Recently, the mainland cinema line has been relatively deserted, resulting in a situation where there are no blockbusters in the theater.
In the deserted April cinema market, Fan Yingjun noticed a suspense movie "Mist Pursuit" that had just been released.
The film is a standard suspense detective film, the plot revolves around a bizarre murder case spanning 30 years, the plot is very brain-burning, from the beginning to the end, do not see the end can not guess the mystery at all, is an absolutely worth watching the suspense god work.
However, since the release of the film, the box office has been extremely dismal, with only 1.48 million box office in the 6 days of release, and the scheduling rate is less than 1%.
Although the box office hit the street, but it does not hinder, this is definitely a cold suspense god work worth watching!
<h1 class="pgc-h-center-line" data-track="11" > "Chasing The Mist"</h1>
The Girl in the Fog
This "Chasing the Mist" was filmed in 2017 and was originally titled "Girl in the Mist".
The film is based on the best-selling novel of the same name by the famous suspense novelist Donato Carisi, the author of Donato Carresi, Italy's most successful creator of suspense thriller novels, as early as 1999 with his debut film "The Devil Whispers" in the literary world, his works swept more than twenty countries.
Later, Donato Caresi ventured into the film and television industry, turning out to be a suspense screenwriter, and founded a film company in 2016 to adapt his own novels, and he himself wrote and directed, and this "Girl in the Mist" is also his directorial debut.
After the film was released, it was a great success, and it was among the best at the box office when it was released in Italy, and then it was nominated for four nominations for the David Award, known as the Italian Oscars, and finally won the Best New Director Award, which shows that the first transformation of the writer Donato Carresi was very successful.
Because the original author personally checked the adaptation, the film is completely faithful to the original in terms of plot and suspense.
The film adopts a non-linear multi-perspective narrative structure, borrowing multiple perspectives of memories and flashbacks to carry out the process of solving a unsolved case, and setting up multiple reversals in it, there are cases in the case, mysteries in the mystery, it is not enough to see it once, and it may be realized after watching it several times.
Blowing so much, let's officially get into the story.
The film takes place in a foggy mountain town, and the story begins on a winter night on Christmas Eve.
That night, Annalu, a 16-year-old girl, left home to go to church, but has since mysteriously disappeared!
The disappearance is the introduction to the story, and although the shot is only a few seconds long, it has a strong sense of suspense.
With this disappearance, the story officially begins.
The entry point of the positive film is two months after the disappearance.
Late one night again, psychiatrist Floris (Jean Renault) received a notice from the police to help conduct a psychological examination of a former detective suspected of having amnesia.
The former detective appears to have suffered a serious car accident and claims to have lost his memory due to the accident, but the police found that —
He had a lot of blood on his shirt.
The police suspected that he was hiding something under the pretext of amnesia, so they hired a psychologist to help identify it.
When the psychiatrist saw the other party, he found that it was actually the famous detective Vogel.
Vogel was once a detective who solved countless local cases, often accepted interviews with the TV media on behalf of the police, and was once a big star in the police detective class, but Vogel is no longer what it used to be, only because of a "wrongful, false and wrong case".
Many years ago, when Vogel pursued a bomber case, he did not hesitate to forge evidence to forcibly close the case, and the matter was revealed, resulting in Vogel being held accountable.
The psychiatrist and Vogel engage in a conversation in which the conversation is divided into two parts:
Part of it is some small talk that seems to be very meaningless, and the more important thing is one of them -
Vogel wondered why there were so many specimen models of red trout in the Psychiatrist's office.
The psychiatrist replied that once when he was fishing in the river, he suddenly had a heart attack, and in a trance he saw a red trout on the shore staring at him, and since then, he has become fascinated with this fish.
Another part of the conversation is Vogel's intermittent memories, in which the film unfolds a real storyline.
It was two days after the disappearance, when the police received a report from the parents of the missing girl Anna Lu.
Vogel, as the captain of the police team, led the team into the village to investigate the case, and he first visited the parents of the girl.
Annalu's parents were both Religious, and Annalu was influenced by her parents to often go to church to pray. In the mouth of her parents, the daughter is an obedient and well-behaved girl, and there is not even any contact information for other people in the mobile phone except for her family and girlfriends, and the circle of life is very small.
Detective Vogel deduces that Annalu may have been kidnapped, and he begins to investigate the case with great fanfare:
First, Anna Lu's parents publicly posted a message of help on TELEVISION;
After that, a large number of police forces were mobilized to investigate the ex-prisoners with previous convictions in the vicinity one by one, and then the police officers were collectively searched in the river and nearby mountains and forests, and helicopters were dispatched to this end, and Vogel, as the person in charge of the case, sat in the whole process.
This series of actions made a huge noise, and the media felt that the police attached unprecedented importance to the disappearance of the girl, so it was also widely reported, which for a time made the missing girl case a hot topic in the local area.
But what everyone doesn't know is that Detective Vogel, who is in charge of investigating the case—
I don't care at all about whether the police operation can make progress, but more concerned about the ratings of TV news.
