HS4G VIEWING NOTE / Human Surrender
Anxiety and Mourning in "Human Surrender"
FILM AS A ROOM THAT WATCHES BACK
Text | Du Lan
This article enters "Human Surrender" from the perspective of anxiety, illusion, castration tension, separation of character and actor, second-person call and the double meaning of "surrender".
VIEWING POSITION
Anxiety is not the theme but the average texture of the film
P4 Theater's "Human Surrender" (this film is a collective creation), the most interesting thing about the whole film is that it shows a kind of anxiety, or the whole film is in an anxiety, not only the lens, but also the sound design
The entire film continues at an even pace, making a sound like fingernails scratching on a blackboard, or something approximating that of body mucus.
In the basic plot of "a director directs a play", the "movie within a movie" becomes the essence of anxiety, which is the support for its illusion. The role of "director" in the film is the spokesperson of illusion - although he directly speaks about anxiety, his words about anxiety have become our only fulcrum.
It is this pivot that keeps us from drowning in the anxious substance of the drama. In those shots of the stage, rehearsals, and performances, we get a little respite.
VIEWING POSITION
Director: Let us avoid the illusion of being overwhelmed by anxiety
Which is to say that, amid angst, we need a director who, despite the script, is here to deliver dissatisfaction.
But with this dissatisfaction, the drama of anxiety has an external perspective, an illusion that puts us (as the audience) slightly closer to the anxiety itself.
This raises the question of castration, which, according to some viewers, is a play of acceptance-we accept our flaws, our ideal selves grow, and so on. But doesn't this complete acceptance of castration eliminate the tension of castration?
VIEWING DOOR / Audience entrance
If castration is fully accepted, the tension of castration is removed; what remains is not tranquility but the complete immanence of anxiety.
Without this tension, we are precisely in the complete immanence of anxiety.
VIEWING POSITION
Separation of sheets, characters and actors
Therefore, at the end, the actor covered himself with a sheet and would not come out no matter what. The actress asked: "No one can see you! Is this what you want?" The actor said: "Yes."
SCREEN STILL / Screen Notes
Figure 01｜The white cloth is not a simple mask, but saves the "invisible" as a boundary that is still present.
At this time, the real production team of the film appears on camera. The actor jumped out of the sheets, that is to say, the actor left the character behind, left the stage and went to the production team, while the character remained in the play.
In my opinion, this is the meaning of the title of "Human Surrender" - the character chose to surrender and stayed in some eternal space, while the actor left. Therefore, it can be said that the actor completed the mourning for the character and allowed the character to live in a sea of anxiety, so that he could escape.
SCREEN STILL / Screen Notes
Figure 02｜After the backstage went dark, the production team and on-site installations made the "end" look more like a separation than a seal.
VIEWING POSITION
The Creator leaves creation
To put it another way, the entire movie refers to the tense of "past". The Creator leaves creation, and thus the pre-history of the world, and in the film they are presented directly as anxiety.
So can we imagine such a perspective? Is there a second-person reference toward the actor in the self-ness of anxiety? (According to the English title of this movie
Shoot Self with You
I'll deal with it like this here)
VIEWING POSITION
Second person: the object faces the person who has not yet arrived
It is an impossible perspective of a thing, looking towards a person who has not yet arrived (it is not until the end of the film, with the actor's departure, that the actor becomes that "outside perspective"). In other words, things are materializing people, and things turn pure anxiety (pure anxiety cannot be counted as anxiety) into humanized anxiety.
SCREEN STILL / Screen Notes
Figure 03｜The actors and the audience are in the same position: they are not the ones who own the work, but the people who are projected into the world by the work.
Here, the actors and the audience are in the same position. The actors are the embodiment of the audience in reality, and they are projected into a world by objects.
In the world, anxiety becomes anxiety. From the worldless perspective of things, although anxiety is not yet anxiety, in its terror, it pushes us into a world. Therefore, it can be said that the second person of "you" is a call towards the future.
VIEWING POSITION
Two kinds of surrender
The word "surrender" can finally be spoken of. If the first type of surrender is the sinking of the character (sinking into the immanence of the script), the second kind of surrender is that the character cannot sink.
Just like the actors in the film who continue to act after they have acted, we can also imagine the audience in real life who want to watch it again and again after watching it. Then the reference of objects to people here has always remained open. This is where the film retains a certain unfinishedness (in other words, the second-person "you," which never comes yet), which still awaits the viewer to complete it, or surrender to it.
SCREEN STILL / Screen Notes
Figure 04｜The ending archive saves the names, but also the unfinished separation: the list is not a possession, but a late registration.
About the author
Du Lan
Lacanian psychoanalysis expert and psychological counselor. Now lives in Nanjing.
"Human Surrender" file
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