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How long has it been since you saw a high-scoring suspense masterpiece in a movie theater?
"Innocent Murder: The Corinne Case", which was released in China on May 14, is not a big production or a big star, but it is enough to be an unexpected surprise.
This is a well-planned film, not only suspenseful, but also the modern legal system, World War II history, human entanglement and other multiple elements of the organizational structure, overseas media praised: "subvert the audience's perception of similar suspense works."
Created by the production company that produced the classic film "Perfume", the film set a record for six consecutive weeks of box office during its local release in Germany, and has since won many film awards.
At present, the freshness of Rotten Tomatoes is 83%, the Douban score is 7.6, and the recommendation degree of Zhihu is up to 93%, ranking first in the reputation of new films released in the same period of domestic theaters.
Based on the best-selling novel The Collini Case, the film is written by Dinand von Scillach, who has been hailed as "Germany's best storyteller", having worked as a criminal defense lawyer in Berlin.
His third and first novel, he combines decades of judicial experience and speculation and has been translated into more than forty languages and published worldwide.
As soon as the book came out, it caused an uproar in Germany, and the German minister of justice directly ordered the formation of a historical investigation committee to conduct a comprehensive and thorough investigation of Nazi-related historical cases.
The Chinese edition of the novel The Corini Case
Why can a novel change a country's judicial system? The film faithfully restores this thrilling story according to the novel, and everything starts with a suspense case.
The incident took place in a luxury hotel in Berlin, Mercedes-Benz Motor Company retired mechanic Corinne pretended to be a journalist into the room three shots shot 85-year-old prestigious consortium entrepreneur Hans Meyer. After the incident, Corinne did not flee the scene, but chose to turn himself in.
This is a case without suspense, the evidence is complete, and Corinne is the murderer. This is another case of suspense, because Corinne remained silent and refused to say the motive for the killing.
Corinne's novice lawyer, Caspar Lane, soon realized that behind this mysterious case was a hidden secret of Corinne. He wandered between the Corinnes and Meyer families, embarking on a journey of tracing the truth.
In this way, the film shifts from the fierce unsolved murder case to the cracking of Corinne's inner suspense, from the outside in, step by step.
At the same time, Ryan also endured great pressure and struggle. Despite his youthful ambitions, he was fledgling and inexperienced to confront a powerful team of lawyers brought in by the Meyer family, including barrister Richard Martinge, a law professor at his university.
What is more entangled is that the deceased Meyer is the grandfather of his ex-girlfriend, and he is also the elder who has helped him greatly in the process of growing up, like a relative. Corinne, on the other hand, was silent to him, cold as frost.
In the legal and private feelings, professional and moral, rational and emotional, Ryan is caught in difficult choices, and his psychological changes from vacillation to firm position further deepen the suspense of the film.
When we follow Lane to Corinne's hometown of Italy, we are on the road to the truth, but also into a history of World War II permeated with black memories and tragic past.
Beginning with a murder mystery and extending with a legal confrontation, the film finally comes to a spectral sequence that reflects on the pain of World War II under the thick of suspense.
It turned out that Meyer had been a Nazi soldier, and in 1944, while he was stationed in Italy, a terrorist attack killed two German soldiers, and according to Hitler's instructions of "one kill ten", Meyer ordered the shooting of twenty Italian partisans, including Corinne's father.
Corinne watched his father brutally killed by the Nazis, and the revenge of killing his father was planted in his heart. The first twist of the film allows the breadth of the story to radiate from individual characters to the entire historical group, followed by a second twist that is even more shocking.
Twenty-five years after the purge of the guerrillas, the Nazi holocaust was a universally recognized fact. Corinne also embarked on the path of justice, prosecuting Meyer for murder through legal means.
Unexpectedly, the Enforcement Law of the Administrative Crimes Act, which came into effect four months before the prosecution, blocked Corinne's path to litigation and allowed Meyer to escape punishment. The statute, also known as the Dreher Act, stipulated that only the Nazi leadership was a murderer and everyone else was an accessory and could be convicted of manslaughter rather than murder.
The crimes committed by the Nazis during World War II were also limited by a 20-year statute of limitations, after which they could no longer be prosecuted. Meyer fits this picture.
Edward Dreher, who enacted the law, abused lynching as a senior prosecutor during the Nazi period, and after the war he was appointed to the Federal Ministry of Justice. The Martingal lawyer who confronted Lane was also involved in discussing the enactment of the law.
Dinand, the author of the novel, once revealed: "With the end of the war in 1945, everyone thought that Germany had entered a new stage, looking for a new beginning. But this is not the case at all, and this new beginning is a continuation of the previous one, namely, that after the war all important posts in the German government apparatus, from ministers to any administrative civil servants, were almost entirely retained by the former old Nazis. ”
It was the observation of this phenomenon that inspired Dinand to create this murder case based on the true core of history.
When the law eroded justice, Corinne had to choose to commit crimes. He killed people, and the law killed him, so who should make up for it? Lonely, Lane also shifted from being against a group of people to confronting the entire German judicial system.
"No one questioned corinthy whether Corinne was abusing the lynching, but was it fair not to prosecute Meyer? Shouldn't we discriminate against Corinne's behavior? Is this the law we believe in? ”
Corinne chose to remain silent because of the loss of confidence in the law, and the new generation of young people Ryan chose to speak out bravely. He questioned Martin in court, the judges and the jury on the spot, and he was questioning everyone, the conscience and morality of human nature.
The novel also reads: "Over the years, he listened to professors lecture, studied the law and legal interpretation, and tried to understand what criminal procedure was all about, but it is only today, until he himself takes the stage to defend himself, that he really understands the purpose of criminal procedure - for those who are persecuted and suppressed." ”
Behind the role of Ryan, in fact, it also alludes to the personal color of the author Dinand.
His real-life grandfather, a former leader of the Nazi Party, was later sentenced to twenty years in prison at the Nuremberg trials. His grandfather's notoriety was a lingering shadow from his upbringing, and Ryan was pregnant with dinand's own attitude of introspection and responsibility.
All along, Germany has continuously introduced film and television works that reflect on the theme of World War II, such as "The Nuremberg Trials", "Our Fathers", "The Destruction of the Empire", "Operation Bernard", "Readers", "The Führer Stole the Pink Rabbit", etc., all of which directly focus on the "first crime" committed by the Nazis during the war, and "Innocent Murder: The Corinne Case" takes a different approach, starting from the Germans' post-war "second guilt".
The "second culpable" is this judicial scandal, which established a law to protect criminals. How many people escaped responsibility because of this law? The reflective perspective of "The Corinne Case" greatly enriches the critical depth and connotation of anti-war films.
No crime can be washed away in the long river of history, and no crime can leave no trace in the corridors of time.
The film connects reality, returns to the past from the present, and reflects on the present in the mirror of history. In the end, it came to an unresolved end, the trial was inconclusive, and everything from Meyer alone and an unjust law to the entire justice system seemed to be complicit and perpetrator, responsible for this historical tragedy.
The film's real suspense is no longer the Corinne case itself, but points to the real world off-screen: how to amend the law? When will justice come? The answers to these questions are left to Germany, to society as a whole, to everyone.
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