"The Cold Ritual" is a work directed by Claude Chabrol in the late stage of "New Wave Master". The work not only became the first place in the 1996 "Cinema Manual", but also for Isabel Huppert who finally won the honor of being a queen after being nominated for eight Caesars. This is why I watched this work when I was in junior high school. However, at the time, I was only shocked by the shooting at the end, and I didn't understand why the story was going so strangely. But now when I watched it again, I found that the plot was very fascinating, and it was undoubtedly the best in the genre of thriller crime.
I remember that when "Parasite" was very popular some time ago, class contradictions became a hot topic for many people. At that time, someone brought up this film and said that this film inspired "Parasite" a lot. It is true that the ideas behind the two films are class contradictions, but the best thing about this film is its attitude towards class contradictions-from the beginning to the end, it fits the title "cold."
In this film, Chabrol undoubtedly did not show sympathy for any class, but just watched coldly, and used events and crises one after another to further intensify the contradictions, and eventually lead to their irreconcilability. Lower class people such as Jenny (Isabel Huppert), she is jealous and vulgar; while Sophie seems to be meek, but because of her lack of culture and ignorance, she does the most terrible things. The middle class, who seems generous and decent, actually knows the secrets of Sufi, but they are contemptuous and dissatisfied. After this hypocritical cloth is torn apart, no one is not ugly.
The structure of the whole film is rigorous, which is a traditional three-act play structure. And each scene is set with suspense and dilemma, which further promotes the upgrading of contradictions and emotions.
Among them, the film not only uses specific events to promote the development of the plot, but also many objects appear. These seemingly ordinary objects are the foreshadowing of the crisis. The interaction between them in front and back makes the film very ironic.
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