Imagine a world.
Not like this one.
Just slightly off.
Grab an everyday object and then take it away.
What would happen?
Let’s take a look at this jenga.
It’s composed of several blocks forming a tower.
We take away pieces and it becomes unsteady, fragile and weak until it falls.
Now imagine we did that with the world, our society or our humanity.
What if we took away some elements (building blocks) and distorted them changed them.
Let’s say we take away some every day common things like... books, What if we took away
something fundamental like the ability to give birth?
No longer having normal food supplies?
What if we take abstract things like: ideologies,
privacy, health,
law & order?
How would the world look like then?
What set of rules would we have?
What becomes acceptable and normal?
What becomes marginalized and untolerated.
Many books have inspired themselves by asking these types of questions.
Some have been portrayed cinematically, breathing life to unique worlds . Some are gritty worlds
we would never want to live in, where there's constant danger, fear and persecution.
Others are more subtle with their approach.
They’re almost a utopia, outwards they look like something we would want to be a part
of and one day hope to achieve as humans, but the utopic beauty is usually superficial
and hides a shadowy side of society and of human nature.
These worlds are created with a high concept.
Perhaps by a key event that has changed the world , but these stories are not about the
events that created these realities.They’re more importantly about how these external
factors affect the characters that live in them.
This is what dystopian movies explore by presenting a dark mirror version of the world or by fragmenting
it and ultimately distorting it to view humanity under a different lens.
They create a context that helps show what human beings are truly made of.
It serves as a pressure cooker for human behaviour.
In this new world, how would we act?
What decisions would we take?
How would our wants and needs change in the face of these inhuman events?
What happens when we strip away the things we thought were necessary for our existence,
what’s left?
What will always be part of who we are?
How much can be taken away before we lose our human identity?
Could it ever be lost?
And if so...could we ever get it back?
Some dystopian movie explore these themes by throwing a wrench to the world and seeing
what happens, but other movies are a bit more clinical.
They grab a human element and they magnify it and exaggerate it until it becomes absurd.
This is something we can see in the movie “The Lobster”.
It’s a world that looks much like ours, but the rules of the world render it almost
unrecognisable as if we were seeing a disturbing, heightened, offsetting parallel Universe of
ourselves.
A world where human relationships are taken to a severe extreme.
It is illegal to be single.
You must be in a relationship and it is expected of you to be with you companion at almost
all times.
Even if you get divorced or if your Significant other dies, you need to find another mate.
You cannot be a loner.
If so, you will be taken to a hotel where you will have 45 days to find someone you
share a defining characteristic with.
If you can’t find a companion, well then you will be turned into an animal.
Of your choosing.
These are the rules of the world that our main character David has to follow.
His wife has recently left him and he sees himself forced (without protest) to go to
the hotel to avoid a literal dehumanization.
Now the interesting thing isn't how this world got to be like this.
That’s never mentioned nor is it important to the story.The importance is how these rules
affect the world and the people that inhabit it.
-Now the fact that you'll turn into an animal if you fail to fall in love with someone
during your stay here is not something that should upset you, or get you down.
Just think, as an animal you'll have a second chance
to find a companion.-
We can start by observing how the rules have externally affected the environment and the
characters into a coerced uniformity (robbing them of their individuality).
The characters, the sets and the locations are presented to us is in a aggressively normal
way.
It looks like our world and it’s supposed to.
The normalcy of the cinematography is deliberate.
The minimalist portrayal of this reality serves two purposes.
One is to ease us into thinking this is a world we recognize.
The second is to make nothing stand out.
Everything looks ,controlled, still and measured.
There’s no camera shake.
Even the moments of tense action are filmed in a way that looks subdued.
The action does not leave the frame.
Same can be said about the characters.
They all wear the matching clothing.
Be it as guests in the hotel, loners in the woods or as couples in the city.
Regardless of physical clothing they all seem to be walking around with the same layer of
loneliness stitched to their skin.
The art direction looks purposely bland, complimented with a the drab color palette all forming
a parade of the mundane so nothing gets to stand out.
This uniformity has even invaded their speech pattern
- Have you seen John’s leg?
No John would you... show your leg?
Oh yeah… -
The characters sound the same.There is no cadence in their voice.
No emotion behind their words which is odd since they’re usually talking about relationships.
They say Hello the same way one character can says:
- I killed your brother … I left him to die very slowly…
He may not be dead yet even as we speak. -
and in the same sentence…
- Would you like some coffee?
I'd love some… -
It’s very blunt and matter of fact.
Even when they sing or dance it’s devoid of life.
The rules share the same particularity.
They try to make everything conform.
- Is there a bisexual option available?
No sir this option is no longer available since about last summer do to several operational
problems.
Hmmm
I'm afraid you have to decide right now if you want to be registered as a homesexual
or heterosexual. -
The rules are made in a way to avoid any grey areas.
Even something as trivial as half sizes for shoes is seen as non conforming.
- Shoe size Please?
44 and a half.
44 or 45 there are no half sizes.
When David escapes to the woods to live as a loner, he seems to have evaded the rigidity
of the hotel but he end up meeting with its extreme opposite with their own set of rules.
- any romantic or sexual relations between loners are not permitted and any such acts
are punished.
Is that clear?
Can I have a conversation with someone?
Of course you can, so long as there is no flirting or anything like that.
- What happened to your mouth?
He can’t speak.
He was given the Red Kiss.
What’s the Red Kiss?
We slashed his lips with a razor and the lips of another loner and we forced them to kiss
each other.They were flirting, you know.
No matter what David does he’s still stuck in a world where he has to conform to a set
of rules which deny him agency in his life.
