Junguier, the secret of high society

Author: Decline

A well-spoken marquis, a rich and elegant widow, a beautiful young maiden. What would such a trio collide with? "Madame Junkiel" gives an answer.

It is a story of abandonment and revenge, which takes place in 18th-century France. Adapted from Diderot's novel Jacques the Fatalist and His Master, the beautiful widow Madame Pomelaye, after being bored with the Marquis, finds a young and beautiful prostitute and waits for revenge.

Poster for the movie "Madame Junguier"

The more beautiful a woman is, the more she can see the greed and malignancy of the nobility. This beautiful girl is a mirror that illuminates the unspeakable secrets of aristocratic society.

If "Madame Junguier" is simply regarded as a love plot cloaked in a French retro style, it may live up to her deep meaning. In this game of revenge, what is more stinging than love is the ubiquitous discrimination between the upper class and the lower class. The first shot of the film is in the picturesque manor house, which sets the tone of aristocratic elegance and nobility throughout the film. The first half hour of the film is almost an expression of the marquis's love for the lady, which makes people mistakenly think how affectionate the nobles are. Behind that is the appearance of the girl, this young and beautiful girl is Jungil.

Junguier's mother, who was born into an aristocratic family, went to court after giving birth to a daughter and had a lawsuit with her husband. And her mother, a once high-society lady, lost the case because of her lower status and power than her husband, lost all her property, and became a prostitute.

When Madame Pomelaye found Jungil and her mother, she took the attitude of a superior person who cared for society and seemed to want to help the mother and daughter get out of the quagmire. But in fact, she concealed the true identity of Jungil, packaging their mother and daughter as nobles whose families had fallen in the middle of the road, relying on Christianity for salvation. And her purpose was simple, to make the marquis unknowingly attracted, and to reveal the truth after giving his heart, making him a laughingstock of high society.

The "ladies" of high society, with money, appear before the prostitutes of the lower classes, telling angelic lies for their own demonic purposes. Junguier, a young and beautiful woman of fifteen or sixteen years old, who became a prostitute due to the decline of her family, was actually a silent refutation of the helplessness of women at the bottom of society at that time.

But this was also the social reality of that era, and there was only one step between the nobility and the lower classes in the secular sense - money. With enough money, someone will hold Shakespeare and call you "Lady", and losing the money will only become the talk of others after dinner.

When the Marquis learned that his wife was a prostitute, someone in the crowd shouted, "I played her for less." By this time, the "humble" Jungil had been completely reduced to a chip in this trap. For the society at that time, all kinds of people may be inextricably linked to prostitutes, but under the sun, everyone is still a serious gentleman. You know, I know, but don't say.

In this revenge, the most innocent is Jungil. A young woman, who has been reduced to dust because of the decline of the family, has always been quiet like a statue, accepting the arrangement of the lady, but she can never resist the obvious malice of society towards the people at the bottom, especially the women at the bottom.

How noble are the high-society people? Not necessarily. Although their lives are gorgeous and luxurious, they are full of unspeakable lies. Behind the seemingly elegant people, there are actually fragile and vulnerable lives and networks of relationships.

Madame Pomeranje was actually an elegant and discerning woman. The highlight of the film is when she says to Jungil's mother, "If all women are like us, there will be greater glory as women." Yet all her insight into love and humanity was used in revenge against the Marquis, and she did not care whether she had made a bayonet with another woman. She is the staunchest defender and practitioner of high society.

In this conspiracy in the name of love, the girl who becomes a pawn, her origin determines that she has no room for resistance and the right to say no. But in the end, she was beautiful enough to become the secret of her turning her fate around.

The ending is somewhat bad. The "humiliated" marquis, the abandoned prostitute, became the wife of the man who fully protected him and entered the church with him, even though she was once a dusty person, and a "widow's revenge" was broken into a "man's love". But in reality, it's not a kind of irony — when beauty becomes a weapon of change of destiny, sure enough, "love has disappeared, it's a terrible discovery, but it's still real."

In "Madame Junguier", in aristocratic society, the indifference behind the smile, the greed under the elegance, and the urgency of gentleness are peeled off layer by layer. Liberalism became a lie of class discrimination, and the so-called romantic nature overshadowed the shame of the promiscuous. (Downsizing)