The director of the film, Luis Buñuel, has made more than 30 films from "An Andalusian Dog" in 1928 to "The Obscure Purpose of Desire" in 1976. His work usually addresses his personal views on life and the world on themes of religion and social consciousness, sex and violence, beauty and ugliness. He likes to use a special way of combining surrealism and neorealism to establish his consistent film style.
The heroine Severina in the film "Beauty by Daylight" has a doctor husband who loves her deeply. She also loves her husband very much. The family life of the two is carefree. According to ordinary people's ideas, she should feel happy. . But this is not the case. Physically, she is not satisfied. On the one hand, this dissatisfaction is rooted in her experience of being seduced and raped by men when she was a child. She was lonely and intolerable, which resulted in the double distortion of the body and the mind. Coupled with her curiosity about the world outside, when a friend told her about the underground brothel "Mrs. Anna", she couldn't help but be eager to try. In fact, what her friends told her was just an excuse for her to leave her own little world and "liberate" from the moral shackles of her class. What's more, Severina has a masochistic desire deep in her heart, but she usually restrains herself and fails to express it. She can only vent it in her subconscious dreams. The film begins with her dream: Severina and Pierre are sitting in a convertible, the wheels run through the cold bamboo forest, and the suburbs of Paris look a bit gloomy. The camera moves from far to near, and the bell of the carriage becomes clearer and clearer. At this time, Pierre suddenly ordered the servant to stop, and together he dragged Severina out of the car, tied her and whipped her, and finally allowed the servant to abuse her.
In other words, in her subconscious, there is a desire to be abused, that is, to be whipped and abused. At the same time, she has a sense of guilt brought about by her own desires. So she went home after picking up a guest from Mrs. Anna for the first time. She immediately threw her underwear and socks into the stove to burn, and repeatedly washed her body with water in an attempt to wash away the evil she was infected with.
Severina's move from home to a brothel was not so much a depravity as it was an erotic outlet to fill in what Pierre couldn't give her, while at the same time satisfying a certain masochism deep inside desire. So when she met the sadistic businessman, she was more satisfied than ever. Later, she met Marcel, a young gangster with a strange personality and brutality, and she couldn't extricate herself even more.
However, the venting of lust is not the final destination. In the end, she still has to seek spiritual dependence and harmony. Therefore, at the end of the film, Severina has to return to her husband Pierre. Just when she was trying to get rid of Marcel's entanglement, the tragedy happened that her husband was shot by Marcel. Severina's deranged behavior has cost Pierre dearly, but in the end she has to bear the consequences herself, and she must accompany her paralyzed husband for the rest of her life.
Ringtones are extremely important sound effects in Buñuel's films. The bell of the carriage at the beginning of the film, the bell of the fantasy when Severina, her husband and Yu Sang were in the suburbs, the bell of the priest when Severina recalled the scene in the church, the earl used the carriage to bring Severina to the scene. The bells of the castle, and at the end of the film Severina and Pierre approached the window together, looked out, and saw the bells of the carriage approaching from afar. It can be said that the ringtone in the film is a mysterious call from the depths of life. The director uses the ringtone to cast an irresistible human impulse into the endless space, which is a metaphor for the beginning and end of life.
Buñuel, who has always been anti-religion and anti-middle class, made a thorough criticism of Severina in the film by borrowing the characters Severina met in the brothel. He has always hated those middle-class people who are conservative and do not seek progress. In the film, Yu Sang, who has nothing to do and is addicted to sensuality, is serious on the outside but fears power and suffers from severe masochism. Count), Bunuel revealed their faces one by one. Although Bunuel grew up in a Catholic family, he is an outright atheist, and his works, especially the early films, have a strong anti-religious streak. The devout Biridiana in Biridiana (1961) wakes up from the beautiful dream woven for her by religion, throwing away the crown of thorns and the cross that she had always regarded as sacred. The protagonist in "Nazarin" (1958) tries to be a saint, unaware that religion can only bring him misery and misfortune. In "Golden Age" (1930), the director even threw holy objects such as crosses into the sea of flames and burned them, which was simply outrageous in a Catholic country at the time, and naturally led to a joint siege by the church and government authorities.
