"Under the Gas Lamp", a story that takes place in a room and under a coal lamp. Through the black and white screen, you can also feel the control of the characters brought by the change of lighting, and the horrible and depressing atmosphere created by it. It may not be a pure PUA story, but it is definitely a scary psychological control story.
The story of the film begins with a man who is interested in the opera star’s jewelry and kills others for money. In order to find the jewelry hidden in the star’s home, he deliberately approached his niece (the heroine of the film) and went through a series of meticulous actions. Psychologically control the heroine to facilitate theft.
This series of actions is very interesting.
The first is to isolate the heroine from the outside world. It is said that she wanted to enjoy a world of two people, and she refused the request of the hostess who just moved to a strange place and wanted to contact her neighbors. Usually the male lead always goes out alone, leaving the female lead alone at home. The good name is that in order to take care of the heroine, two servants were hired. One had heavy ears and poor hearing (difficulty in communication), and the other had a contemptuous attitude towards the heroine under the suggestion and acquiescence of the hero. The servant not only failed to communicate, but even brought pressure and surveillance to the hostess.
Another is to constantly give psychological hints to the heroine. It has repeatedly created the illusion that the heroine has lost or deliberately put away the hero’s objects, and put double psychological pressure on the heroine by expressly tolerating and secretly condemning. Tolerance generates gratitude and further falls into the trap of being controlled by the male protagonist. The effect of this behavior is particularly obvious. Later, the heroine finally won an opportunity to go to a banquet with relatives. The heroine fell into a state of collapse in an instant, and could only leave due to "illness".
Although the last point may not be intentional by the male protagonist, it is also an extremely important part of the entire control process, which is to create the illusion that the female protagonist has hallucinations. In order to facilitate the theft, the male protagonist sealed the top-most room of the house so that no one could get in or out, but detoured into the room on the top floor under the pretext of going out to work every night and searched for the jewelry hidden by the original owner of the house. The female protagonist is on the lower level of a closed room, and she will hear the male protagonist rummaging for furniture in the room where there should be no one, and the gas lamp will turn on and off because of the increased use of the male protagonist in the top room. The hostess once confided to the only servant who was at home with heavy ears (the other servant always went out with the host at night, and did not put the hostess in his eyes), but got a reply that he did not hear the relevant voice. This "illusion" has increased the mental pressure of the heroine's mother who was deliberately fabricated by the heroine who died of mental illness, and she became more suspicious of herself.
The logic of the whole movie is very meticulous, and the design of almost every plot can play a role in echoing each other. Although I knew the male protagonist's badness from the beginning, the protagonist's acting skills, the rendering of the atmosphere, and the coherence of the plot can still make people fall into a tense and exciting look. This echoing experience of watching movies is no less than "The Prosecution Witness" in my heart.
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