The whole film is shrouded in a gloomy sadness (perfect consistency of tone, music, rhythm, mood). This sadness begins with the bleak funeral of Inspector Megre's old colleague Claude, who grieves the end of Claude's lost love. This seems to have little to do with the case, but it is the theme of the film. The wise, introverted, sensitive and empathetic Maigret seems to have insight into the tragic culprit behind the sin and lost love.
At the heart of the crime vortex in the case is Karl's wife (let's call her Elsa for now), posing as Karl's sister Elsa. There is no doubt that Elsa is the key figure in the communication between the British jewelry thief Goldberg and the gang of stolen goods headed by Sheriff Mireille, and she is the mastermind who killed Goldberg and framed her husband Carl. Behind the lore in the field, her motive turned out to be just to escape the cage of Karl's love and entrust someone who can set her free. Carl's saintly devout guardianship inspired her hostility and malice, not to mention that she has no love for Carl, not even the last trace of sympathy.
Carl, as one of the victims of this conspiracy, is innocent. But as Karl's husband, his love for Elsa borders on deformity. Blockade during the day and influence at night, Carl always output love in his own way, so this love becomes a kind of control and imprisonment. And Carl's strong will to export love and the helplessness of the way he expresses it is due to his experience of losing love. Carl was kicked out of the house by his father, who banned not only the use of the family trust fund, but the family name as well. The father ignored the detective's statement that "your son is very religious now" and said to himself that "rotten fruit cannot ripen again", what kind of despair.
The other main culprit in the case, Sergeant Mireille, was the motive that drove him to accept Elsa's murder and blame plan. In addition to the inflated selfish greed, there was a layer of rhetoric that was divorced from his wife, Claire. When all the crimes were clear and faced with Megre's puzzlement, Mireille said, "Even if she (Elsa) doesn't love me, it's better than going back to Claire." The prisoner is a real feeling, but it still mitigates his irresponsible and bottomless evil deeds to others in the name of freedom.
And Mireille's wife, Claire, the seemingly weak side of the marriage, who has been in a loveless marriage for many years, only became nervous when she realized that her husband seemed to really make up his mind to divorce this time. "I can stand my husband cheating, but I can't stand being abandoned and ridiculed." Whether Claire is a good wife or not, at least she is not a good lover. If love is gone, giving each other perfection is the last blessing. Blindly surrounding false prosperity, why not build an invisible cage for the other party!
The dust of the case is settled, and facing the meager circumstances of the world, it is not something that Megre can turn around. Megre still sighed about the human tragedies of being indifferent to love, powerless to love, resentful of love, and letting go of love. When the vehicle drove out of the calm town of Aparang, a crossroad was frozen on the screen, and suddenly I understood the deep meaning of the title "Night at the Crossroads": human beings are selfish, and they are being led to sin by the ever-expanding selfish desires. On the way, there is obviously a redemptive crossroad. It is the gift of being human, but it is also the light of humanity that people have inadvertently despised and compressed: love and compassion.
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