It turned out that Vogel had ruined his great future because of forging evidence; now that Vogel encountered the missing case of a young girl, he thought that this was a good opportunity for him to turn around, and he was determined to use the opportunity to investigate the case to create a greater movement, so he used the pressure of public opinion to force the local judicial system to invest resources in large-scale investigations.
In this way, small cases become big cases, and once the case is solved, Vogel can return to the peak of fame.
So for Vogel, the attention gained in the investigation process is far more important than finding the truth.
As an experienced topic hype expert, Vogel knows how to collude with the media to win the attention of the audience.
Vogel learns that the missing girl Anna loves cats, so he finds a female TV host with whom he has worked.
Vogel gave her a cat doll and put it in front of the door of the young girl Annalu's house, falsely claiming that a resident had spontaneously come to pray for the missing girl in order to hype up the topic.
In this way, relying on media reports, more and more people came to Anna Lu's house to pray.
Meanwhile, Detective Vogel finds a suspect in the case, Anna Lu's classmate Mattia.
The other party had been educated about fighting and making trouble, and a large number of videos of Anna Lu were tracked and filmed in his computer.
However, Mattia claims that she only has a crush on Annalu, so she has been quietly filming her every move.
Vogel naturally did not believe his words, but the other party provided important clues:
In the video taken by Mattia —
Before Anna Lu disappeared, on multiple occasions, the same car appeared nearby.
Based on this clue, the police quickly found the owner, martini, a local middle school teacher.
He is the teacher of the missing girl Annalu, who just moved to the town with his wife and daughter half a year ago, teaches literature classes in the school that no students like to listen to, and the relationship with his wife seems to be hidden contradictions, and the couple is also very financially strapped.
What's more, when the police found him, his palm appeared to have just been injured.
All kinds of doubts seem to indicate that Martini is very suspicious of committing crimes.
Martini argues that he is innocent, and the video only proves that he has been to those places as well, and does not represent anything else.
Although the police did not confirm it, the media that received the wind has surrounded Martini's doorstep, causing great trouble to the family, and even angry people have begun to harass and attack Martini.
At this time, the local lawyer Reeves offered to help.
Reeves knew that the police had no exact evidence, and he wanted to overturn martini's case and gain greater fame.
Reeves knows that Martini's biggest threat now is Detective Vogel, who is very good at inciting media opinion and public opinion, and will do whatever it takes to achieve his goals.
In the bomber case that year, Vogel forged evidence and arrested the suspect Romeo. As a result, the matter was revealed, Romeo innocently spent four years in prison, lost his career and family, and the police paid a million euros in compensation to end the matter.
On the other side, police found the missing girl's backpack in a nearby river with the blood of another person on it.
After testing, the blood stains were confirmed to be consistent with martini, a secondary school teacher.
The evidence fell like a mountain, the police announced the arrest of Martini, the case was solved, and Detective Vogel returned to the peak of his life.
But is the truth really that simple?
Of course not.
Behind this case of the disappearance of the young girl, there is actually a serial murder case from 30 years ago.
After Martini's arrest, Vogel received a mysterious phone call from a journalist, Beatrice.
Beatrice said she had evidence of Martini's innocence and told him about a serial murder that had occurred 30 years earlier.
At that time, there was a serial killer called "Man in the Mist" who had committed 6 kidnappings and murders, and the victims were all 16-year-old girls, and like Annalu, they were all red-haired.
Therefore, the reporter Beatrice deduced that the missing girl Anna Lu was killed by the mist man, and Martini was a child 30 years ago, and it was impossible to be a fog man.
Vogel thought it was just one-sided, but the female reporter said she still had evidence, and shortly after the disappearance, she received an anonymous package containing Annalu's diary.
In the diary, Annalu details her crush on a school boy named Oliver, so Annalu will write a letter "O" on her wrist with a pen when she misses him.
In addition, the diary contains a photograph of an unnamed cemetery in a nearby mountain forest.
Following the photographs, Vogel found and dug up the cemetery, finding a box of sealed videotapes.
The video depicts Annalu being killed, with the arm of a mysterious man on camera.
According to the scene in the videotape, the killer killed Anna Lu in an abandoned hotel nearby.
When Vogel arrived at the scene, he realized that he had probably done the wrong thing and wanted to destroy the tape.
Unexpectedly, at this moment, a group of reporters actually rushed in and just happened to bump into this scene.
It turned out that the media also received the wind of the reporter Beatrice, for Beatrice, who was bent on making a big news-
The big news she's going to cover —
It is not the comeback of the "mist man", but the detective Vogel has once again handled an unjust, false and wrong case.
As a result, under the change of media opinion, the police restarted the investigation of the case and found that Vogel's original closure was indeed catty.
Like the bomber case of that year, Vogel repeated the trick in order to turn over, and in the absence of sufficient evidence in the case, he took advantage of the opportunity to meet with the suspect Martini, collected some blood through his injured right hand, and then created perjury.
