In addition to watching De Niro these days, I've also watched many new movies, and I can't help but get tired of it. I picked an old movie to watch today, called "M is the Murderer", to adjust the taste.
The German film was released in 1931. After a cursory look at the information, it seems to be the first sound film in Germany. Since the first sound film appeared in 1927, it has been criticized by many filmmakers, including Chaplin. The reason is "rubbish invention, serious destruction of artistic creation". However, the film develops according to its own laws without any hassle. If we say that silent film is a derivative of pantomime, and sound film is an extension of drama, the combination of the two finally produces a complete and independent film art.
The plot of the film, as the title suggests, tells the story of catching the murderer. A perverted killer who wantonly kills a girl makes the whole city panic. The police searched around like flies, which seriously affected the normal business of thieves and beggars. As a result, the Thief Association held an emergency meeting to discuss how to deal with it. Finally, a resolution was formed: to gather the power of beggars and thieves in the whole city to arrest the murderer in order to restore social stability and harmony. After hard work, they stalked, tried, negotiated, and searched, and finally completed the task successfully, and organized a public trial meeting, so that the murderer got the punishment he deserved.
After watching the movie, read the reviews first. Say anything. Some discuss the metaphors of the film, some talk about Nazi or anti-Nazi thinking, and some talk about the anti-legal complex. As for "the film reflects the expressionism of postmodernism and the romantic thinking of the deconstructed spiritual logic of liberalism", this is more a subject for politicians or philosophers. With my dull mind, it can only be understood that this is just an absurd comedy.
It is absurd because the film turns the original social order in reverse. To call it a comedy is to arrange a group of former criminals to catch the current criminals. In the film, we see two parallel meetings, one is a police meeting, full of long and fallacies, and the other is a joint meeting of thieves, which is concise and powerful. Looking at their actions again, the police inspected all areas of the city, except where criminals were hiding. It seemed so clumsy and stupid. The beggars are well-organized and move quickly. As soon as you find suspicious people, follow them immediately. And stalking is also very particular. A person is in charge of an area and changes hands immediately when they arrive at the place. It is worthy of being a group of criminal elites who have undergone a lot of hard work. When arresting the murderer, the arrangement was well-proportioned, all the criminal tools were used, and the superb skills of sliding the door and picking the lock were fully demonstrated, and the shopping mall where the murderer was hiding was tossed upside down. The final trial also focused on the advanced figures of thieves and beggars who knew the law and understood the law, and there was no shortage of judges, prosecutors, and defenders. All thieves present are jurors.
Fatty Huang in the drama "Tea House" has a line: "What the officials can't manage, I will!" In this film, the motives of those beggars and thieves are also the same. In Western society, it seems that the legal system is rigorous, but there are so many injustices and unreasonableness, injustices are all over the country, and evildoers celebrate with each other. Since your government does not act, what will the people do? In order to survive, only oneself is responsible for what the government should do. People's distrust of the government is growing day by day. In many cases, it is impossible for people to rely on the government to maintain a stable life, only by themselves. This distrust and questioning of fairness is not only reflected in the stupidity of catching the murderer, but also in the trial of the murderer by the court. That is to say, people no longer believe in this so-called rule of law society. Reality is so absurd. The story described in the film is absurd but reasonable. I think that may be the value of this film.
The film may have just emerged from the silent film. So how to produce a novel sound film? It is a great test for the scheduling of the creative film and the acting skills of the actors. On the one hand, the director is very skilled in the production of silent films. For example, in the composition, we can clearly see the escape route of the murderer in the close shot, and the scenes of people searching and arresting in the medium and long shots. On the other hand, the director was eager to get rid of the silent film mode and added many lines that were not necessarily needed. For example, the dialogue between the police inspector and his subordinates detailed the work they did to catch the murderer. The line said, "We only slept twelve hours this week." The screen showed a policeman sitting there dozing off. Appears repetitive and verbose. In addition, the performance of the characters in the play strives to make every action and every expression immediately understandable to the audience. This is necessary in silent films, but it is exaggerated in sound films. Of course, looking at that era, we shouldn't be demanding editors. As the film develops later, people will quickly turn these jerky and immature into mature and hot.
My rating: 7.0.
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