. She, too, demonstrates a real-time growing up.

少年时代》最令人动容、最让人感概之处莫过于影片将一个鲜明的事实展现在了我们的面前：每一个大人都曾是孩子。不论是在影片中，还是在真实的生活里，成人与孩子从来都不是身处两个“阵营”中的独立“物种”。他们就是彼此。影片中的父亲伊桑•霍克，曾经也是个孩子；影片中的母亲帕特里夏•阿奎特也一样；和母亲一样出色的姐姐罗蕾莱•林克莱特（也是主人公现实生活中的姐姐），同样拥有她的童年，同样有过成长的经历。