A space western and a blissed-out cosmic high, “The Martian” stars Matt Damon as an American astronaut who, like a latter-day Robinson Crusoe, learns to survive on his own island of despair. At once epic and intimate, it involves a dual journey into outer and inner space, a trip that takes you into that immensity called the universe and deep into the equally vast landscape of a single consciousness. For this accidental castaway, space is the place where he’s physically marooned, but also where his mind is set free — a dynamic that of course invokes moviegoing itself.

《火星救援》（台译《绝地救援》，港译《火星任务》——译注）如同一部太空西部片与充满至福的宇宙飞片，马特·达蒙(Matt Damon)饰演一个有点像当代鲁滨逊·克罗索(Robinson Crusoe)的美国飞行员，学着在自己的绝望孤岛上生存。它既有史诗的宏大，又有亲密色彩；是一段既向外太空探索，同时又深入内心的双重旅程；它带你进入无垠的宇宙，亦深入一个人内心世界同等广阔的图景。对于这个意外被抛弃的人来说，他的身体被围困在外太空，但他的思想是自由的——这样的张力当然值得到影院一观。

Perhaps that’s one reason Ridley Scott keeps returning to deep space. This is the third of his films — after “Alien” in 1979 and “Prometheus” in 2012 — set beyond the dark side of the moon. Hands down it’s also the funniest, loosest and most optimistic of the group, at once an ode to far-out adventuring and to terra-firma home, a sweeping, old-fashioned entertainment and a plaintive portrait of solitude as both a creative necessity and a danger. It also serves as a nice plug for NASA, which has returned the favor by pushing the movie on its website. (On Monday, scientists announced that signs of liquid water could be seen in photographs taken on Mars by a camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, timing that suggests NASA certainly has the whole cross-promotion thing down.)

这或许也是雷利·斯科特(Ridley Scott)愿意一再拍摄太空题材的原因之一。这是他第三次让自己的影片走向月球暗面之外的太空――第一次是1979年的《异形》(Alien)，第二次是2012年的《普罗米修斯》(Prometheus)。毫无疑问，《火星救援》也是其中最有趣、最轻松、最乐观的一部，是对远征冒险以及陆上家园的颂歌，是范围宏大的老式娱乐，也是为“孤独”所绘制的悲哀肖像，而这种孤独既是创造的必需，也是一种危险。此外，它还充当了NASA的好广告，后者投桃报李，在自己的官网上宣传这部电影（9月28日，科学家宣布从火星轨道勘测器拍下的照片上有液态水存在的迹象，这个时机的选择表明，NASA确实和这部电影在搞互相宣传）。

Based on the novel “The Martian” by Andy Weir that Drew Goddard has turned into a fast-moving, streamlined script, the movie focuses on Mark Watney (Mr. Damon), who, during a windstorm on Mars, is accidentally left behind by his team. Mr. Scott likes the action to hit hard and fast: One minute Watney is joking with his space buddies — Jessica Chastain leads a crew that includes Kate Mara and Michael Pe — and minutes later he’s been hooked like a fish by some flying metal that knocks him out. Believing him dead, the crew takes off, as does the movie, which soon becomes a tale of two planets with initially competing narratives, one involving Watney’s efforts simply to stay alive and the second centered on NASA’s postdisaster strategizing.

编剧德鲁·高达(Drew Goddard)将安迪·威尔(Andy Weir)的小说原著《火星救援》改编为流畅的快节奏剧本，情节集中在马克·沃特尼（Mark Watney，达蒙饰）身上，他在一场火星风暴之后，意外地被团队留在了火星上。斯科特喜欢让事件来得又狠又快：前一分钟，沃特尼还在和太空船上的伙伴开玩笑——团队由杰西卡·查斯坦(Jessica Chastain)率领，成员还包括了凯特·玛拉(Kate Mara)和迈克尔·佩纳(Michael Pe )——几分钟后，他就像上钩的鱼一样，被什么飞来的金属敲昏了。同伴们相信他死了，就起飞了，从这里开始，电影也进入了高潮，很快就成了两个星球的故事，有了互相竞争的两条叙事线索，一个是沃特尼的求生经历，一个是NASA的灾难处理战略。

After some self-surgery to deal with the rod spearing his gut, along with some anxious stock-taking — he has plenty of tunes but not enough air, water and food to survive for long — Watney gets down to the business of living, including farming. “I’m not going to die here,” he helpfully mutters, helpfully because he talks out loud a lot whether just murmuring to himself or recording a video entry in his growing space log. The log keeps the words flowing in what could have been a fairly quiet movie, creating an animated lively babble that approaches the chummy feel of a video face chat. Watney makes for affably pleasant if worrisome company, and if there isn’t much mystery to him it’s because the purity of his struggle doesn’t leave him, at least, time for deep dives into questions of existence.

沃特尼给自己做了点外科手术取出插在腹部的金属杆，还焦虑地做了一番存货清点——他有足够的小曲，但却没有足够长时间维生的空气、水和食品，于是沃特尼开始着手求生的工作，包括务农。“我不会死在这儿，”他喃喃自语，他的自言自语是有帮助的，因为他大声说了很多话，无论是对自己说，还是用录像机录下来，作为太空视频日志。有了这份日志，才有不少台词加进来，否则这会是一部相当安静的电影。这些话创造出活泼的对话气泡，有点像视频对话的亲密感。沃特尼虽然忧虑，但装出亲切快活的样子，如果说他身上没什么神秘色彩，那是因为他的斗争实在太纯粹，至少让他没有时间去深入思考存在的本质问题。