Chabrol's film, the script is very rigorous, the narrative is concise, the rhythm is tight and gradual, the tension is full, and it tells a complete story delicately. Although the plot is not twists and turns, but every scene is connected in a seamless way.
From the perspective of the subject matter, the director shows the hatred of the poor for the rich, and leaves the reasons for the murder to the audience to think for themselves. The director's position is quite neutral and does not favor any party. The contradiction in the story is the bottom poor Yana and the wealthy Le In the Limfhe family, the maid Sophie seems to be just a passive character. When the director portrayed the characters on the front, he planted the seeds of tragedy. Yana has a clear stand and point of view. In her spare time, she joins a Catholic charity society and collects clothes and daily necessities from wealthy families, but she clearly sees the hypocrisy of some families, who are just cleaning up waste in the name of caring for the poor . The things they donate are either expired or moldy, or completely useless. She also took advantage of her work to open other people's letters privately. In her opinion, this illegal move is just to expose their ulterior motives. She kept wooing Sophie to make a distinction between her and her master. However, the Lelienfuch family is very tolerant, and the hostess often defends Sophie, saying that her dishes are well done, and that she hopes that her husband and children can see more of her advantages and accept her well. Daughter Melinda is even more kind and tolerant. She saw Yana's car broke down on the road and took the initiative to stop to help. When she found out that Sophie was illiterate, instead of accusing her of cheating her employer, she offered to teach her to read. But she didn't know that in Sophie's heart, keeping this secret was not only to keep her job, but also to keep her dignity. Therefore, Sophie did not appreciate it at all, but threatened to reveal the secret of Melinda's pregnancy. Sophie has never been grateful for the generosity and kindness of her master. In her heart, she is just a hired maid. The host can hold dinner parties and enjoy Mozart's operas, and all she has to do is watch TV entertainment every night. So, in the end, when the two took up guns at the same time, Yana initially just threatened to frighten, but Sophie took the trigger seriously. When she kills people, she also shoots at the books on the shelf, as if books are the enemy of the illiterate. When the two women find out that they've done something irreparable, Yana thinks it's best to walk away. However, the crimes of the two women were all recorded on a tape recorder. In the end, Yana's car crashes, Sophie is hiding in the dark forest, the movie ends with a close-up of Sophie's face, which is an expressionless face, no fear, no remorse, no resentment, calm like water.
Sophie, a quiet, shy, obedient girl, was hired by the wealthy Lady Gatlina Lelienfuch of Brittany as a housekeeper, thinking she had found a rare good servant. Mr. Lelienfuch seemed to agree with her, and he told his wife that the maid must learn to entertain guests at dinner parties. They treat Sophie quite generously and trust her, hoping that she will be rewarded for her master's generosity and kindness. However, Sophie didn't tell her employer that she had dyslexia (a literacy disorder due to a disorder of the central nervous system), and she quickly ran into problems she couldn't solve. In reality, it's just everyday chores, like she can't read the list of things to send her to buy. Fortunately, Sophie met Jana, an energetic postman who helps Sophie with shopping list-like problems from time to time, and tells Sophie all the rumors about the Lelienfuchs from the outside world. Mr. Lelienfhe suspected that Yana had privately dismantled letters from his family, and told Sophie that Yana had been ordered to kill his four-year-old daughter. Even if the court later declared her innocent, Lelienfhe would not believe it. She is truly innocent. He forbade Sophie to let Yana come to the house. As tensions between Sophie and her employer grow, Yana encourages Sophie to fight her wealthy employer. When Mr. Lelienfhe learned that Sophie had brought Jana home, the conflict began to intensify, and George decided to drive Sophie away. Unexpectedly, the four members of George's family were all killed by Sophie and Yana with shotguns while watching a Mozart opera on TV. This tragedy sounds heinous, the scene is cruel and bloody, in fact, this murder is neither a purpose (neither theft nor revenge) nor a plan, it seems to be completely inadvertently. Easy to shoot. In the end, Yana died in a car accident, and Sophie fled into the forest. The film delicately portrays the twisted psychology of the two female murderers.
Director Chabrol joked about the class conflict reflected in the film: "This is my last Marxist film."
The director Chabrol tried to interpret his films using psychoanalytic film theory, and in the early 1970s, a structuralist film semiotician, integrated formal analysis with content analysis, and put Freud's psychoanalysis into the scientific track . Lacan put forward a series of important psychological concepts. He divided human reality into three levels, among which the symbol level is the key, which includes all human symbol systems, especially language as the main body. Psychoanalysis pays special attention to the role of language and emphasizes the readability of films. These concepts are thoroughly explored by Christian Metz, whose treatise marks the birth of the second semiotics of cinema. The focus of his research on film has shifted from the original static structure to the dynamic structure, using psychoanalysis to study the process of generating and perceiving symbols in film works.
