Devastating, heartbreaking, and the title is ironic

[deleted]

I really enjoyed reading your post, but I'd like to say something about the "irony of the title". Maybe hidden is not the right word, but it's also not easy to see, because the audience is distracted by the more literal events. This is a lot like what happens in the debate about national atrocities. It's not easy to discuss them because people are caught in explaining how it's not really their fault and that's not what happened and everything was really completely different and I am not a bad human and <my country> not a bad country and others are no better!

I will now end this debate with you.

yes!

[deleted]

Good analogies, i agree with most if it.

After seeing the movie for a third time after a few years, I'm still mystified by many aspects of the story and have a feeling that the story is deliberately obfuscated and omits far too many details that would have helped viewers make sense of the story.

Also, after reading so many responses and comments on IMDb I'm even more mystified as it seems that I've a somewhat different take on the story.

First off, aside from Mahjid committing suicide and really getting the worst outcome in the plot of all characters, my second tier sympathies actually go with George/Daniel Auteuil. Why?

Granted that he did something quite awful when he was young, but few people here seem to take into account the very young age it all happened - at 6 years old. Who can truly and well say that a 6 year old has much, if any comprehension of the implications of anything he does? Holding a 6 year old responsible for the ruined life of Mahjid is shifting the blame on the sending away of Mahjid. It was George's parents who sent Mahjid away, not Georges. They made the choice, not the young 6 year old. If they had had any doubts about what happened with the blood/chicken incident (or if it had even really happened at all) then it should have been up to them to find out more. Not to take a 6 year old's word for something serious enough to warrant being sent away. In a moral world, 6 year olds do not get blamed for such things.

Second - while not immediately obvious at the beginning when the tapes first start arriving, George's wife is more concerned the tapes might be aimed at her, for her affaire with Pierre. And she therefore immediately takes the moral high ground, gets mad with her husband and tries to brush things off as inconsequential and unimportant. Then she takes to blaming George for everything, even though he doesn't know what to make of things. Yet she already thinks the tapes are about her and Pierre. Yet she is the adulteress and George knows nothing, is even mystified at his wife's reaction.

Third, the incident with the black cyclist: George is made out to be quick to insult, but given that his family is has been receiving mysterious tapes, it is not more than normal that he is very nervous and suspicious of things. Moreover, cyclists in European cities do tend to act as if they own the moral high ground as well as all public space. Consequently they are often insufferable and thumb their noses at traffic laws not to mention common courtesy. George was absolutely within his right to be mad at the cyclist. The cyclist was being irresponsible and reckless and moreover made it a point to use his ethnicity as an unwarranted and unspoken point in intimidating George. It's true that George has a temper, but given the circumstances he was in that is understandable.

Fourth - George's boss having received a tape is now also in a position to hold that above George's head should his boss ever think it useful. And while the boss says he destroyed the tape, his tone makes it obvious he has not. Is it any wonder George is unnerved and upset at this as well?

Fifth, Mahjid's son comes to George's place of work and threatens to make a scene. And for what? Yes, his father killed himself, but I can't really see that as George's fault. George did not set everything in motion by recording the tapes. Someone else did, presumably Mahjid's son and Pierrot. Which in my eyes, makes them the guilty party, instrumental in causing a suicide not to mention potentially wrecking a marriage. If the two youngsters are indeed the instigators of the taping (which isn't all that certain in the first place), then it is they who are lacking in insight into consequences of their actions and they who are the real 'villains' of the story.

We're also supposed to think that George not recognizing Mahjid after some 40 odd years is somehow a manifestation of George's callousness and indifference. But seriously, if the last time you've seen someone is at 6 years of age, how in the world would anyone be expected to recognize them 40 years later? That is simply not a realistic expectation.

So I say it's George who's gotten the worst of it all, after Mahjid. His wife is cheating on him, someone (probably his son) is sending him tapes, his boss has serious leverage on him now, his son runs away and won't explain things afterwards, is sullen and resentful (granted, a typical state for teenagers) and because of someone else's machinations, Mahjid commits suicide in front of him and he has to contend with the police as well. And no one likes to have to explain things to the police. That alone would be enough to give a person bouts of extreme anxiety.

All of the above is enough to make any man irritable and nervous. No wonder poor Georges just crawled into his bed at the end and pulled the covers over his head, hoping that maybe everything would go away when he woke up again. He didn't have one bit of control over events. What else could he have realistically done? He is a victim of events set into motion by someone else.