At this point in the case, the truth is reversed -
Under great pressure from public opinion, the police announced martini's release and compensated him with a large amount of compensation.
Vogel was once again disgraced by perjury and was kicked out of the police force.
But the matter is not over, the local TV station in order to hype, planned a dialogue program, let the former police detective Vogel and the former suspect Martini in the program to talk, the paranoid Vogel finally agreed.
While waiting backstage, Vogel accidentally noticed that Martini had a drawn letter "O" on his wrist.
This is something that only detectives and girls who have read diaries know about them, or who have been in contact with the girl's killer.
This means that Martini is indeed related to Annalu's disappearance and is likely to be the killer.
Vogel's story with the psychiatrist ends here, and the story cuts back to reality.
The psychiatrist questioned Vogel's story, and he didn't understand —
Since the murderer was Martini, why did he deliberately leave a clue on his arm suggesting that he was the murderer?
Vogel quotes a quote from Martini who educates students in the classroom as an answer:
The most stupid crime of the devil is vanity.
If no one knows who you are, what fun is there to be a demon?
Vogel reverted to the psychiatrist the truth that neither the media nor the police knew:
Anna lu's disappearance was committed by Martini, and his purpose was to set up a trap to defraud compensation.
It turned out that Martini and his wife seemed to be separated, and now they are in a huge economic crisis. Inadvertently, he discovered the Fog Man murder case that year, so he decided to imitate the crime.
However, the target he chose was not only the young girl AnnaLu, but also the former detective Vogel who was bent on solving the case.
He knew Vogel's unscrupulous style of doing things to solve the case, so he deliberately left clues and lured Vogel step by step to convict himself as a murderer. Vogel, who is eager to solve the case, really made a plan and once again repeated the same trick to create perjury, at the same time, Martini prepared a backhand, using the reporter to lead the legend of the misty man, so as to subvert the direction of the investigation of the case.
After a set of operations, Martini went from murderer to victim of the judicial system, receiving large compensation.
By the time Vogel realized the truth, it was too late.
Not only was he discredited, but he also lost everything, and could only watch the real murderer Martini show off in front of him.
Enraged, he was determined to take revenge, and one night he tracked Martini and drove him to death, then disposed of the body.
As a result, there is also a mysterious car accident at the beginning of the film that leads to a police investigation.
In front of the psychiatrist, Vogel confessed to all the crimes and was eventually arrested by the police.
At this point, it seems that everything is over, but what I didn't expect was that—
The bigger reversal is coming again!
It turns out that the psychiatrist is the murderer of the serial girl disappearance case who has been hidden for 30 years.
30 years ago, Misty Man had a heart attack while fishing, and when he was dying, he seemed to see the girls who were killed, so he decided to give up, but he could never forget his perverted desire for those red-haired girls in his heart.
So he filled his office with the red trout he had caught by the river that day when he was ill, and used the red trout to pin his fascination with the red-haired girl. Only in the dead of night would he pull out a box with 6 red hairs in it.
Those hairs are left over from the corpses of the victim girls, secrets that will never be discovered again...
As a suspenseful crime movie, "Chasing the Man in the Mist" brings together elements that all detective movie fans love: closed mountain towns, missing girls, religious fanatics, suspicious residents, incompetent local police, arrogant detectives, unjust lawyers, cold-blooded journalists and other horror classic elements.
In order to highlight the sense of suspense, the film adopts the usual Rashomon narrative of crime films, using flashbacks and interpolations from multiple perspectives to create and lay out suspense, but the main core is the battle of wits between detective Vogel, middle school teacher Martini and the psychologist Florence who appears as a hidden supporting role, and all three people have committed crimes, and all three are murderers of different cases.
The whole film is shrouded in a fog of confusion, and none of the three main characters in the film are good people.
Detective Vogel will stop at nothing to investigate the case, preferring to kill the suspect by mistake rather than think that the other party is innocent; the middle school teacher uses the shortcomings of the detective's self-sufficiency to set up a situation and finally achieve successful exoneration; as for the most hidden psychologist, it is the mist man who committed the crime 30 years ago, and he is also the most terrible murderer in the whole film, but he successfully exonerated at the end.
However, the shortcomings are also obvious, after all, it is the director's debut, so the overall rhythm processing is relatively out of control, the first half of the film plot rhythm is not bright, mainly for the preparation and foreshadowing, but some clues feel too thin, such as revealing that the last psychologist is a murderer who has been hidden for 30 years, which seems somewhat unconvincing.
In addition, the film is more conservative in audiovisual style, the plot progress is almost entirely dependent on dialogue, most of the use of the character's lines and expressions, the two sides of the scene to create a tense atmosphere, this treatment is easy to make people feel monotonous, there is no kind of experience of a huge reversal and the final truth of the pleasure.
As a suspenseful reasoning film, the film can be said to be one of the best works of European cinema in recent years. The film is better than telling a good story, the director tries to convey the theme of "everyone thinks that the criminal is not necessarily the real criminal", for a writer's debut as a cross-border director, the film has a high degree of completion.