K Star Stranger is a film that is difficult to define by genre. Elements such as aliens and the speed of light travel make the form of the film appear sci-fi, and the film breaks through the sci-fi itself and further explores family emotions, spiritual strength, and the problem of mental patients who have visited the cinema many times.
Indeed, "psychophilosophy" is no longer a rare subject in the world of cinema. Since Freud's psychoanalysis became popular in the world in the early 20th century, film masters such as Hitchcock have already begun to explore the images of mentally abnormal characters in movies, such as "Bonnie and Clyde" and "A Clockwork Orange". "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest", "Born to Kill", "Deadly ID", "Silence of the Lambs" and "Black Swan" are all classic works that we are familiar with. As Foucault explained in Madness and Civilization, the concept of "madness" has always been the object of artists' writing. In the long history of human beings, madness has not only stayed at the level of spiritual phenomena, but has penetrated into more In the huge social system and cultural phenomenon. [1]
The definition of a madman
In K-Star Stranger, we can easily find a lot of interesting philosophical questions about psychosis. "Genius on the left, lunatic on the right" is one of them.
Are the people in the madhouse crazy? Who is in the madness outside the iron gate and inside the iron gate? The answer given in "Flying Over the Madhouse" is rebellious and tragic. The protagonist Mike Murphy is not a lunatic, but he led his patients to revel, challenged the abuse and torture of medical staff, and became dementia after being operated on. Hannibal in The Silence of the Lambs is a psychopath, but his madness is not the result of internal causes, but psychological trauma caused by painful memories.
The director of "K-Star Stranger" explores the human definition of the mentally ill. In the film, the doctor found that Prote did not have any intracranial injury, nor other physical manifestations of mental injury, and his logical deduction ability and scientific knowledge could not reflect his lack of reason.
Prote was identified as mentally ill because his self-perception was different from what ordinary people imagined, and his worldview and common-sense cognitive schema contradicted that of ordinary people.
The existence of the social role of "mentally ill" endows human beings with the ability to deny others from the source. To define someone as a "mentally ill person" is to categorize certain thoughts as absurd and wrong from the source, and to give up the opportunity to reflect on oneself. . Everyone in "K Star Stranger" is trying to save Prote, trying to "save him", but they don't know "save him from what". The doctors' task becomes to eradicate Prote's bizarre worldview, denying the possibility of Prote being an alien from the start, and attempting to unify his subjective consciousness with that of a normal human being.
Psychiatry provides pathological and biological objective support for the classification of mental illness, so that individuals denied by this method of classification cannot be refuted. Once identified as mental illness, there is no way to prove your dissent is true, because your All premises and thinking have been thrown into the wrong set. The only way to be re-accepted by society is to obey the rationality of normal people and give up one's own freedom of thought. From a larger perspective, this is the complete victory of rationality over irrational and the victory of institutional consolidation.
2. Educational treatment
In the film, Prote lists three tasks for another patient, telling him that he can be cured if he completes these three tasks. Powell, the attending physician who knew the news, was outraged and went to accuse Prote, telling him that he couldn't tell his patients under oath that they could be cured or how. Faced with the doctor's accusations, Prote said, "If it's your responsibility to heal them and not mine, why didn't you heal them?"
So, can the mentally ill be cured? How are mentally ill treated? What is the operating structure of a mental hospital?
Foucault elaborated in Madness and Civilization that during the Renaissance, madness was seen as a wild fantasy, and madmen were allowed to express madness freely. [2] In the period of classicism, the lack of working ability of the madman made it a crime against nature and society. The method is to create an isolated space, and manage the irrational people in this space by means of labor and restraint, so that the external society can get rid of the pressure brought by these irrational people. As a result, asylums and insane asylums were built, and the mentally ill were brought together for treatment.
In Foucault's eyes, most of the cures in mental hospitals are not physical corrections. In comparison, they emphasize moral re-education.
In the treatment of mental hospital, medical staff represent rationality and authority, and the behavior of patients is the object of observation, judgment, acceptance and correction. If a mental patient commits violent, out of control and other deviant behaviors, the doctors and nurses will turn into law enforcement officers to suppress the criminal behavior, and then turn into judges to judge the patient's behavior of crime and punishment, and finally play the role of priest or parent. role to persuade, induce or intimidate the patient. Mental patients are repeatedly indoctrinated with the concept of right and wrong, and realize that wrong behavior will make them suffer from flesh and blood. Over time, the discipline and precepts of mental hospitals have become moral judgments, and mental patients have gradually developed a sense of guilt.
