After watching "The Lobster", I walked alone in a dimly lit room. Jeux interdits was played loudly by me. When I went to the bathroom, I was suddenly scared. There is a feeling of "big brother is watching you". Not only that, but it might also hit me in a brutal way I couldn't have predicted. There is a feeling of being out of breath while sitting under the duvet writing a movie review.
As terrifying and depressing as this movie is, I still have to say it was a pleasant surprise.
single guilty city
There are two worlds in the movie, the city and the forest, that follow completely opposite systems.
In the city, everyone has to be in pairs, and once a single person is found, they are sent to a "hotel". In the "hotel", everyone must find a mate within 45 days or become an animal of their choice. The male protagonist chose lobster. The premise of match is considered to be the common ground.
At first, the male protagonist noticed a girl with frequent nosebleeds and invited her to dance, but the male protagonist did not have nosebleeds, and the girl did not call him. Later, the male protagonist aimed at a girl with beautiful hair and wanted to accompany her to avoid the fate of becoming an animal, but the girl was a person who was loyal to her principles, and he did not succeed. In the end, he obtained the invitation of the cold woman in a way of pretending to be cold, and he joined with him,
Later, Grim Girl kills his brother, and his lies are exposed. In order to avoid the fate of becoming a lobster on the way being dragged by Grim Girl to the hotel manager, he killed Grim Girl, escaped from the hotel, and came to the forest.
He thought that resistance would bring freedom.
unlovable forest
In the forest, people must remain single and not flirt, have sex, or become lovers. In the forest, he met the heroine with whom he fell in love.
After being discovered by the forest chief, the chief took the heroine to the city for myopia surgery to cure her myopia. After the operation, the heroine heard the doctor say that she was blind. Knowing that he was discovered by the leader, he asked the leader in a hurry why he didn't blind the male protagonist. In fact, it can be seen here that the female protagonist no longer loves the male protagonist so much. The female protagonist was afraid that the male protagonist would know that she and him had nothing in common with myopia, and tried to deceive the male protagonist. She began to worry that the male protagonist would not continue to love her. After all, falling in love is based on the common denominator of both being short-sighted.
After the male protagonist found out, he began to ask her other preferences. But he couldn't find anything else in common. At the same time, he helps the heroine develop other senses, such as touch. He took a lot of things for the hostess to touch and let the hostess guess. The heroine, on the other hand, became more suspicious of the hero's feelings, and asked him to continue to give her something to guess. The male lead said tomorrow or a few days later. She said tomorrow morning. Worries are palpable.
In the end, the male protagonist escaped the forest with the female protagonist, and even planned to stab his eyes and create a common ground with the female protagonist.
He believes that resistance and sacrifice can be exchanged for freedom.
Schopenhauer's Pendulum
Under the single-guilty city system, the male protagonist has never loved anyone, but endured pain under disguise. In the end, the male protagonist who did not succumb to the system chose to resist and pursue freedom. So he fled to the forest where celibacy did not allow for love. However, in the forest, he met the heroine he fell in love with, so he wanted to get out of the forest and return to the city where couples could be together openly.
I thought of Schopenhauer's pendulum theory. Satisfied desires lead to boredom, unsatisfied desires lead to misery, and life swings back and forth between boredom and misery.
I thought of Qian Zhongshu's siege. People in the city want to go out, and people outside the city want to come in, but they don’t know that there are endless cities outside the city.
The male protagonist is a bit paranoid about pursuing freedom, just like me when I was young. In order to avoid the fate of becoming a lobster, he can disguise and resist. In pursuit of perfect love, he can sacrifice.
So does he have the freedom and love he seeks? I don't think so.
The ending is open-ended, and naturally there are countless interpretations by 10,000 readers. I'm just talking about my own speculation here.
The male protagonist with a steak knife in his hand recognizes the common ground for love, not just to prove it to the female protagonist, but more to stick to his own creed. There is a turning point in the male protagonist's acceptance of the common ground premise. That's when he rushed into Little Ben's yacht one night and told the girl with the nosebleed that the little Ben's nosebleed was fake. Before that, he didn't care about the authenticity of the common ground, noticed that the girl had a nosebleed and went to invite a dance, and pretended to be cold-blooded to the cold-blooded girl, knowing that Little Ben was disguised but did not reveal it. Before and after the incident, there were many details that he really cared about the common ground. He was very concerned about whether the man who gave the female host a rabbit was short-sighted. After the female host was blind, he asked the female host's preferences and tried to find new common ground. , after finding nothing else in common, he thought of poking his own eyes.
Also, at the end of the credits there's a long black screen that I can't think of anything to say other than the world after blindness.
And the heroine, obviously can see things when sitting in the city. There is a detail after the male protagonist left. She waited for the waiter to leave after the waiter had poured the water, glanced out the window, and then quickly resumed her upright sitting posture, and glanced in the direction of the male protagonist's departure to confirm the male protagonist did not come back. Imagine if you were blind, would you look out the window? Combined with the fact that the previous female leader gave her husband a gun without bullets when he broke up the hotel manager and his wife, it can be seen that she is more inclined to "prove" than to "destroy". So she most likely gave the heroine some medicine to make the heroine think she was blind, but she wasn't.
In fact, at this point, no matter whether the male protagonist returns or not, their love no longer exists. They became celibates - sinners in the city.
Holding a steak knife in his hand, he hesitated, struggled, and finally filled his mouth with tissues and chose to sacrifice, thinking that he could gain freedom and love.
Yet the sound of the waves at the end tells us that he became a long-lived, blue-blooded lobster.
Homogeneity and Heresy
Any social system is assimilating human beings. There seems to be an irreconcilable contradiction between human sociality and the id.
Under the system, human desires are suppressed. People are different, but they must be gregarious. Diversity makes us feel free, and gregariousness makes us feel safe.
The male protagonist tries to submit to the system in the hotel, pretending to be gregarious. But finally chose to fight, finally nature. In the forest, he is also a rebel. But is he really free? They resisted the dominant system, but they still did not escape the social consensus that "love is based on common ground".
Whether in the city or the forest, he is a heretic. However, he did not hesitate to sacrifice a part of himself to find his own kind.
Homosexuals and heretics, caught in an inescapable cycle of death. The same kind excludes the heretical, and the heresy seeks the same kind while insisting on its own uniqueness.
The shady scene that suddenly entered, lasted as long as half a century.
The sound of the waves at the end made me seem to see a silent lobster on the seashore.
I started to think about how similar my current life is to the male lead.
I naturally panic and worry, but I also remain optimistic. Perhaps the only way to solve the dilemma of the pendulum is to be with the light, to abandon all actions, to obliterate the differences of all things, and to live in peace with zero variance, waiting for the end of immortality.
The social nature of people determines that the system is ubiquitous. What is important is not to avoid or break the system, but how to live under the system.
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