“讲个笑话，你可别哭。”
English translation:“I’m going to tell a joke—don’t cry.”张一曼(Zhang Yiman）
——中国电影《驴得水》（Chinese Film: Mr. Donkey）
电影上映时间（Film release dates）2016年10月28日
这句话出现在影片的后半段，是张一曼在遭受了肉体与精神双重摧残之后，对众人说出的一句看似轻松、实则悲凉至极的台词。张一曼是民国时期一所乡村小学的女教师，性格开朗率真，追求性自由，却被校长和男同事们当作“工具”用来维系学校的利益。在电影的高潮部分，她在被剪去头发、被当众羞辱、被曾经信任的人彻底背叛之后，精神几近崩溃。当她再次出现在众人面前时，手里拿着一把枪，脸上挂着笑，说出这句“讲个笑话，你可别哭”——然后开枪自杀。整部电影是一部彻头彻尾的悲剧，却以“喜剧”的外壳包裹着，而这句话正是那层外壳碎裂的声音。
This line appears in the latter half of the film, spoken by Zhang Yiman after she has suffered both physical and psychological devastation. She is a female teacher at a rural primary school in the Republican era—open-minded, free-spirited, and sexually liberated—yet she is treated by the principal and her male colleagues as a tool to serve the school’s interests. At the film’s climax, after her hair is cut off, she is publicly humiliated and betrayed by those she once trusted, pushing her to the brink of mental collapse. When she reappears before the group, she holds a gun, a smile on her face, and says this line—“Let me tell you a joke, but don’t cry”—before shooting herself. The entire film is a tragedy wrapped in the guise of a comedy, and this line is the sound of that facade shattering.
张一曼说出这句话时，观众已经知道她接下来要做的事——整部电影最黑色幽默的地方在于：她说的“笑话”，就是她自己的一生。一个追求自由和快乐的女人，在一个被权力和利益层层包裹的封闭环境里，被所有人当作“放荡”的对象来利用、消费、最后抛弃。她以为自己可以“睡服”铜匠来解决问题，结果铜匠因爱生恨反过来羞辱她；她以为校长和同事们至少是同伴，结果他们为了自保可以毫不犹豫地牺牲她。这个故事从头到尾都是笑话，但每一个笑点背后都藏着刺骨的悲凉。张一曼用“你可别哭”来提醒听众，但恰恰是这句话本身，让无数观众在影院里泣不成声。
当荒诞成为常态，唯一诚实的反应就是笑着把它讲出来。一头驴被虚报为“吕得水”老师来骗取教育经费，后来为了圆谎，所有人不断编织更大的谎言，最终每一个人都在谎言中变得面目全非。张一曼是所有人中唯一一个始终没有撒谎的人——她诚实地面对自己的欲望，诚实地对待自己的身体，诚实地生活。但也正是这份诚实，让她成为最先崩塌的那个人。当她说出“讲个笑话，你可别哭”时，她既是在讲一个关于自己的笑话，也是在用最后的清醒，对这个世界说：你看，这就是活在一个谎言世界里的人的下场。
从女性主义的视角来看，她对性自主权的追求在影片中被所有男性角色视为“可利用的弱点”——校长利用她与铜匠 sleep together，裴魁山因爱而不得转而辱骂她是“臭婊子”，铜匠在意识到自己不过是被利用后，以剪掉她的头发作为报复。张一曼从来没有伤害过任何人，但她对自己的真诚，在男权社会的规则下，变成了一种“可以被惩罚的罪”。“讲个笑话”这句话，是她对自己命运的最终注解：一个活在男性凝视和权力博弈中的女人，她的自由就是最大的笑话。
在说出这句话的瞬间，她脸上的笑容与眼里的空洞形成了巨大的撕裂感——那不是疯癫，而是一种彻底的清醒：她知道自己已经无法在这个世界里继续做一个“正常人”了，所以她选择用最后一颗子弹，结束这个“笑话”。而“你可别哭”这句提醒，恰恰戳中了观众泪腺的开关——当一个角色在自己生命的最后一刻还在试图照顾别人的情绪时，那种温柔与绝望的叠加，足以让人泣不成声。
By the time Zhang Yiman uttered these words, the audience already knew what she was about to do—the film’s darkest moment of black humor lies in the fact that the “joke” she told was, in fact, her own life. A woman in pursuit of freedom and happiness, trapped in a closed-off environment layered with power and self-interest, was treated by everyone as an object of “debauchery”—exploited, consumed, and ultimately discarded. She thought she could “sleep her way” into solving her problems with the coppersmith, only to have him turn his love into hatred and humiliate her in return; she thought the principal and her colleagues were at least allies, only to find they would sacrifice her without hesitation to save their own skins. This story is a joke from start to finish, but behind every punchline lies a bone-chilling sense of despair. Zhang Yiman uses the line “Don’t you dare cry” to remind the audience, but it is precisely this line that leaves countless viewers sobbing uncontrollably in the theater.
When absurdity becomes the norm, the only honest response is to laugh it off. A donkey was falsely reported as “Teacher Lü Deshui” to fraudulently obtain education funding. Later, to cover up the lie, everyone kept weaving bigger and bigger lies, until eventually, every single person was transformed beyond recognition by their own deceptions. Zhang Yiman was the only one among them who never lied—she faced her desires honestly, treated her body with honesty, and lived her life with honesty. But it was precisely this honesty that made her the first to crumble. When she said, “I’ll tell you a joke—don’t cry,” she was both telling a joke about herself and, with her final moment of lucidity, telling the world: Look, this is the fate of those who live in a world of lies.
From a feminist perspective, her pursuit of sexual autonomy is viewed by all the male characters in the film as an “exploitable weakness”—the principal uses her to sleep with the coppersmith; Pei Kuishan, unable to have her, turns to insulting her as a “stinking whore”; and the coppersmith, realizing he has merely been used, cuts off her hair in retaliation. Zhang Yiman never harmed anyone, but her sincerity toward herself, under the rules of a patriarchal society, became a “punishable crime.” The phrase “Let me tell you a joke” serves as her final commentary on her own fate: for a woman living amid the male gaze and power struggles, her freedom is the greatest joke of all.
In the instant she uttered those words, the smile on her face and the emptiness in her eyes created a jarring contrast—it wasn’t madness, but a state of utter clarity: she knew she could no longer continue to be a “normal person” in this world, so she chose to use her last bullet to put an end to this “joke.” And the reminder, “Don’t you dare cry,” is precisely what tugs at the audience’s heartstrings—when a character, even in the final moments of her life, is still trying to be considerate of others’ feelings, the combination of that tenderness and despair is enough to leave one weeping uncontrollably.
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