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An early sequence in Feng Xiaogang’s elegiac epic “Youth” shows a dance number being rehearsed by a People’s Liberation Army arts troupe in southwestern China.
在冯小刚的悲歌史诗《芳华》开头的一组镜头中，中国西南部某人民解放军文工团的成员正在排练一段舞蹈。
As 1970s propaganda floods the soundtrack (“We are armed with Mao Tse-tung thought!”), the performers run through their precisely synchronized movements with practiced skill, and not even the litany of harsh criticism they receive from their leader can dispel their contentment and fierce concentration.
伴着电影配乐中铺天盖地的70年代宣传口号（“我们用毛泽东思想武装自己！”），表演者们行云流水、整齐划一地完成动作，即使被领队连番呵斥，也丝毫无碍她们的全神贯注和志得意满。
Feng’s camera, gliding around the room with a freedom that increasingly seems to evade his characters, zooms in on a few faces within these elaborate formations: a haughty accordionist, Hao Shuwen (Li Xiaofeng), and a beautiful dancer, Xiao Suizi (Elane Zhong), who serves as the movie’s narrator. But the true protagonists of the story, Suizi points out, are a young man and a young woman watching the performance quietly from the sidelines.
冯的镜头自在地划过整个房间，对他的人物们似乎愈发闪躲起来，并随着这轮精巧的动作而聚焦在了其中的几张面孔上：一位神色傲慢的手风琴手郝淑雯（李晓峰饰），以及一位美丽的舞者，同时也是这部电影的旁白萧穗子（钟楚曦饰）。但此时穗子指出，故事的真正主角是在场边静静观看表演的两名青年男女。
Liu Feng (Huang Xuan), a dancer, is well liked for his kind, helpful nature, while He Xiaoping (Miao Miao), a new recruit from Beijing, is eager to prove that she belongs in this elite company. These two onlookers are unambiguously the noblest characters on-screen, and their selfless sense of virtue seems to directly anticipate the grievous suffering they will endure over the course of this decades-spanning drama.
生性仁厚、乐于助人的舞者刘峰（黄轩饰）深受人们爱戴，而来自北京的何小萍（苗苗）初来乍到，殷切地想要证明她也是这个精英群体的一员。这两位旁观者无疑是片中最高尚的角色，而他们在这场横跨数十年的剧作中所遭受的深重苦痛，似乎也正是因为他们的无私品质而早早降临。
“Youth,” which runs a steadily absorbing 136 minutes, is in no hurry to reach its melancholy destination. Nor is it in a rush to puncture the warm, happy bubble of its characters’ privilege. There’s never any doubt that these young men and women are, by dint of their talent and their connections, being spared the worst horrors of the Cultural Revolution.
136分钟的《芳华》不紧不慢地走向它忧伤的结局，每一分钟都引人入胜。而且，它也没有急于马上戳破剧中角色那温暖而欢快的特权泡沫。自始至终都毫无疑问的是，这些青年男女们凭借着他们的天分和背景，得以回避了文革的恐怖。
But outside fears and pressures have a way of intruding nonetheless, and the seemingly innocuous gossip and backbiting that fuel the film’s first half are shown to have startlingly grave consequences in the second.
然而外部世界的恐惧和重压还是找到了侵入的方式，推动了电影前半部分的那些看似无害的闲言碎语和暗地中伤，最终在电影的后半部分中造成了惨重的后果。
Xiaoping desperately tries to fit in while hiding some shameful details about her family, namely that her father has been deemed an enemy of the Communist Party and thrown into a reeducation camp. But her secrecy earns her the bullying contempt of the other girls in the troupe, including Shuwen and a pretty but superficial singer, Lin Dingding (Yang Caiyu). Liu Feng, meanwhile, has long nursed a crush on one of the girls and pays a steep price for it, running afoul of a rigid system devoted to stifling every wayward thought and impulse.
小萍急切地想要融入集体，同时也在掩盖着她耻辱的家世——她的父亲被视作党的敌人，并扔进了再教育劳改营。然而，行事躲闪使她成为了文工团中其他女孩轻视和欺凌的对象，包括淑雯和另一个漂亮却肤浅的歌手林丁丁（杨采钰）。与此同时，因为久恋其中一个女孩，刘峰触犯了那个全力压制一切任性思想和冲动的体制，并为之付出了昂贵的代价。
