A few years ago while trying to get to know more about international cinema,I got interested in French cinema. The only French movie of international fame that I had watched until then was Joan Renoir’ s Rules of the Game. As I went through the list of Directors that had several names of repute, I stopped to watch a movie called This Man must Die directed by Claude Chabrol. The bizzarreness of the title with a hint of vengeance in it drew me towards the film. I browsed for it on the net and there is a good copy with English subtitles. Like all great cinema, the movie explores the grey area that falls between the known and the unknown, that ambiguous space of human nature that demarcates a mistake from a crime.
The movie made a great impression upon me. Chabrol’s sombre and stark story of a man’s pursuit of the killer of his son to mete out justice is a must see. The attention to form and structure than rhetoric is crucial for the film. Devoid of sentiment, the film portrays the starkness of death and the coldness of justice. The Director’s other films are Violette, La femme infidele, Les Birches all high points of cinematic craft. Just before night fall is another amazing film; A master ful exploration into a criminal’ s mind. Shorn of artifice and hitting at the raw spots this is a beautiful film too. https://goo.gl/search/The+Beast+Must+Die
🎥 The Beast Must Die
When one watches such films one gets nearer to an understanding as to why Literature and films share a narrative grammar, structure and syntax .If the camera is like the author , it is scripting a story that is evolving continuously, in space,in time and in montage.