I always feel that Chaplin's attitude towards religion is often contradictory. There are several subversive depictions of religion in the film. At the beginning of the movie, when a woman gave birth to her own child, but was abandoned by the child's father. After leaving the charity hospital, she carried her newborn child in her arms and did not know where to shelter her. Suddenly there is a scene of God carrying a cross in the movie. This is actually quite shocking, because in Western movies, God rarely appears as a symbol of a woman.
The ending "paradise play" really confuses me. It is impoverished, and Charlo, who has lost the only spiritual support in his life, "son", came to the long-awaited paradise in his sleep, but paradise does not seem to be a paradise. A clean place is inevitable from the devil's nuisance. But heaven is heaven after all. Unlike the world full of troubles and pains, it is generally a bit more happier than the "world" in the movie. Chaplin is finally connected to a comic ending through this "paradise play".
I think Charles Chaplin, like many Westerners, has a complicated view of God. Just like the big guy who believes in God’s teaching in the movie "When someone hits your left cheek, you put your right cheek up", in the end he got nothing but the right cheek continued to be beaten. I think what Chaplin wants to say is that God allows people to endure mental and physical pain willingly in the mortal world, but does not save mankind after we listen to his teachings.
But as a Westerner, he is still a loyal believer in the final analysis. That's why he made Charlowe even though living in poverty and suffering, he still didn't want to pray before the meal to thank God for his gift.
In fact, the greatest charm of Chaplin's movies is that he himself comes from the true innocence of his heart, so when I watched the people in the "orphan shelter" snatch Charlo's "son" in the movie, I felt that my eyes were full of emotions. With tears, when Charlo took his "son" back, I burst into laughter, but this smile was clearly with tears, because we know that this is a victory for the weak against the strong, and this is a humble against the power. Victory, this kind of thing rarely happens in real life.
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