Minutes of the post-viewing symposium on Buñuel's work "The Maid's Diary" / Arranged by Fan Daming / Time: December 15, 2012 (Saturday)
10:55am-11:25am Venue : Henglu Art Museum Lecture Hall , No. 202, Nanshan Road, Hangzhou Henglu Art Film Bar Buñuel's work "The Maid's Diary" after viewing) Participants: (Preface) Fan Daming, Mao Weijie, Chen Xingsheng, Yang Yuehui, Ma Yile, Zhang Yafang, Jin Aiwu, He Ji, Huang Fangyue, Fan Dayin (viewing the film) Actors: Cai Ling, Wang Xiling, Yu Han, Yu Baiwen, etc.) Moderator: Fan Daming Record: Huang Fangyue Do we know who the murderer of the little girl's murder is? Van Damien: "The Handmaid's Diary" is a black-and-white film like Buñuel's first two films, but the story is not set in Spain but in France. This film and the other two films to be released this month are both directed by the director and invited by French filmmakers. Written by the famous filmmaker Jean-Claude Carell. The maid Celestine came from Paris and went to a wealthy family in the countryside to be a senior maid. Originally, she mainly came to serve the old boss here. After the old boss died of a heart attack, her mission ended, but at the same time. Something happened in Tiancun: Claire, a little girl she liked very much, was raped and murdered, so she returned to the master's house out of righteous indignation. We watched the whole movie, can we tell who the culprit of the little girl's murder is? Mao Weijie: In the case of the little girl, the film does not have a clear answer. The film creates an anti-Semitic backdrop in France and shows some political events in this context. The old father of the maid's family indulges in his own world, and the coachman Joseph (the housekeeper) is created as a "patriot" who pursues his ideals. He stressed that "patriots" like himself cannot kill. The relationship between the anti-Semitic background of the film's story and the killing of the little girl Chen Xingsheng: The background is the French Revolution (Van Daming: It should not be the "French Revolution" in 1789 - it is actually the anti-Soviet and anti-Communist European right-wing after the Soviet October Revolution. , anti-Semitic movement), whether the general context has anything to do with the specific murder.
Yang Yuehui: The two are not necessarily related. A person with political beliefs is not at odds with a girl-killer. The director may be open-ended and do not make specific conclusions.
Ma Yile: The two can also be related. The little girl (with her aunt) came to a Jewish home, and the little girl herself was probably Jewish. Against such an anti-Semitic background, the killing of the little girl was also a tacitly murder of Jews. The maid came back to the master's house out of cherishing the little girl's life and wanted to find out the truth; but the government did not pay attention to these matters.
The relationship between the maid and the murderer she
thought was Joseph Zhang Yafang: The maid Celestine was self-willed, and she decided that the murderer was Joseph, and she deliberately pointed to him, but she did not see the scene herself, and hoped to have evidence, so she entered Joseph's residence Search secretly. In fact, she didn't like him when she first met him in the carriage.
Marcel: The maid had a prejudice against Joseph from the beginning. She deduced by her own logic that it was Joseph who committed the crime, and she also gave perjury. And the police didn't pay attention to the truth because the victim girl was Jewish.
Jin Aiwu: The maid comes from the big city of Paris. Compared with other servants, she is more cultured and advanced. She brings life to the small town and inspires the sense of justice of the people around her with her justice.
Yang Yuehui: The maid deliberately broke off the nails on the sole of Joseph's leather shoes. This perjury is self-defeating, and Joseph may not be the murderer. In fact, in a legal society, there are many ways to collect evidence to prove that there is no need for the maid to go to bed with Joseph and sacrifice her color. It is unreasonable for the maid to try to prove the truth by perjury.
He Ji: Perjury is sometimes justified.
Fan Daming: If you can get a confession of the crime from the other party, then it will be a success.
He Ji: The film shows that Joseph, who was driving the car, wanted the girl to go home with him. After failing to do so, he turned and chased in the direction of the forest where the girl entered. This has already given us a hint that he is the perpetrator, although he did not directly show that he committed the crime. Of course, we have no real evidence.