Some people use the family structure to interpret the mental hospital, saying that the entire mental hospital is actually an isolated moral world, in which the mentally ill are "children" who learn morality and socialize, and the doctors are the parents with patriarchal authority. Suppress and guide irrational "children". [3]
The escape and pursuit
Similar to many movies revolving around mental hospitals, "K Star Alien" reflects the estrangement between the patient and the doctor, the mutual understanding between the patients, and the patient's escape mentality in many places.
Foucault said that madmen are not sick people. Crazy people do not display the usual weakness and haggardness of patients, they are more often wild and uncontrolled active. At the same time, madmen are physically strong and brave, and that animalistic recklessness makes them immune to hunger, heat, or cold. [4] Their sluggishness makes them rarely show a lack of immunity and a need to be protected. Therefore, doctors and nurses may subconsciously lose the motivation to treat patients kindly. In addition, the fear and disgust of medical staff as rational people towards mental patients who symbolize bestiality may also exacerbate the sense of estrangement between the two sides. In fact, patients in mental hospitals are always observed, not interlocutors. In order to keep the observation undisturbed, the doctor will deliberately keep a distance from the patient. In "K Star Stranger", the dean once criticized Dr. Powell and Prote for getting too close.
Lack of communication with physicians, patients can only develop deeper connections with their fellow patients in order to meet the need for dialogue and socialization. This kind of "friendship" between patients, I don't think, can't be explained by sympathy, or simply "madmen can understand madmen." Because mental patients are not ordinary patients, they cannot realize that the commonality between them is sickness. They may not even know whether they are sick or not. They can only realize that all patients are in mental hospitals. The "ruled" is the object of trial, indoctrination and punishment. They are equal sinners and believers who are bound by the same kind of morality.
In this film, the mentally ill are portrayed as very homogenous. When they found the "Blue Bird", they all jumped to the window and cheered wildly, forming the so-called "Mass Hysteria". At the same time, they all manifest a common ideal, which is not to be healed or re-accepted by society, but to leave Earth with Prote for the planet K-PAX. If we think about "why the mentally ill have a strong escape psychology" from the perspective of directors and screenwriters, the answer is humanitarianism.
The mentally ill people in this film are a collection of symbols of the vulnerable and the traumatized. Some of them babble "You are stink", and some are immersed in their own homeless depression. The mental hospital cannot change their past. Even the dark experience cannot cure their spiritual wounds. At this time, the distant K-PAX was endowed with the romantic hope of a paradise, which means that the patients are seeking to get rid of the painful memory and escape from the rational world. In human society, the irrationality represented by mental patients is conquered by reason. They are symbols of poverty, disorder, and evil, and are suppressed and manipulated by rational mechanisms. They cannot obtain self-centered freedom, but can only do morality imposed by others. Ethical slaves, only by escaping to a place like K-PAX will they have the chance to be allowed to enjoy their madness freely.
4. Multiple identities of Prote
Aside from the topic of "psychophilosophy", another prominent thread in K-Star Stranger is family. The film adopts an open ending. According to one interpretation, Prote is an alien from K-PAX. It is an alien in a spiritual form. It has no entity and can only be attached to a certain earth person. The purpose of Prote's coming to earth is to explore the mystery of family. He was friends with Prote's body, Robert Potter, and possessed him to experience the extreme pain of the broken Potter family. At the same time, Prote was invited to Dr. Powell's house through Potter's body, where he saw the appearance of a happy human family and realized the ethics of family love. At the same time, Prote is actually feeling the family system when he is in a mental hospital. The operation mechanism of the entire hospital is that medical staff use the power of patriarchy to educate mental patients - "children".
