The author of this article is written by @Zhang Mushroom
Movies are the highlights of life
Recently, a suspenseful new drama produced by Netflix is not small, Douban opened a score of 9.2 (currently 8.7), and also received strong recommendation from super movie fan Li Xian.
It is the new work of Spanish director Oriol Paul, who specializes in high-concept settings, "The Best of Innocence".
Speaking of oriol Paul's name, everyone may feel strange, but the series of films he directed have a strong sense of presence in the hearts of domestic film fans, such as "The Invisible Guest", "Mirage", "Female Corpse Mystery Case" and so on.
This popular "The Best of Innocence" is an 8-episode short drama, each episode is about 1 hour, continuing orio Paul's signature style - the rhythm is tense and exciting, the plot is reversed layer by layer, the human side is extremely frightening, and the little Wanda is addicted to chasing in one breath.
Like previous films, "The Best of Innocence" is still based on real-life situations.
The first episode begins with the male protagonist Matt's point of view. At the graduation party, Matt's misstep at trying to prevent a fight over him led to Daniel's death, for which he was imprisoned for four years.
During a chance to go out to serve his sentence, he fell in love with the sexy and beautiful Olivia at first sight.
After being released from prison, Matt miraculously re-encounters Olivia and forms a family with her.
Matt's life gradually returned to the right track, and after his brother's unexpected death, he took over his brother's law firm, and Olivia accepted his past.
But some secrets that breed in darkness are eventually exposed to the sun.
One day, Olivia tells Matt that she's going to Berlin on a business trip, but the next day, Matt receives a picture of a strange man from Olivia's phone, along with a video of Olivia sleeping naked.
With the help of private detective Zoe, Matt finds out that Olivia did not go to Berlin at all, and that she remains in the city. During this time, a mysterious man tries to drive a car into Pegamat and threatens him with a gun pointed at his head.
After investigation, the person who rented the car was named Seze and had a criminal record. All these inexplicable events seem to imply that Olivia has cheated on her.
But things are far from simple. Matt receives a call from Setzer warning that the doorbell will ring in 30 seconds and that he must keep silent about everything he knows or Olivia will be in danger.
By the end of the first episode, the mysterious behind-the-scenes characters have not yet appeared, and the audience is still confused. But it doesn't matter, it only takes a little patience, and the plot is getting better.
The second episode tells the story from a different perspective: Ortiz, a female police officer who witnessed her father's death as a child.
She was assigned to investigate a case of a fall from a building. The fallen was a nun named Mary.
Inside her room was a photo of it half torn off, with the words on the back: Forgive me. All the evidence points to suicide, but Ortiz's intuition suggests that there is a possibility that he will kill.
Starting with Maria's identity, she gradually discovered some overlooked details: she had tattoos on her body, she even had breast augmentation surgery, often sneaked out at night to go on dates, and her real name was not Maria.
In the process of handling the case, Ortiz is hindered by mysterious forces, and some people do not want her to continue to investigate the nun's fall. As there are more and more clues, more complex character relationships are involved.
Maria and Matt may have known each other for a long time, but Matt denied it.
What role did Matt play in the case? Is he really, as he says, an innocent victim?
At the end of the second episode, as the female police officer rings the doorbell of Matt's house, the disappearance of Olivia and the case of the nun falling from the building are connected, and all the character clues come together to weave a huge network of interpersonal relationships.
Everyone has a secret, and behind the secret is another secret, and the complexities of human nature begin to be revealed.
The perspective of "The Best of Innocence" was originally around the male protagonist Matt, who had committed manslaughter, but as the case unfolded and superimposed, the female characters gradually stood at the forefront.
Behind the true identities of his missing wife Olivia and his dead nun Maria lies the same tragedy of fate.
It turns out that they were prostitutes who had been controlled by the dark forces in the past, and had been hunted down and killed since they escaped, because they had evidence of dirty depravity with the politicians at the top.
The contrast between women's friendship and mutual aid and the sex trade under the dark forces and the ugly faces of politicians is extremely ironic.
The plot maintains a relaxed rhythm throughout the plot, and each episode introduces the central characters of the chapters with new personalities, splitting and reorganizing the structure. While the audience understands the previous history of different characters, it is also constantly subverting the previous cognition.
This narrative style of layered reversals, foreshadowing, and all-evil people is very similar to Oriol Paul's masterpiece The Invisible Guest.
Both creative ideas are to tell the audience different versions of the same story from different narrative perspectives, constantly adding detailed information during the period, gradually piecing together the truth like pieces of a puzzle, bringing the audience the pleasure of solving puzzles.
The director has been called "Reverse King" by Chinese film fans.
In addition, Oriol Paul is not limited to the suspense genre, but also tries to incorporate other genre elements into the film.
Another high-scoring masterpiece that has been released in China, "Mirage", adds a parallel time and space setting, through a TV set, Bella can talk to the little boy Nick 25 years ago.
With Bella's help, Nick was spared death. But the "butterfly effect" of space-time also changed Bella's life, and her husband and daughter no longer exist. She can only "restart" time and space repeatedly in order to find the best option in life.
His debut novel, The Mystery of the Female Corpse, is more of a thriller style.
The film is also a story triggered by an affair (which is really the eternal theme of Spanish cinema). Maca, a strong woman in the enterprise, was killed by her cheating husband, and her body mysteriously disappeared in the morgue that night. Her husband is investigated, but he suspects that Maca is cheating her death to punish herself.
Maca's life and death is the film's suspenseful bright line, in the director's usual style, there is also a hidden dark line, that is, the mysterious avenger is carrying out a carefully designed revenge in his own way.
If we look at the director's work together, we will find that there are some commonalities. He is very good at shooting "roller coaster", suspense films with contrasting back and forth and reversing endings, using coincidences and human aspects of the play to tell immersive love stories.
There are many "triangular relationships" in his works, directly attacking the dark side of human nature in the narrative of betrayal and revenge, driving the narrative with emotion, and adding rich elements such as science fiction, crime, ethics, and class to the suspense genre.
Compared with the film works, the character relationship in the longer "The Best of Innocence" is more complicated, the narrative clues are more, and the suspense is more suspenseful, but what remains unchanged is the director's exploration and "exposure" of the relationship between human nature and society.
The reversal of the plot is a major attraction of "The Best of Innocence", but it is by no means the only highlight.
The final foothold of the story is to explore the background of characters from all walks of life in the process of solving the case, and write "girls help girls", which is a female friendship that fits the current context.
There can be no more spoilers, oriol Paul's suspense film, you still need to experience it yourself.
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