1. Chabrol’s crime films have a basic feature that traditional crime films do not have. His narrative, his presentation, and his camera always contain and always create a sympathetic understanding of criminals. Or understanding sympathy.
2. If we refer to the description of Marcuse or Foucault, we can know that in the second half of the 20th century, when the world was in agitation and change, European culture also created a modern world's "hero" role. There is an almost unique image of "hero" within the doctrine. This "hero" is a madman or a lunatic.
Today I will share with you a French movie-"The Cold Festival". This is a film produced by the famous French film director Chabrol in 1995. Those who are familiar with the history of film will know that Chabrol is one of the important directors of the "Three Musketeers" of the new wave of French film along with Godard and Truffau. In other words, these three characters mark the most important film aesthetic revolution in the world's film history, and mark a moment in film history or a turning point in film history. The new wave of French films can be reviewed, described, thought, and exhibited from many meanings and levels. But its most important and basic aspect is the revolution in film aesthetics.
It is in this sense that Chabrol, as one of the three musketeers, is quite different from Truffaut and Godard. Trevor and Godard, if you have heard the discussion about their films, or you are already familiar with the two greatest film directors in the world’s film history, then you will know that they have taken the most from the beginning. Extreme, radical, and decisive film gesture. The film aesthetic revolution they created, their brand-new refresh of film language, is presented in an extreme, avant-garde, decisive, and subversive attitude. And Chabrol was different from them from the beginning. On the contrary, he seems to have adopted a kind of continuation, rewriting, and reorganization of genre movies rather "gently". The type of film he chose is a crime film in the French film tradition.
The reason why I want to emphasize France in particular is because it is different from Gangster in Hollywood movies-gangster movies, gangster movies, or robber movies. For Hollywood, this is a highly mature film genre. Among French films, first of all, its industrial maturity is not so high. Second, in French crime films, they often focus more on capturing and observing highly consciously, focusing on the social causes of each crime. In other words, French crime films are always a type of French film used to outline the dark side of society, outline the back of the moon, and show social problems. Chabrol inherited such a type, and transformed such a type.
His transformation is not only manifested in his consciousness of conscious renewal and severe damage to the language of the film, but also in the fact that in his films, several subtle shifts have occurred. An important subtle shift is that he does not regard crime films as a pure commercial type, on the contrary, he regards it as a possibility of artistic expression or a space for artistic exploration. And the second and perhaps more important subtle shift is that he continued the French crime film’s pursuit of the cause of crime. He gradually shifted his focus, and transferred it quite clearly to criminals or criminals in "The Cold Ritual". The nuanced observation and recording of the social psychology and the personal psychology that form the crime, or the distortion of the mind and the abnormality of the mind.
The third shift is more clear, that is, Chabrol’s crime films have a clear dual identity from the beginning, or a constant drift between dual identities. This double identity is manifested in the fact that Chabrol’s crime films have a basic feature that traditional crime films do not have, that is, his narrative, his presentation, and his camera always contains and always creates a certain kind of criminality. Compassionate understanding, or understanding sympathy. And what I call sympathetic understanding or comprehensive sympathy does not occur at the ethical level, moral level, or social standpoint level, but more as a sympathy and understanding of individual differences in the mind. Compassion and understanding can produce internal drive within every highly individual, highly isolated, and lonely mind. Perhaps in Chabrol's writing, this drive is the force that drives people to crime.
His film clearly shows a post-Freudian criminal psychology feature. What the so-called post-Freudian characteristic of criminal psychology emphasizes is that the reason why the perpetrator commits the crime and the reason why the murderer commits the murder is not pursued by a metaphysical basis, such as the murder of money. On the contrary, he What is chasing is pure pleasure and pure psychological satisfaction. This is the psychological abnormality in the social sense. In Chabrol's films, his observations of the so-called perversion are full of sympathetic understanding or understanding sympathy, rather than a purely negative attitude in mainstream society and social morality.
But Chabrol's films, especially in "The Cold Ritual", also showed another kind of identification-identification with the victim. In a crime film, the narrator maintains the identity of the victim. This is not a peculiar thing at first. This is completely understandable. It is the attitude we usually adopt when facing a criminal social news. . The reason for discussing here is that Chabrol’s understanding of the victim and the object of the crime itself has a hesitant and constantly moving away posture.
