Trickery.

Having watched He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not, the idea of semiotics have become much more clear to me. This film does exactly what film is about, in a very extreme manner. In the beginning of the film, I thought, "how wonderful, another film with Audrey Tatou being cute and in love!" I was wildly mistaken. The first half, yes, it was as though her character was just in love and going through some hard times with her boyfriend. Turns out, he isn't even her boyfriend. He doesn't even KNOW her by name. The first half of this story shows us and has us believing that she is a sweet girl, but she's actually a complete psycho. Much like Hitchcock's the Rear Window, the semiotics in this film go to an extreme. Most films ARE supposed to take you to a certain point of view, and these do. But, the viewer often forgets that that being biased also means that they don't have the full story. Therein lies the manipulation. The viewer when first watching is supposed to give the utmost trust to what the film is telling them. The storyline does not always have to match. This vulnerability is probably the hardest to achieve in film--the viewer feels betrayed, but realizes that life is that much more complicated.