偶然翻出The Gods Must Be Crazy (《上帝也疯狂》)这部比我年纪还略大一点儿的“老”电影,思绪一下又飞回到我一直所向往的那片神秘的土地,只不过这一次主角不再是Okavango肆意涌漾的河水,而是隐居于Kalahari沙漠腹地的布须曼人。片子的画面质量和剧情设置皆可一笑置之,唯有老导演Uzy对现代文明的叩问是令我为之一震的,类似的叩问在宫崎骏老先生的《幽灵公主》中似曾相识。
"THE Bushmen were members of a division of the human species that in all probability once occupied the whole, or nearly the whole, of the African continent. It would seem that they were either totally exterminated or partly exterminated and partly absorbed by more robust races pressing down from the north, except in a few secluded localities where they could manage to hold their own, and that as a distinct people they bad disappeared from nearly the whole of Northern and Central Africa before white men made their first appearance there."
从Bleek和Lloyd1911年发表的研究笔记中可以清晰地勾勒出这个人种的命运:布须曼人(Bushman, or later 'San')曾经几乎是整个非洲大陆的主人,只是由于进化缓慢,逐渐被发展出更高文明水平的Hottentot人和Bantu人所取代(这是一个相对文雅的词汇,它掩盖了征服的血腥过程,想象一下白人是如何取代新大陆的印第安人的吧),所以当后来的白人殖民者发现他们时,他们的生存区域已经收缩到了沙漠腹地。当然,也正是由于与世隔绝,这最后的一小部分布须曼人才得以幸运的存活下来,得以出现在那个神奇的相机镜头前。