The reason is that Chabrol’s films, especially in the early Chabrol’s narratives, as one of the three musketeers of the new wave, is because he shares a common social standpoint with Godard and Truffau. This kind of social position is the subject of modern society and the mainstream society of the bourgeoisie-I will not use the mild term "middle class" here, but a term that has a more sense of European reality and history. "Bourgeois Class". The consensus of the three Musketeers is based on the reality, values, and moral consciousness of the French mainstream society—the Bourgeois class. It should be more accurately stated here that in all their films, this class is described as a kind of A class characterized by moral hypocrisy, and the musketeers rejected such an overall form, at least with extreme contempt. Therefore, in Chabrol’s crime films, his identification with the victim—the victim in mainstream society, exists, but it is a process of constantly moving away.
We can also make a little theoretical statement. This film produced in 1995 has a certain social iconic meaning. It not only tells us a crime story, not only allows us to experience a visually and psychologically impactful "cold ritual", but it also conveys to us the end of the Cold War at the end of the 20th century, the opening of the post-Cold War era, and the beginning of the world. It is a moment in the process of a clearer and more drastic global capitalism. This film brings us some news, these news are about society, but also about culture. In other words, our observations on social crimes and our thinking on social crimes are gradually shifting from social considerations, from class descriptions, to individual and individual psychological crimes.
It seems that the late arrival of this film once again confirmed the statement of Marcuse, the most important theorist of post-war Germany and the representative of the Frankfurt School. In other words, in the post-industrial society, in the consumer society, Jean Ajean-style crime has disappeared. The so-called Jean Ajean-style crime comes from "Les Miserables". It comes from the most important beginning of this magnificent 19th-century tragic story. It is the crime for a piece of bread. The crime driven by hunger is the one we all know. The saying is "forcing the good into a prostitution" and "forcing the Liangshan" type of crime. In Marcuse’s diagnosis of mainstream European and American societies, he came to the conclusion that the Jean-Agen-style crime had disappeared. So why did the ubiquitous social violence at this time arise? Caused by mental illness, psychological abnormality, and distortion of the mind. Although in the eyes of Marcuse and the New Wave musketeers, it is the ubiquitous society, the machine of power, and the extremely oppressive hierarchy that cause this kind of psychological perversion, cause this kind of psychological distortion, and cause this kind of crime. structure. Then Jean Ajean’s crime has disappeared, and the crime film has gone from struggling to survive and being forced by society to take risks, to the twisted mind in search of satisfaction, in search of pleasure, in search of self-realization and self-placement. Extreme form. This is the social information revealed to us by this film.
Going back to the main part of the film, I jokingly said that this film may have another title, called "The Maid" or "The Maid's Story." Because it is based on the story of a woman doing housekeeping service called Sophie outlined by Isabel Huppel as the main clue and context to unfold this crime story. In the whole film, Sophie is also the most important and basic criminal. And as Chabrol’s creation matures, and at the same time, like all artists—the vanishing of the edge of his youth—his films have become more and more mature, sophisticated, and detailed, and the degree of industrialization is very complete.
In this film, everyone will not forget the climax scene that is very similar to Hollywood movies. We can also call it "plot clumps" in technical terms. Use the pair of "low-end women" upstairs who snuggle up in front of outdated screens and small TVs to watch TV, enjoy TV, and get their vulgar satisfaction, and downstairs on a new, big-screen TV In the class contrast formed by the family who enjoyed the live broadcast of classical operas, the story started with such a factor and ended up with an extremely bloody massacre-also the title of the film-"Cold Ritual". Such a climax scene is also called plot clumps. At this moment, it is the evil of human nature, the evil of the soul, and then the tremendous persecution that may burst out of pathological crimes, and finally such a process is completed with the splash of blood.
By this time, Sophie, as a mentally ill, as an evil and barbaric lunatic, has also been exposed and presented the most clearly. In such a story, you may be able to grasp this film as a basic feature of the French crime film, especially as a crime film by Chabrol. The whole film is not so much to show the process of a crime, as it is to use a crime, with a shocking crime, to show us a spiritual portrait that shocks us and makes our teeth cold. And this spiritual portrait is detailed with Sufi as the protagonist.
So I said that it is not a social criminal record, it is not a crime or the reproduction of criminal actions, but a modern person, an ordinary person who seems to be right next to us, at a certain moment, finally revealing his full truth. As a result, a kind of mental trajectory is formed, a map left and drawn by a sick mind. This is the specific positioning of this film, and it is also an important reason for the charming and poisonous flavor of this film.