The rape and murder of a little girl may be a symbol of the Jewish killing frenzy in Europe at that time
Fan Daming: It can be said that although the film does not directly and definitively say that Joseph or whoever is the murderer, in fact the director still has an attitude towards it. In addition to the deliberate performance of the director in the handling of the shots before and after the murder (this is not to be tricky, including the insertion of a metaphorical shot of animals chasing in the forest), there are many places where the foreshadowing has become a hint . One is to use Joseph to kill the goose to imply Joseph's ferocity - we can understand it when we look back: the maid hurriedly said: kill it quickly, don't let it suffer; but Joseph said that they are very vulnerable when they suffer. Beautiful, and I like it that way. The other was at the kitchen table. He grabbed the little girl's face with one hand, stared into her eyes, asked her what she saw in his eyes, and claimed that she was in his heart. The most obvious indication of Joseph's ruthlessness is in a scene in the servants' kitchen: the silly middle-aged maid, Marianne, listens to Joseph's conversation with the man who came to deliver the anti-Semitic message (a church servant) and suddenly asks: "Why? Always talk about killing Jews?" The church servant asked her back, "Aren't you patriotic?" Joseph even helped: "If I were in Paris, I would kill one a day." They thought the Bolsheviks were all Jews, and they heard that they were killed. considered good news. It can be seen that in the so-called "patriotic" thinking of Joseph and other two people, killing Jews is "patriotic", and anti-Bolsheviks are patriotic; and their view that killing Jews is patriotic action has a high-sounding reason, believing that Jews bribed government officials With judges, corruption is born in this way. Obviously, Joseph advertised to the maid Celestine that he loved his country, the army, and religion, and would not deceive him into saying that he did not kill the little girl, but Celestine's confession to him based on his actual contact and understanding of him was completely inconsistent. believable. She was close to Joseph and expressed her willingness to accept his courtship, but it was only a false and negotiated pretense. It was for the purpose of obtaining evidence, and she even deliberately provided perjury, because she firmly believed that Joseph was a murderer and must be punished by the law. I think it can be said in a certain sense that the rape and murder of the little girl is not only a murder case inserted in the film, but perhaps a symbol of the spree of killing Jews in Europe at that time.
The meaning of the film, the meaning of the heroine's image
He Ji: The maid returned to Paris because the old master died. She heard at the station that the girl also died on the same day. After thinking about it, she returned to the master's house, determined to find out who killed the girl, even at the expense of perjury. To take Joseph to court. Later, due to changes in the domestic situation, anti-communist and anti-Semitic, Joseph was released, and he still opened the "French Army Home" cafe. The film reveals the appearance of all beings in French society at that time and the changes in the customs and customs of the dull French countryside.
Jin Aiwu: The maid came from Paris to the countryside. The atmosphere was oppressive, the relationship within the family was not harmonious, and the political and social background was also turbulent. By the end of the film, there is a dark cloud and fog, which is the fog of politics and the fog of life. The film gives us a mystery about human nature, society, politics, only the maid herself is clear in her heart.
Cai Ling: The director's ambiguous attitude made the film never explain the moral position of the heroine. The cause of the conflict was that Joseph raped and killed the little girl. As a maid, the heroine is scheming and tactical, and shrewdly maintains her decent dignity. She came from fashionable Paris to become a maid in the countryside. She is simply a noble queen, and she is able to navigate a group of wretched and ugly beings of the rural bourgeoisie with ease. As for the men around her, the maid only wanted Joseph, so she could not rule out her deep disgust for him and even her revenge.
The idea of "Anti-Servant-Master" and the award-winning film
Fan Daming: In a scene between the heroine and the old boss, the old boss of "Fetish" knelt on the ground and put on his treasured women's boots on the feet of the maid sitting in the big sofa chair - here the master servant The relationship is completely reversed. This scene or shot is extremely exciting and ironic. It is obviously the director who wants to express the idea of "anti-servant master" implicit in the film for us in the heroine. "from. Although Celestine's hope of getting the law to punish the murderer Joseph was unsuccessful or failed, she finally accepted the proposal of her employer's neighbor, the retired captain Mag, and married him. Being the master of the house is indeed "anti-servant master" (here, there is a scene in the film where she asks her new husband Mag to clean up the breakfast dishes for her in bed, which has such a high degree of figurative power of generalization). The change and promotion of the heroine's class status should be one of the basic goals of her life. All in all, the film's criticism of the anti-Soviet and anti-Semitic right-wing forces is obvious. In the early 1960s, when the international communist movement was still relatively strong, it was not surprising that Brinell had a tendency to be pro-Soviet and pro-Communist. The film also won an award at the 1964 Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in the Czech Republic, which at that time belonged to the socialist camp.
2012.12.25-26 Arrangement (Part of the speech is a supplementary written talk)
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