This is a commentary on The Lobster, a film by Yorgos Lanthimos. "Spoilers" will be interwoven throughout this review. We predominantly split into sections here at The COARD, but we also tend to review formulaic movies. Today, we review a film. There are no key plot points to spoil here; only art to discuss.
Cody: In The Lobster, Lanthimos takes us inside his mind for a bleak and satirical view on society and mating norms. The directing and cinematography in this film created the dystopian setting that allowed the viewers to enter into a world that was different than our own. It was obvious to anyone with artistic perception that Lanthimos wanted this to be a recognizable but differentiated version of our own reality. Similar to how a caricature resembles the subject in a distorted manner, so too did the world in this film resemble, yet distort, the society in which we all live. The characters were simultaneously lively, dry, and exaggerated. There wasn't any explanation given about where these people were or what the purpose was, and that was expected. This was a film, not a movie. Movies hold your hand and walk you through a cookie cutter plot. Film asks questions and expects you to interpret the answers with little guidance. I may not have all the answers on The Lobster, but it cannot be denied that it was art. And art is good.
Roy: This film was as beautiful as it was disconcerting. There were not any grandiose shots of landscape or scenery. The cinematography in this film was simple, and yet striking. There was nothing special to gawk at, and yet I couldn't look away. Part of the reason for this was the disturbing premise. Lanthimos brought us into a world where it was illegal to be single. You may wonder why that would be? Rest assured, if you are wondering that you have already proven yourself not to be up to the task of understanding this film. Good effort though. In The Lobster, people who are single are a drain on society. They do nothing but fill it up with their lonely selfishness. Thus, society has found a way to make these people useful enough to be able to contribute. One is given a brief period to find a mate, otherwise one is turned into an animal. And if that were not enough, the prospect of finding a mate is more difficult than expected. One cannot just pick a mate like one is picking a ripe banana. No, one must have something in common with the potential mate. Only then can both parties agree that they are a match for one another. The brilliance of this film is that Lanthimos showed us a world where for the first time, society puts the same amount of pressure on people to pair up that we often put on ourselves. Too often, people choose a partner that they know is wrong for them, or they completely ignore red flag after red flag for no other reason than they do not want to be alone. The Lobster takes this a step further. In this story, not only has society deemed a person without a partner as utterly useless, they have taken drastic steps to enforce this belief. It's an external view of an internal state that has become commonplace in our world. While dependence on one another is a beautiful and necessary thing, we should not sacrifice our independence in its place. It would not be untruthful to state that our society has regressed to a point where co-dependence has hit an unhealthy level (i.e. all social media). I applaud the bravery of Lanthimos for showing us what that really looks like.
Cody: I was enthralled by the inclusion of the characters searching for their like trait in another. A microcosm of the way we view relationships. "Oh, we have this in common, so we must be a good pair." All without digging deeper into what actually makes a relationship tick. The petty jealousy when a character found that someone else may have something in common with his mate. The lying by another character about possessing a trait in order to find a match. Sound familiar to anybody? That's because people will often go to any length to avoid being alone. Yes, this film had a morose take on relationships, but Lanthimos did not stop there. People who chose the single life received the same exaggerated treatment. Closing themselves off from feelings with the punishment of physical pain should they catch themselves drifting in the vague direction of love. Whether they've been hurt in the past, or consider themselves above the current state of relationships, The Lobster pokes at the determined zealot nature of self imposed relationship celibates. This was a key piece of the film to me. Had it been a bleak attack on relationships, it might have come across more arrogant. Which isn't to say something can't be both arrogant and great. I can think of at least one example where excellence and arrogance coexist perfectly. It's just that the balance between the satire on single and matched people allowed for an honest interpretation, rather than leaving you feeling defensive about one side or the other.
Roy: I want to explore something you touched on. In this world there are two factions. The couples and the loners. Because it is illegal to be alone, the loners are forced to live in the woods like animals and hide from the world. Which is ironic because that is the very punishment they are attempting to escape. This movie deals heavily in the exploration of the emotion love, but there is one other emotion that gets just as much screen time and is a constant presence in this film. Fear. Fear is thick in the air during every second of this film. Whether it is single people attempting to find a mate before their deadline is up, or loners falling in love and hiding it from their group, or the fear of giving up something of unmeasured value in order to stay connected to the one you love... Fear is everywhere in The Lobster. It was fear that drove both of these factions to punish those who were different. Conformity was the gospel in this world, and non-conformists were the pariahs. That is why this film was so unsettling. It was a love story, but make no mistake. It was dark. It was the juxtaposition of love and darkness where the beauty in this film was found. While companionship was the expected standard in this world, true love was nowhere to be found. Until it was. At which point I found myself desperately hoping that love would somehow survive.
