Charlie Chaplin's Monsieur Verdoux: A Comedy of Murder

"It's a blundering world out there, and every act of kindness can make it better."

My Linguistics professor Dr. Ricardo Nolasco shared me this comedy film "Monsieur Verdoux"  by Charlie Chaplin  and I first thought it was going to be a French-speaking movie. In the end, I was able to extract the lesson of the story and laugh out in my seat because of the witty lines in the movie.

1930's. Great Depression in Europe. Jobs, none. Stocks, low. For Monsieur Verdoux, his line of business revolves around "liquidating people of the opposite sex." That is, for two weeks, he sends them flowers, flowers them with utopian words, courts them and marries them all at the same time in different places. A traveller, Verdoux also has a true wife and kid whom he supports by fooling women into marrying him and robbing them of their wealth. For him, it is simply business in the midst of a terrible great depression. He has been pushed out of his job at the bank three years ago and since then, he has been courting women and marrying them and robbing them of their money and incinerating them to leave no proof of bigamy. He has many aliases, no insurance and all money goes to the stock market to leave no trace of his crimes. 

What caught me in the movie was the time when he met a young woman who just got out jail and helped her get through the night by offering her dinner and wine. This was the time when he was experimenting on a drug that might cure his sick wife and tried to test it on the young woman. But by the time the woman told him her story, he changed his mind and even gave her money. 

"It's a ruthless world out there, and one must be ruthless about it."

"You're wrong. It is indeed a blundering world out there, but every act of kindness can make it more beautiful."

"You better go, before you corrupt me with your philosophy."

And so the courting and the marrying and the liquidating goes on, until one day, the woman he has an affair with suddenly pops out of nowhere in a wedding where Verdoux would marry his next victim. Everything crashes and finally he was sentenced to guillotine with 12 counts of murder and bigamy. 

What captured me in the movie is how Verdoux considers everything as a business enterprise, and how he was changed by the woman he helped. Most of the time we overgeneralize bad people but what the can't see is that some of them also have the heart to help people in need and have the guts to face their imperfections and change the world.

Reflections on 100 Days to Heaven

My dad. Drama mode.

Aside from watching Spongebob Squarepants and Mr. Bean, I've finally got to like a teleserye that truly feeds the minds of kids like me, with ABS-CBN's 100 Days to Heaven (directed by Malu L. Sevilla). It seriously makes me cry, laugh like a mad man, and learn the practical approaches in life like "you should manipulate the world first before it manipulates you and buries you alive."

Sofia's (Jodi Sta. Maria) father Andres (Joel Torre) truly moves me to tears, given his situation as a physically disabled man struggling to do his job as a financially-supportive father. With his son Kevin (Louis Abuel) unfortunate enough of having leukemia, he could not sleep at night just thinking about how he could provide for his son's medical needs.

I remember my father every time Andres stays late up at night and pours out his frustrations, saying he feels like a worthless father because of his physical misfortune. I always cry whenever I see him selling rags out in the streets, with all his efforts to earn money for Kevin's treatment. I see my dad in him thinking how caring and emotionally vulnerable he is as well, with his determination to make us successful citizens of the world by always working overtime.

On the other hand, there are a lot more lessons I learn from Madame Anna Manalastas (Coney Reyes) and Anna (Xyriel Manabat). 100 Days to Heaven not only makes me want to love and understand my dad more, but also helps me understand the "art of being the bad guy". Anna shares a lot of reasonable viewpoints about life and its cruel reality we've all overlooked and we take as unreasonable.

In yesterday's episode, Anna was trying to prove to Sofia that she did a big favor to her employees by scolding them and simply telling the truth that they were a bunch of failures. I remembered how my strict teachers back in high school scolded us and I tried to understand their intentions that after all, they simply cared about us, for if they didn't, they wouldn't even bother wasting their time reprimanding us. Maybe it was just the same way Anna did.

I've always loved villains, because they're not bad guys after all. Like what Sirius Black (Gary Oldman) said, "We've all got light and dark inside of us. What matters is the part we chose to act on." Anna Manalastas may be that annoying, unreasonable toy empress, but she sure teaches me to look into the other side of bad guys--their good side.

His dreams behind the cowboy suit

Sometimes you have to analyze the nature of others to analyze yours.


A mob boss and a shrink. One engaged in mafia schemes, the other in ginko biloba and ibuprofen overdoses. Without a doubt, both had completely different worlds, but actually shared the same story of loss: the death of their fathers--their heroes.

The comic movie Analyze That (2002, directed by Harold Ramis) seriously confused me whether my tears were brought by crying over Paul Vitti's (Robert De Niro) tragic story, or by laughing off my seat on how he comically hugged his therapist Ben Sobel (Billy Crystal) while crying, looking like 10-year-old kids who just lost their teddy bears. This is the very first movie I watched which taught me how to analyze deeper, that the conflict in any story is not about the entrance of villains, but about their own stuggles with their identities because after all, bad guys never wanted to be one.

Convicted mob boss Paul Vitti (De Niro) itched to get out of Sing Sing Prison, with the Rigazzi mafia trying to kill him. He ended up with a brilliant plan involving West Side Story songs, a catatonic behavior and his therapist Ben Sobel (Crystal). He got his runaway ticket and stayed in Ben's house for everyday therapy.


Paul's story reflect on the Nature vs. Nurture principle. When he was a kid he'd wanted to be a cowboy because his father, also a mob boss, bought him the whole outfit and even made him ride a pony. But then when he was 12 he saw his father murdered right in front of him. All his father's dreams for him as a hero, and not as a mob boss like him, had vanished, with Paul joining the mob since then.

Ben, on the other hand, was freshly grieving for his father and struggled to "reform" the mob boss. As he was "staring into a big hole that he can't fill up", he realized the "assignment" wasn't really a burden; but an eye-opener showing  the effects and implications after one loses a father.


The movie did not only entertain because of its smart and hilarious lines, but also taught a lesson that bad guys, once upon a time, got their own heroes and dreams, too.

"There's a place for us,
A time and place for us.
Hold my hand and we're half way there.
Hold my hand and I'll take you there
Somehow,
Someday,
Somewhere!"

Thank you to my mentor, Ms. Josephine Bonsol, for teaching me how to analyze that.