Daydreaming is a dream experience that emerges from the unconscious. It always revolves around desire and trauma. It is a spiritual vacuum, an island of the soul, a secret garden that others cannot visit. Indulging in fantasy is actually a state of "can't wake up", and the other side of it is "can't fall asleep", which is a manifestation of sleep disorders. Unconscious fantasies break down the barriers of preconsciousness. At this time, people are ignorant, often lost, and forget where they are. Just like the male protagonist, "zone out" and "walked away".
As far as fantasy content is concerned, most fantasy is related to courtship, so "charm" is the core element. American culture describes that feeling as "cool", we call it "brilliant", it is a brilliant moment, winning gesture, which contains the potential purpose of increasing the attractiveness of the opposite sex. Attracting the opposite sex and surpassing the same sex are accompanying events. The fantasy of the male protagonist in the film is mainly divided into two directions: struggle with men and closeness with women.
Another element in the courtship fantasy is the key signifier of desire, the "phleus" (the phallus with symbolic meaning), which recurs in the male protagonist's fantasy segments. Building a relationship either "supplements the other" or "connects the other," which is to either be a phallus or have a phallus. The "teaser falcon" in the arctic encounter fantasy and the "smart dogleg" in the rescue dog fantasy perform the same function, also expressing the "I have that phallus" fantasy. Another key image of Phyllis is the male protagonist's rubber toy. The toy that he played with in his childhood was caught by the male protagonist, which means that he is resistant to castration, so the fantasy of omnipotence and castration anxiety always occur frequently. The threat of castration and the urge of Oedipal complex have never been resolved. The heroine is a mature woman, the male protagonist's desire object is a "mother", and the enemy is a transitional manager, a man/enemy who has more power than himself. The anxiety of castration encountered on the psychological path of "owning Phyllis" is the psychological meaning of the male protagonist's fantasy that rubber toys are competed with by the manager.
The male protagonist's desire to become the woman's "supplementary relationship" is intuitively manifested as the male protagonist's baby fantasy. He imagines that he will die of old age in his girlfriend's arms like a baby! This fantasy is precisely when the male protagonist is close to the female protagonist's son. The male protagonist who is proficient in skateboarding and his son who likes skateboarding connect the position of psychological identity through the symbol of skateboarding. Approaching the female protagonist as a child or as a husband is the unconscious conflict in the male protagonist's heart. This corresponds to the family relationship is the relationship between the male protagonist and the mother (the progress of the relationship between the male protagonist and the female protagonist is accompanied by the presentation of the relationship between the male protagonist and the mother). The piano is an intermediary that connects the mother, the father, and the male protagonist, so the photographer's photo even includes a close-up photo of the piano. The image of the piano participates in a part of the male protagonist's approach to the inner truth. The father giving the mother a piano corresponds to the male protagonist giving the mother a piano. This is the man's position, and eating the mother's cake is the child's position. The fantasy of becoming one with the other party is bound to be broken, because other men have already intervened. When the male protagonist bumped into the female protagonist's ex-husband, he passed the skateboard symbolizing childhood to the female protagonist's child, which is also a turning point in saying goodbye to the children's complex.
The relationship between the male protagonist and his father is actually a more critical part of the background of the story. The death of his father probably once led to the emergence of a family crisis, and the experience of working as a part-time job resurfaced in the form of a part-time shop. This is the historical trauma of the integration of the male protagonist. psychological effect. Father, wallet, piano, and the male protagonist's part-time work experience are connected money themes. The wallet is "loaded with money", which means that the male protagonist can make money to fill it up. "There is no financial help and only demand", so the action of throwing away the wallet may be hateful and confrontational. The "empty wallet" may have replaced the "missing father", and the discovery of negatives is a process of regaining identity.
The story unfolds from the "missing", the missing No. 25 negative is the key vacancy that opens up the dimension of meaning. "The process of filling in what is missing creates meaning" is the underlying expression of the film. Let's interpret the Lacanian concept of the object small a as the missing work No. 25 implied by the film, which loses its sense of reality when it is appropriated, and triggers a frantic pursuit when it is projected onto something. , when it is purely absent, it produces meaning, and the process of the male protagonist finding negatives is the process of generating meaning. The male protagonist's experience of finding negatives based on "clues" is very similar to the process of psychoanalysis to find the truth of desire, and he gradually approaches himself following the mark of the signifier.
Mom's cake and childhood toys are the past that the male protagonist can't bear to let go of. Sticking to this part is related to the psychological barrier of love, because child-like emotions cannot establish an emotional connection with each other. At the beginning of the film, the male protagonist always fails to "greet" to the female protagonist through the website. He doesn't understand it, and the manager of the website doesn't even understand it, but the website manager's guidance is that "the resume is not filled enough", which is actually the growth process. If there are some things missing, the male protagonist crosses thousands of mountains and rivers to supplement these "men's experience". The resume of the dating website is a symbol, and the richness of the resume implies the growth of male power. This is brought by the male protagonist who pursues the photographer, and the photographer performs the function of the father. On the surface, it is a thrilling experience, but behind it is a setback and abandonment. The process of looking for a photographer just made up for an important frustration. The male protagonist's flute being stripped by the security check was a castration ceremony. At that time, the woman just logged out from the dating website, announcing that he ended the Oedipus complex and changed from a boy to a man. That makes it possible to have a relationship.
Daydreamer presents many interesting fantasy scenarios, revealing the connection between absence and meaning, fantasy and castration, which is worth talking about. However, its theme falls on vulgar values, but it is a failure. The so-called "feeling the moment", "love", "action", these words are very empty and can't make up for that lack. Or this kind of sewing is too hasty and perfunctory, like a bowl of chicken soup for the soul. Its eagerness to fill in the void of "meaning" has caused it to fall into a cliché.
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