Thinking of Grandma from the French New Wave Film "Ritual"

The 1995 French director Claude Chabrot's film "La Cérémonie" (La Cérémonie) is based on the British crime novel " A Judgement in Stone " , in which an illiterate woman hides the truth about her illiteracy, initially out of shame. It later turned into an uncontrollable bloody incident.

I am reminded of the illiterate grandmother in Camus's biographical novel "Le Premier homme", although I don't know what percentage of poor Algerians were illiterate at the time, but the grandmother was ashamed to admit that she was Illiterate, pretending that I forgot to wear glasses when watching a movie without knowing the subtitles, but using a clumsy acting to hide the truth, even children feel embarrassed.

Camus (b. 1913) grew up somewhere between my middle-aged grandparents and great-grandparents, and I suspect that similar memories of his grandmother as a child were common among our older generations. Perhaps in such a detailed description, these illiterate images will be portrayed as a bit of a harlequin—they hide the facts they don’t want others to know in a very obvious way, and others will see them in their eyes, just pretending to be stupid out of politeness— —I feel very sad that even in the age when education was not yet widespread, uneducated people would feel inferior to others.

It's not their fault that they were born into a poor family. In those days, many people probably didn't finish the five years of compulsory education. Even when I read Italian novels set in the 1960s a while ago, many poor Neapolitans dropped out of primary school, and teachers had to spend a lot of effort convincing parents of talented students to continue their studies.

Grandma is already lying down

I remembered a few years ago that I met an editor who was born in 1995 at work and complained to me that his grandmother was "too self-motivated".

I don't quite understand how someone would say that about their elders, and I was curious to ask him what he meant? It turned out that the grandmother had a junior high school education, but she only watched dramas at home every day and did not want to read or study. According to him, even the elderly who only graduated from elementary school would go to the elderly university for "advanced education".

Compulsory education only reaches the age of primary school, and junior high school students even have to study. That grandmother is younger than my grandmother. My grandmother has a high school degree, but she is an old man who doesn't want to work hard. I was used to such a grandmother since I was a child, and I never thought that my grandmother could actually make progress . I just wish she wasn't just playing trash at home at that age.

Grandma is 85 years old this year. Born in Yunlin, she went to high school in Taipei 70 years ago. She should be considered a scholar among the people of that era, right? My grandmother's mother is from Dadaocheng. When she was fifteen years old, she lived with her two brothers who were studying at National Taiwan University at a relative's house in Taipei. The brothers were college students who went to cafes and watched movies. Grandma followed suit. Anyway, she She didn't expect to go to college. She went to high school for the marriage market, not because she likes to read. It's pretty miserable for people who don't like to read to be forced to go to high school.

My grandmother was a lovely old man and anyone who knew her would soon find she was very modern thinking, completely free from the sexism or feudalism of the era, she never discriminated against anyone, but that wasn't a love of reading or an open mind - I don't know People who are in love may think that it is through reading to change, after all, the social atmosphere at that time was not like that.

But the fact is that she was "born in the right family." Her father insisted that she finish elementary school and then go to junior high school. She couldn't go to the local high school and went to Taipei to see her. Growing up in that environment, her behavior and thinking are reasonable and not like her primary school classmates born in the same village, and it is conceivable that her childhood friends should have nothing to talk about with her.

Camus' grandmother pretended to be literate, and my grandmother didn't care about being considered illiterate

When I was a child, my grandmother would put the newspaper on the floor, and then bent over to read it with a magnifying glass, but she had no literary soul and was only interested in the financial section of the newspaper. When I was in elementary school, I had to buy the Lianhe Wanbao for my grandmother after school. That was the only thing she bothered me about. I was too lazy to go to the convenience store at the entrance of the alley to buy newspapers, and when the adults got off work, the newspapers were gone.

So when someone recalls how their grandmother worked diligently in the kitchen, working on her grandson's health career, or other narratives that are more appropriate for women of that era... I don't remember anything. It's just that my grandmother who doesn't like to read is like her parents. For some reason, she cares about my education . She bought the first set of natural encyclopedia when I was a child - my grandmother who likes to read financial editions, and hopes to have someone who is interested in natural science. Granddaughter, and I have always loved the humanities since I was a child.

I think (it has to be said that the world is not fair) the way of life she was accustomed to since she was a child was not achieved by her own efforts, she would not want to argue about everything, and she was just like what others thought of her. This is exactly what I learned from "Ritual" The reason why the movie thinks of grandma.

A person who does not have inferiority complex does not need to prove anything to others.

On any occasion, she never looked overwhelmed, and she was always used to or didn't care how others viewed her, so that twenty years ago, my grandmother had poor eyesight and insisted not to wear glasses, so she stopped attending church meetings. Read the Bible and be considered illiterate by others. But I don't understand why that person just pointed out "you are illiterate". If you really meet an illiterate elder, you will definitely be very hurt.

In modern times, if there is still illiteracy, it is the injustice of social class.

When it comes to the cover up of illiteracy, I saw a similar situation in church when I was a child. When I was a child, I saw an older person pretending to not be able to read clearly and asking others to help turn over the Bible. The grandmother who really could not read would not do this, nor would she deliberately explain that she did not understand. I don't know, because I can't see clearly. In fact, I don't need help from others to turn it, and I still can't see it when I turn it over.

Suddenly thought of these, but I guess many people may not know the movie "Ritual". Chinese and Hong Kong translations as "Grim Ritual":

Sophie is a maid who hides her illiteracy with diligence and competence; she later meets Jenny, who works in the post office, and she always advocates that Sophie fight against her high society employers; stoking friendship, encounters class differences, dignity , jealousy, and finally became out of control.

The heroine is actress Isabelle Huppert (who gives me goosebumps in every play she plays, from piano teacher to widow).