In the light and shadow writing of Chabrol, the crime film "The Cold Ritual" actually constitutes a spiritual portrait of a certain criminal, or more accurately a spiritual portrait. It delicately shows us that kind of distortion, that kind of thing that is beyond the so-called common sense, the so-called logic, the so-called ethics and morality. To a certain extent, this evil has its own power. It is so powerful that it seems to be able to override all the taboos and awe of our daily lives. In this movie, the real fear does not all happen when it creates a bloody massacre, but because it shows us such an evil mind and the energy carried by such an evil mind. And motivation.
In fact, one of the most important narrative lines and the most basic narrative skills in the film is based on the relationship between the two protagonists of the crime, that is, the rough female shop assistant in the post office, Jeanna and Sufi, who seems to be very docile, well-behaved, capable and tame, and their encounter , The occurrence of their friendship, the strengthening of their friendship, so that in the end they are the double heroines or double criminals of this crime. But what’s very interesting is that in this story, it is Jeanna, a character who is wild, without common sense, and malicious to the society and others, has become the most important foil that makes the evil and intensity of Sophie’s spiritual portrait possible. Show us that it is a deterrent to us.
As some friends pointed out, when we watched this movie, the initial feeling was an unreserved hatred for Jeanne. We feel that this character evokes our sharing of many unpleasant experiences in daily life, and evokes memories that we don't want to remember at all. And the seemingly harmless, weak, and quiet Sophie seems to be completely different from Jeanna, and Jeanna seems to be an evil call to her, a temptation to sin. It seems that she summoned the dark violence in Sophie's heart that was hidden in a corner that she didn't even know. This was our first experience of watching movies. But in fact, it is this kind of movie-watching experience that constitutes one of the most important parts of Sophie’s portrait of the mind, that is, this character is a real character that Chabrol pays attention to, and she is a real mental illness. patient.
In the specific film, she appears as a character with split personality, a character who is truly trapped in the abyss of schizophrenia. In the film, the director used the mirror more than once, and the most prominent one was when Sophie picked up the phone on the fireplace in the living room to eavesdrop on the conversation between the host’s daughter and her boyfriend, so that she mastered the most important thing in the family. The secret of "The skeleton in the closet of this decent family" in Western parlance. The scene where she mastered such a secret, Chabrol seemed to use the New Wave's unique long lens very carelessly. The picture was taken in the middle shot, but the mirror above the fireplace still clearly showed double shadows. In other words, we saw two images of this character in one picture, and we visually saw a split image intuitively. And in this story, this is the image of split personality, this is the image of schizophrenia, that is, the docile, competent, seemingly professional Sufi and evil, and extremely shrewd and extremely scheming. , To a certain extent, the high IQ and completely cold Sufi constitute a clear division or contrast.
We don't have time to share every detail, please just notice almost every moment in the climax scene. In the climax scene, taking the shotgun off the wall, using the shotgun for fun, and threatening others with the shotgun are all Jeanna's creativity. But everyone noticed that Jeanna said to scare them, and Sophie shot directly. By this time, the contrast at this level will be very clear. In other words, Jeanna is just a "typical lower class". She has no education because she has no education and therefore has no sense of morality. Sophie is different. Sophie knows the taboos and Sophie knows the rules of the game in mainstream society. Knowing this well, at the same time she obviously used it effectively. But her understanding, her deep knowledge, just constituted a certain power of her crime, and did not constitute the so-called taboo at all.
Both heroines in the film have convictions. They have also been sued for killing their relatives, and in the film, we clearly feel that they have also killed their relatives. But the difference is that in the mutual confession of the two people, we know that Jeanna's crime is as she told, her daughter died at her hands, only due to neglect, ignorance, rudeness, and indifference. Sophie is different, her father's death is obviously a carefully planned crime. This meticulous plan is not about killing an old man who is almost completely incapable of defense and self-care, because killing such an object does not require meticulous planning. The beauty is how to kill and escape safely. So the difference is that Jeanna’s crime is a crime that cannot be measured and judged by law, while Sophie’s crime is a process of making full use of all loopholes in the law and thus safely escape from the law.
Of course, in the film, the director gave the plot a metaphysical basis that he was illiterate in setting the role of Sophie. Being in the complex system of hieroglyphs, it is difficult for us to imagine that illiteracy is a relatively rare thing in a system of pinyin characters composed of dozens of letters. Because it is so rare, it also constitutes a Social shame. I think you may see the same stalk being used in another way through a film or a novel, that is, "The Reader". The female Nazi fanatic and pedophile in "The Reader", her psychological basis in her story is that she is an illiterate, and she, like Sophie, desperately wants to deny such a fact at the same time. , Want to cover up such a fact.