Sex and violence are the two major themes of Buñuel's films. The 1932 "Land Without Grain" has already opened the prelude to violence. A camel walks with a beehive on its back, and the beehive falls to the ground halfway, and the bees swarm immediately. out, pounced on the camel, and attacked it most violently. Towards the end of Biridiana, the blind, the lame, the lepers, and the homeless take advantage of Biridiana's outings to revel in their will, and when the nun who had worked so hard to adopt them came back, she wanted to marry them. She is violent. The film has reached the climax of the explosion so far, and the hideous face and animal nature of people are fully exposed. And Severina in "Beauty by Daylight" was beaten at the beginning, showing the violent side of human nature. Sex is also the focus of Bunuel's works. He has insight into people's latent instincts, and he sympathizes with those who are flesh and blood and plunge into earthly life. On the contrary, he was extremely disgusted with the so-called saints who were sanctimonious and lacking in love. Therefore, the upper-class figures in his works are mostly the obstructers and destroyers of love, and he firmly believes that the power of love cannot be destroyed. In "Golden Age", a man and a woman's love cry drowned out the resistance and restraint around them, and they stood up resolutely to challenge religion and social norms. In "He" (1952), the man who was shaped by the church, when he was in love, rebelled and broke the shackles of religion. Severina in "Beauty by Daylight" seeks sexual satisfaction through masochism, which can all explain the director's view of sex.
Good and evil and beauty and ugliness are confused in Buñuel's works. He usually expresses the good and the beauty of human beings by the conflict between good and evil and beauty and ugliness. From evil to good and ugly to beauty are his favorite ambiguous tactics. There's nothing ugly or sinful about Severina's erotic behavior in "Beauty by Daylight." The sadomasochistic and masochistic perversions made her happy and satisfied. The heroine in "Doris Danae" (1970) watched her uncle walk toward death without helping her, and, instead, felt infinite joy in her heart. These are examples of the director expressing the opposite meaning from one side of an event or action.
As mentioned earlier, the mix of surrealism and neorealism is often the most common method of expression in Bunuel's films. He has admired surrealist works since he was a child. His first film "An Andalusian Dog" (1928) used surrealist techniques to combine fantasy and reality, showing the irrational behavior of people's subconscious, The film brings the focus to the truly sensual. The dream in his works is a distortion or deformation of reality, and is definitely not a fantasy that is disconnected from reality. It is rooted in reality and possesses an incomplete state of reality.
The dreams and fantasies in this film are the interpretation of the anxiety and contradictions of human beings, a kind of doubts bursting out of joy and pain. Severina is whipped by servants at the beginning of the film, going to the "death ceremony" of the fallen nobles, and the end of a carriage driving towards Severina, all of which are different states of dream, fantasy and reality, and sometimes it is really indistinguishable. What is fantasy and what is real. The end of the film is even more open-ended. Originally, Pierre had been shot and could not escape the fate of being called by death, but in the end he could still be seen standing up and cuddling with Severina. Is this real or dreamy? ?
In this way, the film advances in the interlaced development of reality and fantasy, and the end of the film is Severina's struggle and wandering between hope and despair in the course of her life. In Buñuel's mind, the truth contains infinite mysteries, and the dream also contains unpredictable magic. If you want to explore the depths of the human mind, both are indispensable.
Buñuel's films have devoted infinite sympathy and attention to human beings and society. In his works, a strong undercurrent of life can often be seen. The most commendable thing is that he has been innovating and experimenting continuously throughout his life. He is not discouraged by the harsh environment in his exile for decades. Even under the strong impact of the commercial wave, he still goes his own way and is independent and uninhibited. Never bow to the frenzy of commercial movies. Even if it is a highly entertaining film, he still does not forget to focus on his own ideas and outlook on life, and maintain a strong personal style. He never violated his conscience to make films, "It was like this in the past, it is like this now, and it will be like this in the future."
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