The Lobster (2015)

29 Jan 2016

#TAGS:
silly humor
stupid

unacceptable suspense (developments predicted too early)
acceptable suspense (developments predicted minutes before)
exceptional suspense (developments not predicted)
some characters lacking development

noticeable acting
over-acted

#COMMENTS:

I thought I would be entertained as I lost internet access and my roommates are all away. I was wrong.

every single character looked extremely austistic, in the most horrible (stereotypical) way. Maybe the creators meant to absurdize commonly accepted behaviors to call people’s attention to these subtleties, but this scenario is so ridiculously reduced and constructed and naive it just feels retarded.

The couples living in the city and the loners in the jungle feels backwards. modernity (technology and knowledge) is precisely what freed us from relationships for the sake of relationships. And since in this world childs are somehow assigned (from where?) It makes even less sense for people to be forced into becoming couples. At least from my personal experience, desires for non-platonic relationship almost always came from the “id.” Clearly people are allowed platonic friendship in both worlds, and I think that’s as effective as it gets in protection from choking and rape.

The whole idea that a commonality is required for relationship feels very alien to me (not to mention the reduction of people to a primary characteristic). A good relationship comes from people accomodating and assimilate each other (the real problem is that people in the film are doing it e.g. lying about nosebleed, (attempting) to blind oneself, but for a completely different and incorrect reason of avoiding detection from the “social norm police.” Again, when people does these things IRL, I highly doubt it is a case of social pressure.)

the lobster and narrator kissing in front of the leader’s parents house is just so goddamn cringy. also why write all that rebellious shit down in a diary in the first place?

the movie hints that mathematics is appreciated in this society (mother of limpy guy that got dumped); I belive whoever suggested that has not a single fucking clue about mathematics.

and the french parts are just pretentious and annoying for the lack of subtitle nor further explanations. But I suppose I’m really just mad at myself for not being good enough to understand it fully.

***: After some discussion with other movie people, I conceded to appreciate the reversal of modern/city:forest::alone:together. The claim is that people paired off are in fact residing in artificial relationships that are richer in pain and pretense, hence the contrast of the protagnists’ excessive showoffs in the city. However as a firm believer of the “law of large numbers” (both in the mathematical/statistical sense that things tend to a Gaussian i.e. mean=median=mode and in the political sense of more people’s beliefs directly translate to more power), I still reject the movie’s depiction. If many people are indeed truly lonely but not alone in the cities, the rules would have been altered. i.e. should the rules existed, it would have to be transient. Just like how quickly divorce become pretty acceptable in the developed world. Also, despite how nobody seems to like G.W.Bush as a president / Donald Drumpf as a candidate, their “success” still reveals many people’s feelings and beliefs.

#TAG SCORE: -12