In the 1960s and early 1970s, Claude Chabrol earned the title of "French Hitchcock Master of Mystery". The film is based on the novel of the same name by the famous British detective novelist Ruth Lendl in the 20th century. Ruth Lendl analyzed the three parts of the personality structure according to Freud's theory: id, ego and superego, these three parts will have a huge impact on the fate of the character at different times.
Self-destruction is the end product of the id in this work: uncontrollable desires, including thirst for money, Yana's vanity, and the two women's attempts to avoid responsibility for all kinds of evil thoughts. Another product of the id is self-enclosure. This is how Sophie formed a self-centered character, which made her isolated from the outside world and ignorant of the dangers around her. Whether it was the overflow of desire or self-enclosure, she was all right Personality development plays a negative role, culminating in the tragic murder of the Lelienfuch family of four on Valentine's Eve.
The role of the ego is to help Sophie temporarily get out of the predicament, but her overpowering id is beyond the control of the ego, coupled with Yana's instigation, Sophie cannot escape from the mercy of desire and the punishment of fate.
The superego is the only moral source in the film.
The Lelienfuch family lived in harmony and paid close attention to Sophie, especially the manifestation of the superego's supervisory role in George Lelienfhe, which limited the id's desire to destroy to a certain extent. However, because this force was too weak , failed to change the fate of the family being killed. Therefore, if the three parts of the personality structure cannot be developed in a balanced way, it will cause personality distortion and tragedy.
We can also analyze the character from the two aspects of love and death. The concern of the Lelienfuch family for Sophie has created a comfortable living environment for her. But Yana's desire to die: voyeurism, rumor-mongering, personal attacks and, finally, murder, destroys the harmony created by the Lelienfuchs. We can compare the effect of erotic desire and death desire on human beings: Sophie is very enthusiastic about housework under the action of self-defense instinct, and her desire for knowledge is suppressed, so as to maintain the balance of her life. Yana demonstrates the power of lust through different masochistic methods. Eros has different manifestations in different characters, but compared with lust, it is fragile. In addition, we can also see the negative effect of "libido" on the character.
Freud believed that repressed desire is sexual desire, and sex here does not refer to sex in the sense of reproduction, but refers to the pleasure of all bodily organs in general. "Libido" is a strength, instinct, sometimes manifested as a sexual instinct, and when hungry, as a nutritional instinct. For example, a baby's sex life begins with pumping, and each subsequent stage has its own characteristics. Children's tendency to choose parents as objects is called "Oedipus complex", which is manifested in the attachment of girls to their fathers and boys to their mothers. By puberty, "libido" causes the child to escape from the parent and to seek out new sexual objects. According to Freud, the work of the treatment of psychosis consists in liberating the "libido" from its previous infatuation, and making it self-centered, thereby eliminating the bad symptoms. Due to the excess of "libido", Mr. Georges Lelienfuch and Yana were transferred to indulgence, obsessive-compulsive personality disorder and homosexual tendencies respectively. The placement of the child's "lip phase" makes Sophie tend to be in an abnormal state.
Gil's obvious Oedipus plot not only makes him lose his ability to pursue true love, but also makes him hate Mr. He turned a blind eye to Yana and Sophie's misdeeds and encouraged their reckless behavior, leading to tragedy for the family. The above behaviors are the consequences of "Libido"'s mishandling, and are also the main reasons for the tragedy. Therefore, the imbalance of personality development, especially the unhealthy psychological development, is the inducement of various mental diseases. In severe cases, it can lead to abnormal behavior and bring misfortune to life.
Claude Chabrol was born in Paris on June 24, 1930. He is one of the five main generals of the New Wave. In the late 1950s, he joined Jean-Luc Godard, François Truffaut, Ery C. Rommel and Jacques Rivette set off a wave of reforming French cinema in Cahiers du Cinéma. He first studied pharmacology at the University of Paris II and then joined the Film Culture Club where he met new wave friends. In 1957 he co-authored Hitchcock with Eric Rommel (University Press, Paris, 1957), and in 1955 he visited Hitchcock with François Truffaut Kirk, the master of suspense, said: "As soon as I see two ice cubes floating in the drink, I immediately think of Truffaut and Chabrol." In 1958, Chabrol made his first feature film " Pretty Serge, this Hitchcock-esque thriller and suspense won the Jean Viggo Award, and the following year, Cousins, a masterpiece of new wave directors. From 1967 to 1974 was his golden age, earning the title of French Master of Suspense. Chabrol has made more than 50 films, and in 1995 he was awarded the "Reine Claire Lifetime Achievement Award" by the French Academy of Sciences.
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