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My Life as a Dog . Hallstrom
Swedish movie My Life as a Dog (1985) by Lasse Hallström portraits an alternative growth story of Ingemar who successively “lost” his dog and his mother. When he was exiled from depleted mother and unmanageable brother, Ingemar experiences his early adolescence in countryside community , with caring parental figures, amicable people, even-aged friends, and silent ruminations on his “private” past. Lerner (2004) focused on “golden fantasy” of early parental loss in the movie, and I will focus on the image of mother in provoking Ingemar's misbehaviors and the formation of the golden fantasy.
As Lerner points out, early parent loss not only means the loss of significant objects, but also deprives a part of the self that has been associates with the object from children. Similar to the “mirror-child” scenario that the child desires what his or her mother desires, children learn to adjust their actions to elicit appropriate responses from the caregivers, and in the successful interactions, they gain feelings of competence, empathy, and reality-based positive self-esteem. The failure of carrying-out the process , the unresponsive or frantic reactions of Ingemar's mother and her death, limits Ingemar's developmental capacity of being “noticed, understood, and responded to by the mother.” He constantly maps himself as his beloved god Sickan which ends up to a nameless kennel, the “abandoned” space dog Laika, and other tragic victims.Gone with a positively interactive mother and the possibility of being valued by her, the sense of security also collapses in Ingemar's heart.
Ingemar's mother in My Life as a Dog appears as losing energy and always relating with unpleasant consequences in reality. More noticeably, the communication between Ingemar and his mother always has a tendency of disappointment and mismatch. One clear example is that when Ingemar returns to the apartment and excitingly shares his adventures in Småland with his mother, her sudden cough and consequential request for resting not only disrupts the enthusiastic and cheerful atmosphere, but also diminishes the possibility of predictable and empathic communication forever (56:45). While Ingemar is continuously detached from the competent mother-son interactions, as mentioned above, he adopted misbehaviors and fantasies to manage the chaotic and disappointing reality.
Firstly, the senses of being neglected and rejected not only by his mother but also the world around him (eg uncle Sandberg and his wife) encourage Ingemar to conduct in inappropriate even disruptive way to be heard. Besides, stereotypic behaviors, such as shaking glass and barking, are both the symptom to his anxiety and the solution. For instance, when his mother scolds him on breakfast table (9:15) and when Saga, serving as a reminder of sexual development, enters the party (1:23: 39), Ingemar can't help shaking the glass; on the side, his unconcerned whistling helps to distract himself from the fact that his mother is carrying out to an ambulance (59:00).
Meanwhile, the painful experiences associated with ineffective mother-son bond elicit a “golden fantasy,” that Ingemar and his mother are laughing and playing under sunlight. The fantasy serves as a “sedative (Lerner, 2004)” to alleviate his anxiety and provides a fantasized version of mother to recall and to identify with. Multiple flashbacks of this scene throughout the movie also indicate that Ingemar frequently flee into the golden fantasy when the reality dissatisfies him. Lerner (2004) suggests that the denial of the object loss and the fantasy itself functions as a survival tool and developmental conjuncture to maintain the ego. When two girls are fighting and yelling, which may reminiscent of Ingemar's mother, Ingemar escapes the reality by acting like a dog. However,the intensification of nervousness and the comprehension that his mother and Sickan have dead is too heavy to burden, and when Ingemar retreats to the summerhouse, his Sputnik, the pleasant golden fantasy (ie 1:29:55) can no longer camouflage the painful memories that the mother franticly screaming at he and Sickan (1:31:20). The adoring and responsive mother has replaced by the rejecting and exhausted mother, and the corresponding self becomes occupied by a sense of incompetent and guilty. As Lerner (2004) points out, now “Ingemar is not only Laika but also the Russians who sent her into space,” that he not only identifies with the tragic victims but also the victimizer, being responsible for his mother's and Sickan's death.the pleasant golden fantasy (ie 1:29:55) can no longer camouflage the painful memories that the mother franticly screaming at he and Sickan (1:31:20). The adoring and responsive mother has replaced by the rejecting and exhausted mother, and the corresponding self becomes occupied by a sense of incompetent and guilty. As Lerner (2004) points out, now “Ingemar is not only Laika but also the Russians who sent her into space,” that he not only identifies with the tragic victims but also the victimizer, being responsible for his mother's and Sickan's death.the pleasant golden fantasy (ie 1:29:55) can no longer camouflage the painful memories that the mother franticly screaming at he and Sickan (1:31:20). The adoring and responsive mother has replaced by the rejecting and exhausted mother, and the corresponding self becomes occupied by a sense of incompetent and guilty. As Lerner (2004) points out, now “Ingemar is not only Laika but also the Russians who sent her into space,” that he not only identifies with the tragic victims but also the victimizer, being responsible for his mother's and Sickan's death.and the corresponding self becomes occupied by a sense of incompetent and guilty. As Lerner (2004) points out, now “Ingemar is not only Laika but also the Russians who sent her into space,” that he not only identifies with the tragic victims but also the victimizer, being responsible for his mother's and Sickan's death.and the corresponding self becomes occupied by a sense of incompetent and guilty. As Lerner (2004) points out, now “Ingemar is not only Laika but also the Russians who sent her into space,” that he not only identifies with the tragic victims but also the victimizer, being responsible for his mother's and Sickan's death.
work cited:
Lerner, Howard. "Themes Of Early Parent Loss In My Life As A Dog.". Psychoanalytic Psychology , vol 21, no. 3, 2004, pp. 463-472. American Psychological Association (APA) , doi:10.1037/0736- 9735.21.3.463.
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