The family ethics that the director wants to express is actually very simple. Family is beautiful, and people should not give up family and family. There is no family in Prote's hometown of K-PAX, their sexual intercourse and reproductive process are not pleasure but pain, their children are raised by everyone, and they have not experienced the taste of family affection. In fact, the social mechanism of K-PAX can inspire us to think in the opposite direction of modern family ethics and gender relations. In a modern society where people's personal abilities are enhanced and the mechanical power of the macro-society far exceeds the power of the family, has the meaning of family declined? Perhaps, the human beings in the primitive society formed a family more for the pursuit of material security and comfort, while the modern people formed a family more for the pursuit of intimacy and personal sensual pleasure.
But at least in the film, Prote manages to give Dr. Powell a lesson in family affection. A stranger who doesn't have a family and doesn't understand blood ties actually gave a family love lesson to a person on earth with a happy wife and children. This is actually a common phenomenon in contemporary movies. In many stories, the person who appears to be irrational, dull, stupid, and weak compared to others, instead plays the role of educating everyone and giving others enlightenment. Forrest Gump, who is physically and mentally unsound, taught the company captain optimism and courage; the lowly heroine in "The Last Holiday" made the upper class people see the truth, goodness and beauty of the meaning of life. Prote has always been a wise man who inspires others.
In addition to being portrayed as a wise fool, Prote's existence also implies an image of a savior and guardian. Prote said he was Potter's friend, and he was there whenever Potter needed him. This time, Prote shows up when Potter's wife and children are slaughtered, and out of grief attempts to commit suicide by jumping into a river. Porte descended and possessed Potter, allowing the nearly drowned Potter to escape danger and enter a mental hospital. On the eve of Prote's departure from Earth, he said to Dr. Powell, who had discovered the truth: "Now that you know the truth, help me take care of him (Potter)."
Humans seem to have always fantasized about the love and care of the patron saint. The primitive beliefs of the tribe look forward to the blessing of the untouchable one with an almost foolish attitude, giving them material wealth and peace; the religions created by human beings will bring inner peace. Pin on an external supreme thing, and exchange submission for happiness; in the myths of various places, the deeds of gods sheltering or helping people also frequently appear. This kind of worship of the patron saint has been flowing in the blood of human beings and continues to this day. Nowadays, the "Superman" male protagonist often seen in Korean dramas protects the female protagonist, and the protagonist in the Internet Xianxia novels accidentally found the protective deities. These works are all without exception. Expose human expectations for strange powers. In the film, Prote is Potter's savior, a helper for the mentally ill, a symbol of the power beyond human reach.
5. Conclusion - the contemporary significance of the mentally ill
In Madness and Civilization, Foucault expounded the "madness" of the classical period as a symbol of poverty, sin, and depravity. However, the images of mental patients displayed in modern literary and artistic works such as "K Star Stranger" have added a sense of humanitarianism and expectations for returning to nature.
Nowadays, the mentally ill are no longer the absolute degeneration of human nature, and they are not allowed to be regarded as objects of contempt and bullying. They are even endowed with a beautiful spiritual atmosphere in many literary and artistic works. This modern shaping of the image of the mentally ill may be accompanied by wishful thinking of romanticization, but at the same time it also reflects the rebellion of the spirit of modern critical theory against industrialized society and the domination of society by reason. The irrationality represented by the mentally ill is depicted as simplicity, spirituality, kindness and true knowledge. The creators use this to praise the irrational will that has not been alienated from material and formatted by industrial society. Behind this will is a strong sense of freedom and simplicity. temperament. A demented and happy psychopath and a sad and wealthy middle-class white-collar worker, many creators are happy to create such irony.
In this sense, like many classic films on the subject of mental illness, the imagination and thinking contained in "The Alien from K Star" can be used as a spiritual force to stimulate the self-objectification of the world and the mechanization of society.
【References】
[1] Li Jin. On the "madman" image in American films [J]. Film Literature, 2016(47):46-49.
[2] (France) Foucault. Madness and Civilization: The History of Madness in the Age of Reason [M]. Beijing, Life, Reading, Xinzhi Sanlian Publishing House, 2003: 52.
[3] (France) Foucault. Madness and Civilization: The History of Madness in the Age of Reason [M]. Beijing, Life·Reading·Xinzhi Sanlian Publishing House, 2003: 236.
[4] (France) Foucault. Madness and Civilization: The History of Madness in the Age of Reason [M]. Beijing, Life, Reading, Xinzhi Sanlian Publishing House, 2003: 67.
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