Director Max Ophüls discusses a series of themes such as youth, love, birth, old age, sickness and death in three separate stories that are not intrinsically connected to each other. Delicate and smooth long shots, perfectly symmetrical structures, luxurious sets and beautiful music. These label-like elements that must be found in Max Ophüls' films are reflected in this film.
The director is not sloppy in the production of the film. The items appearing in the scene are all restored in strict accordance with the historical style, and even a nail on the wall matches the time of the story. In the overall structure of the film, Max Ophüls is strictly symmetrical. The time of the three stories is designed according to the symmetrical structure of "short and long". In the first story "Mask" and the third story "Model", the director also divides the plot and the scene into two by going up the stairs. The same background music is used at the beginning and end of the film. This symmetry in large structures or small details reflects the director's aesthetic pursuit and preference. The precise and elegant handling of long takes in Max Ophüls films is also perfectly reflected here. In the first story, "Mask", the camera moves smoothly and gorgeously among the complicated sets and jumping crowds. In the second story, "The House of Madame Tellier", the audience sees everything happening inside the house through a set of long mirrors outside the house through the windows and corridors, which is real and natural. In the scene where the heroine committed suicide by jumping off a building in "Model", the camera saw the stairs, shadows, windows, and the lights upstairs opposite from the heroine's point of view, and then the camera still followed the heroine from a subjective perspective. Fly up and down. Give the audience a very strong sense of shock and substitution. In the processing of the picture, Max Ophüls obviously inherited and borrowed the style and technique of the French Impressionist painters. Especially in "The House of Madame Tellier", the girls are picking wild flowers in the field. The strong sunlight softens the outlines of the characters, and the beauty of the wild countryside is fascinating. Even the black and white picture can strongly feel the beauty and tranquility in it
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