Clouzot’s film “Les diaboliques” begins with a quotation from whom I can’t remember, but it’s something like that:
A picture it is always moral if it travels deep enough in the horror that it depicts (sorry but these are not the exact words).
I’m pretty surprised about the reaction that this film provokes into you, Kolya, reaction that you surely share with a lot of people. There are plenty of films that show complete meaningless horror that don’t make people react that way. And artists in all times had only the mission to describe their lifetime, by direct images or symbols, the reading we make in their pictures it’s only up to us.
It’s always been a universal truth that a message only reaches the but if the receiver is already capable of receiving it, but it doesn’t mean that it is meaningless to send it. The problem nowadays is that public impact due to communication means is enormous.
But, does any artist in history ever hided his message because it was not to be read by the right persons?.
I Wrote:
You think I take too much drugs before the films
Before everything, to discuss at the same level I will tell you that I’m not a believer, so my outlook is made from my non believer incomplete look into religion.
Well Maybe I’m not able to explain myself but I’m not able to make the same reading as you do. I can’t get the feeling that the message LM intended to send is that her life was meaningless. And maybe it is over the top a biblical reading, but I can’t avoid to see an intent to depict a sanctification process of the innocence of childhood. Christian lookout into the world is filled with the notion of sacrifice and redemption by it.
I’m aware of what you said, Kant, and that’s right the reading is inversed, she does not clearly redeem the world by her act, at least consciously, but the act of the death is directly linked with an idea of redemption and salvation in a religious sense.
Maybe we can’t share the true religious believing, but why do we have to be completely in the same mood than a film to leave it make us reflect, or try to understand what it was said to us?.
What I mean is that, you’re right, from a non believer opinion, it is a completely meaningless death, but the image of Lilya’s life it is to be taken in the global sense it was given to us, and in that sense, even if we are not able to share it, the message is not as hopeless as we are making it.
In any case, as I said, a pleasure to have your reactions.