In this sense, a loophole in the plot, or a point that we can criticize and question, is that one side is so calm, working hard, knowing the game logic of the mainstream society and making full use of this game logic to play. The Sufi in mainstream society is also an illiterate. This can be a small loophole in itself, let us question this film. But it is very interesting that it is in such a so-called loophole or such a position that can be criticized, we can see a subtle point about social information in this movie. This subtle point is about the world today." "Low-end population", or the low class, is actually not measured by the possession of social wealth and social resources as in the era when we used class theory. On the contrary, it is now based on cultural education and the possession of knowledge. And it is identified by the taste formed by cultural cultivation.
In the film, we will see the most important conflict between the master and servant relationship that runs through the plot line of the film. An important factor that attracted Jeanna to Sophie’s maid’s room was a television, a small screen that was eliminated by the host’s family. It was obviously very large and very stupid, and the two The fascination with this TV also conveys another fascination with popular culture and popular taste outside or after TV, that is, the fascination with movies, including Hollywood movies, French commercial movies, and movie stars. At first, it was the star chasing that made two people close and brought them closer. They were obsessed with Alain Delon, they were obsessed with this popular idol, and the counterparts were the books on the bookshelf of the owner's family, and the classics in the climax scenes. Live broadcast of the opera.
What they watched on TV is such an elegant art, and they have shown their cultivation in the mutual dialogue of a family, their familiarity with this elegant art and the inherent beauty brought by this elegant art. Therefore, what actually constitutes such a class difference, or class conflict, in the film is not or not only a difference in social status, because according to Marcuse’s statement, the so-called Jean Harjean-style crime is eliminated. After that, the difference in society is expressed in relative wealth and relative poverty, rather than absolute wealth and absolute poverty. Absolute poverty is the kind of poverty that makes some people fall below the subsistence line, while in relative poverty Among them, conflicts and differences no longer have the intensity of the class struggle era. On the contrary, in this story, this difference is marked by taste, and their conflict is more of a conflict of interest. It must be explained that this is an important way of social presentation by Chabrol in this film, but it is not the way that I agree with.
In this film, another interesting thing is to use such a double heroine reference method, or contrast method, or contrast method, and finally completed the outline of the spiritual portrait of the evil character Sophie. He displayed the energy carried by such an evil mind with a stronger force that we did not expect. But at the same time, in my opinion, it is precisely this film that marks the mature age of Chabrol, or Chabrol in his later years, is losing the kind of confrontation that the New Wave movies had in the past. The strength of the Bourgeois mainstream society and always confronts and breaks with it.
If we refer to the description of Marcuse or Foucault, we can know that in the second half of the 20th century, when the world was in agitation and change, European culture also created a modern world's "hero" role, in modernism There is an almost unique image of a "hero" inside. This "hero" is a madman or a lunatic. It seems that only madmen and lunatics can break out of this so-called prison island, can break through such a central surveillance tower-style imprisonment, can break through the omnipresent, not only through our bodies, but also through our hearts. Such a power network.
At the end of the movie, on one side is the complete paragraph of such a climax scene composed of parallel montages of commercial films, on the other side is the birthday of the daughter of Qianli Ba Xianli, the relationship between her daughter and her boyfriend, the secret of pregnancy, and the The emergence of a tape recorder on a birthday party as a standard commercial film heralded a happy ending for the mainstream society, and it was this happy ending that nailed the role of Jeanne to death.
But this crucifixion not only means that she will be brought to justice, she will be responsible for the brutality, but more importantly, she will be nailed to an ignorant, uneducated, stupid criminal or stupid thief, she carries herself The evidence of her crime broke into the police's field of vision. In contrast to this, Sophie’s calm handling of the crime scene when the entire killing was completed, and how to make herself escape safely and prepare to escape from the law. This is the fascinating part of this film, and also my personal dissatisfaction. It has made a very unique crime story, and it has made a very unique movie-watching experience, but at the same time in my re-watching, it also carries a kind of helplessness and helplessness after the end of the Cold War and entering the era of globalization. Or weak.
dictionary:
1. Bourgeois class
Bourgeois is synonymous with the French middle class and represents the middle class's way of life: rational, cautious, and advocating capitalism. The bourgeoisie (also known as Bourgeois; French: bourgeoisie) is one of the wealthy classes in the class division of capitalist society based on some schools of Western economic thought, especially Marxism.
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