1. The film "straightforward" shows the characters
"Voyeur" is a straightforward movie. The so-called "straightforward", the film does not try to hide any details about the characters or the story. Among them, the description of the perverted killer's crime process can be described in great detail, impacting the audience's visual nerves. At the very beginning of the film, the director's name appears, with an arrow hitting the bullseye in the background, suggesting that the film will leave no room for the core content. Then, a wide-eyed close-up reminds the audience to face this sinful tragedy. The following script and plot setting make people realize the frankness of the film even more: a killer with a camera, the camera is his murder weapon, and the source of his pain and pleasure, and a crime called voyeurism unfolds like this.
2. Three murders and one suicide reflect the psychological changes of the characters
"Voyeur" describes three successful murders and one suicide, which can be described as "murderous". The film handles the three murders differently, and the different time and methods of committing the crime reflect the different psychological changes of the killer Mark. At the beginning of the movie, in the middle of the night, on an empty street, a dusty woman walked from the dark street to her solitary residence, until the terrified face before her death was captured by the camera. The entire murder process was over, and the audience did not see the killer Mark. head. Then, the camera immediately switched to the murderer's return home and started "playing back" the death film just shot, so the audience watched the same crime process again and again, as well as Mark's dark back - Mark not only murdered, but also self-reported the killing process. Appreciate. The first murder, carried out late at night in a private space, reflects that Mark didn't want anyone to know the truth behind the murder.
In the second murder, Mark was doing his "good job" - a cinematographer. The murder of a beautiful and elegant movie actress is well planned. In the evening, in the studio with all the staff scattered, the actress performed a cheerful solo dance in front of the camera. Life was blooming so beautifully, but it quickly withered under Mark's camera. The scene of this murder, compared to the darkness and privacy of the first murder, can be called "grand". At this time, Mark had inadvertently opened his heart to his neighbor Helen, revealing the secret in his heart, and his murder happened under the light accordingly.
After two murders, Mark has become the subject of a police focus. He committed the crime again, choosing to murder a sexy female model in broad daylight under the stalking of plainclothes detectives. Although the film did not focus on the process of the murder, at this time Mark has completely let go of his body and mind - this almost undisguised crime under the sun is also the result of his acceptance of the neighbor girl Helen and his whole body. The last crime after his mother's "sunshine baptism", he hopes to fully expose his murderous behavior through this crime, and then conduct the last "self-murder" on his camera. It was not until the final suicide scene that the audience really realized that Mark's murderous pleasure came from filming the terrified face of the deceased before his death, which solved the last suspense left by the film.
After so many murder scenes, the audience still couldn't stop the audience from entering the killer's heart and was shocked by it. Because in the film's ingenious plot setting, the murder scene is not only a movie highlight to create suspense elements, but also a dramatic scene used to reflect the psychological changes of the characters, reflecting the indispensable role of the script setting in character building.
3. Childhood Mapping of Murder and Peeping The
plot setting of "Voyeur" reflects Freud's theory of psychoanalysis. Freud believed that the important role of infancy and childhood experiences and experiences on the formation and development of personality, the retention of childhood development and the impact on personality will be reflected in adolescence and adult life, and determine a person's character and personality. Behavioural characteristics; the influence of children's interactions with their parents on their mental state is very important. In "Voyeur", Mark's father is a biologist. For his own research, he turned his young son Mark into his own experiment: he would often intimidate the little Mark and make the child cry in horror , such as shaking his eyes with a flashlight, throwing lizards on his bed, and filming it all with a camera; and, Mark's entire growth process was under the "surveillance" or "peeping" of his father's camera, without the slightest own privacy. This kind of long-term abuse became the key to Mark's spirit and psychopathology, and it also prevented him from getting out of the vicious circle of infatuation with panic and "voyeurism" when he grew up, living in isolation and indulging in dark corners until he became a serial killer .
The way the film shows Mark's childhood experiences is not through verbal descriptions, but through the "experimental video" shot by Mark's father to nakedly present the situation of little Mark's abuse. Such a powerful and intuitive way of expression makes the audience feel Killer Mark gained a deeper understanding and "involuntarily" developed sympathy for Mark's childhood misfortune. Being abused under the camera, committing crimes under the camera, peeping under the camera, committing suicide under the camera... As a result, the audience who watched all this through the camera in the film was also substituted into the film and became a passive "voyeur", Nothing is more empathetic than being there.