- Now have you thought of what animal you would like to be if you end up alone?
Yes. A lobster.
Why a lobster?
Because a lobster lives for over 100 years, are blue blood like aristocrats and stays
fertile all their lives.
We can notice how the rules of the world have managed to affect the characters internally
by deforming their humanity, leaving them to be blank canvases, defined only by their
external traits.
There’s a particular oddity visible with the characters of the Lobster.
In other movies it could be seen as a simple omission or style taken by the writer but
in this case it adds to the efforts of dehumanization.
Most characters don’t have names and non existant are last names. Let’s take a look
at a paragraph of the script introducing us to the other guests of the hotel:
We see NOSEBLEED WOMAN, her BEST FRIEND who stares at her, Biscuit Woman (with one hand
tied behind her back), CAMPARI MAN, LISPING MAN and HEARTLESS WOMAN, characters we will
get to know later [...] David spreads butter and marmalade on a slice of bread with one
hand and eats.
Limping Man and Lisping Man come up to his table.
Rather than having names they’re defined and reduced to a title or a character trait.This
treatment is repeated to almost all the characters regardless of importance to the story...Because
in this world that’s what matters.
Their basic defining characteristics are the only way they can find a match and achieve
coupledom so they can fit with the rest of the world.
- Im very happy because we have a new couple they met just two days ago but they are very
much in love an perfectly suited.
They both have the same problems with their noses.
They bleed quite suddendly.
[applause] -
To an extent, it’s similar to our world.
When we want to get to know someone we establish things we have in common.
Sharing the same like or dislikes in idle everyday things or beliefs but in the world
of the Lobster the director purposely grabs this element in human nature and exaggerates
it to a degree where people can only be in a relationship by forcibly having something
in common.
Something as trivial as having a nice smile, liking butter biscuits or being good with
maths.
Making the bond between the couples extremely thin and superficiel.
- My mother was left on her own when my father fell in love with a woman that was better
at maths the she was.
She had a postgraduate degree I think wheres my mother was only a graduate.
My mother entered the hotel but didn’t make it and was turned into a wolf...
I really missed her. -
Although not everyone in the hotel has an easy time finding a match.
It’s like they’re all playing an odd game of musical chairs trying to find someone out
of urgency before the time runs out.
- New guest arrived yesterday.
Yes I saw.
I think I saw a woman with a limp.
It’s just a sprained ankle.
She’ll be waking normally again in a few days.
That’s a shame.-
One of David’s friends in the hotel decides to fake chronic nosebleeds just so he can
be with someone.
- [REALLY LOUD BANG]
[SMALLER BANG]
Is it coming out?
The limping man opts for self mutilation to force a physical similarity with the nosebleed
woman while David decides to fake a behaviour to form a connection with the heartless woman.
- The last thing I want right now is a kiss from a silly little girl
[kick]
[parents surprised]
[girl whimpering]
Don’t cry Elizabeth. You should thank me.
Now you’ll have a limp and be more like your father.
The matchup doesn't last long because she quickly finds out that he has been lying about
their connection after seeing him cry from killing his brother.
Before she gets to tell on him, he manages to tranquilize her and escape to the woods
to live as a loner.
It’s there where he meets the nearsighted woman
Someone he truly shares a defining characteristic with.
- I didn’t know you were shortsighted.-
- Do you have astigmatism too?
Yes!
But since they both live under the same loner rules, they can never be with each other.
This is where we get to see David have a sliver of agency.
He begins to disregard a set of rules to be with her.
Someone he’s starting to care about.
- We developed a code so that we could communicate with each other even in front of the others
without them knowing what we are saying.
The code grew and grew as time went by and within a few weeks we could talk about almost
anything without even opening our mouths -
Although this is tested once the Lead Loner blinds the Nearsighted Woman as a consequence
of their relationship.
When David finds out, he’s distraught but not so much for her becoming blind but for
them having lost the connection they both shared.
She’s still the same person emotionally and mentally but the influence of this world
is so strong in these characters that they see the loss of this shared superficial defect
as something that handicaps their relationship.
They are now uneven.
It causes David to hesitate being with the Nearsighted Woman but ultimately his need
to be with her pushes him to escape to the city so they can become a couple.
- [Long silence]
Can I have a knife and fork please -- Not a butter knife a steak knife.
Certainly. -
The interesting thing we can observe is that the director is not trying to say something
about the characters.This allegorical tale is about what we can find in ourselves.
David wants to stay inside of a system to avoid being lonely, this is what drives him,
and in the process he’s increasingly disregarding his identity but that’s just an extreme
symbol of things we might have a bad habit of doing in our own lives.
We don’t outright conform to a set of rules, but by osmosis, we end up following them.
Have we ever avoided getting out of relationships because of what other people might say?
Or to simply avoid being alone?
Have we ever feigned interest just to have something in common with the person we liked?
Have we moved in with someone, gotten married or had children just because it was the natural
next step that was expected of us?
Of course these aren't groundbreaking examples, but they do show we can willingly give away
parts of our individuality without the help of earth shattering events or a strict invasive
dictatorship.
As we see David struggle with gouging his eyes out, he’s weighing two things in the
balance . One, risking not conforming and breaking free from the suffocating uniformity
or option two stabbing his eyes out following blindly with the rules of this world.
Dehumanizing himself out of the fear of being alone.
This is a story that’s meant to provoke us.These unemotional blank characters are
made to create an emotion in us.
To make us question the everyday human behaviors we set upon ourselves.
What do these characters have to say about us?
Do we willingly give away our own identity?