4. The neighbor girl and her blind mother
Mark Ben lives in a world without light, but Helen, a warm, cheerful and kind neighbor girl, has become a sunshine in his life. Helen invites Mark to her party and learns of Mark's abuse experience by accident. It was Helen, who was the opposite of Mark's character, who gave the audience the opportunity to step into Mark's inner world and see the weak side of the killer: in front of Helen, Mark almost cried out to the image of his abused childhood, This made the killer face up to his "abnormality" for the first time, and yearned for a "normal life" like Helen's. In front of Helen, Mark went out without a camera for the first time, felt the joy of being accepted for the first time, and even faced the frightened face of a woman for the first time without killing her. Mark revealed all his secrets to Helen, and ended his twisted and sinful life in front of her.
The most interesting character setting in the film is Helen's blind mother. A mother who is blind, often drinks alcohol to anesthetize herself, and rents a cheap house with her daughter to live in, gives Helen enough free space to grow and care, but her eye disability does not prevent her from becoming a competent mother. Compared with Mark's father, a successful scientist and a parent who peeps and monitors his son's life all the time, Helen's mother's blind and drinking character settings more reflect the film's point of view - good parents and education, not in social status and living conditions. And the blind mother who questioned Mark, only used his hearing to see the danger of Mark, and warned Mark not to hurt his daughter - Helen's mother seemed to play the role of a qualified parent in front of Mark, leaving it to the audience. Think deeper.
Helen's "normal" contrasts with Mark's "abnormal", Helen's mother's incompetence contrasts with Mark's father's incompetence, such stark contrasts of characters appear harmoniously in the same story, making the film more profound.
5. The complex emotions brought about by self-redemption
Mark realizes that "voyeurism" is the root cause of his illness after dating Helen. We can see that Mark found an admirer of his father, a psychologist, and asked him if voyeurism could be treated and changed. However, Mark showed a desperate smile when he found out that the psychologist was only crazy about fame and achievements, but didn't care about the so-called "voyeurism". This meaningful clip foreshadows that voyeurism will lead Huimark into the abyss of sin.
This self-redemption shows the humanized side of Mark: the killer has a motive to change his crux, but he fails, and the complex emotions reflected in it make Mark's character image more full.
6. Details determine success or failure
"Voyeur" has set up many interesting details in order to pave the way for the plot and rationalize the characters. For example, the film repeatedly shows close-up shots of the camera in Mark's hand, turning the camera into a symbol of "peeping" and "crime", which brings a certain psychological shock to people.
Shortly after the film begins, it describes the process of a middle-aged and elderly man who came to buy pornographic photos in Mark's photography studio. This detail may seem meaningless, but it is not. An elderly man is still deeply interested in women's sex, and secretly buys nude photos to enjoy, let alone a young man like Mark, why there are no traces of women in his life, and what are his normal desires? Where to vent? In this way, the plot setting of Mark's sexual pleasure from voyeurism is more rationalized. Next, Mark, a magazine photographer, is thrilled to meet a female model with a flawed face, and his appreciation for "imperfections" and imperfections reflects Mark's empathy for a life with imperfections. Such details make the content of the film richer and more complete.
In addition, the dialogue of the characters in the film seems simple but meaningful. Mark involuntarily repeats Helen's words as she utters words like warm invitation and "fairness" to herself, showing the character's lack of normal life and normal communication. The film's music and sound effects are equally distinctive. The sound of the camera roll, like a series of "death reminders", foreshadows, tells and records one murder case after another; and the constantly appearing messy piano sound, the complex psychological activities of the characters are vividly displayed in the auditory sense.
in conclusion
Generally speaking, it is difficult for movie audiences to form an appreciation inertia, and the stars in genre movies are often stereotyped by people. Carl Heinz Byrne, who played Mark in "Voyeur", was originally known for his role as a tall and handsome king in "Sissi", but the killer role in "Voyeur" completely subverted his previous drama. The image of the scene, and the successful shaping of the characters, thanks to the excellent performance of the actors, is inseparable from the plot setting of the entire film. Different from Hitchcock's "Psycho", "Voyeur" not only shows the case and creates a sense of suspense, but also pays more attention to the deep excavation of the characters, because in such a strange film, only the characters are full and credible, the whole film can be. can be established to obtain the best performance. The reason why "Voyeur" has been respected so far has a lot to do with its successful characterization, and it is worthy of appreciation and reference by more creators.
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