Cody: The lengths people will go to fit into societal norms was on full display here. One man gives himself regular bloody noses in order to pair with his mate who has legitimate naturally occurring bloody noses. I know the unmeasured value of which you speak, but before I touch on the open ended finale for this film, I want to discuss the fascinating war between the factions. The symbolism was most clear to me here. The relationship faction hunted and captured single people and turned them into animals to be sent into the forest. They misunderstood and feared those that would choose to live alone, so they forced them to be simpler and lower, as in animals. The single people fought back, not with violence, but with sabotage. The loners didn't know how better to punish the lovers than to expose the frailties in their relationships, thus leading them down the path to being loners. There isn't a right or wrong side here, but the differences are interesting. I repeat, there is no right or wrong side. That's actually the entire point. Neither faction understands their opposite, and their misunderstanding breeds animosity. Let's all just agree to be more accepting of people who are different than us.
So back to the ending of the film. Here's a quick breakdown for those of you that haven't seen it and want to understand this last bit of the discussion. The two lovers who were supposed to be loners are discovered by their faction to be not loners, but in fact, lovers. This is a criminal offense. The punishment ends up being that the woman in the pair has her eyes surgically blinded. Because society has rules about matches, the man has a choice, he can either leave her and start again, or he can also go blind and stay with her. We see the man sitting in front of a mirror with a steak knife pointed at his eyeball. The film closes with the woman sitting and waiting for him to come back from the bathroom, after presumably violently blinding himself to be with her. Which choice does he make? Which would you make? True love or sight? Loaded question. I'm not going to guess at what choice the man makes, because Lanthimos doesn't want us to. There are two ways to interpret this. How far would you be willing to go for love? How far can society's expectations push you?
Roy: While you may not be comfortable guessing at the ending, I thought it was less ambiguous. I had no doubt that the man was about to puncture both of his eyes in order to be with the woman he loved. Their whole plan was to leave the loners and rejoin society as a couple, which they could now do. The entire film, this individual desired more than anything to find someone. He even pretended to be a psychopath just to find a match. Finding someone with anti-social personality disorder was preferable to being alone. He only joined the loners because he no longer had any choice in the matter. He loved his match more than anything and seemed completely willing to lose his sight if it meant he got to be with her forever. Lanthimos created a more powerful ending by not showing us the result of his actions. The film closed with the woman sitting at a table in a restaurant patiently waiting for her lover to blind himself. We heard no screams, had no evidence he was carrying out his intentions. Maybe it's the optimist in me, but I have no doubt that he blinded himself for love. A lobster wasn't just his choice of animal in the event the worst happened. Lobsters have terrible eyesight, and many of them are completely blind. Let us not forget that poor eyesight is what matched these people to begin with. And while lobsters do not mate for life, which is a common misconception the world has thanks to a sitcom that is decidedly not art, a cursory Google search proves people continue to equate that with lobsters. Viewing the end of the film from that point of view, I don't know how one could come to any other conclusion. Love wins. Even in the darkest of worlds, where happiness is the exception to the rule, it is nice to know that love endures.
Cody: I know how one could come to another conclusion. By not looking through a rose colored glass point of view and instead being open to different interpretations. See? That simple.
Roy: Or... one could stop trying so hard to be a hipstered up tortured soul and could possibly recognize they are actually super close minded when it comes to interpreting art.
Cody: I was enthralled by the inclusion of the characters searching for their like trait in another. A microcosm of the way we view relationships. "Oh, we have this in common, so we must be a good pair." All without digging deeper into what actually makes a relationship tick. The petty jealousy when a character found that someone else may have something in common with his mate. The lying by another character about possessing a trait in order to find a match. Sound familiar to anybody? That's because people will often go to any length to avoid being alone. Yes, this film had a morose take on relationships, but Lanthimos did not stop there. People who chose the single life received the same exaggerated treatment. Closing themselves off from feelings with the punishment of physical pain should they catch themselves drifting in the vague direction of love. Whether they've been hurt in the past, or consider themselves above the current state of relationships, The Lobster pokes at the determined zealot nature of self imposed relationship celibates. This was a key piece of the film to me. Had it been a bleak attack on relationships, it might have come across more arrogant. Which isn't to say something can't be both arrogant and great. I can think of at least one example where excellence and arrogance coexist perfectly. It's just that the balance between the satire on single and matched people allowed for an honest interpretation, rather than leaving you feeling defensive about one side or the other.
Roy: I want to explore something you touched on. In this world there are two factions. The couples and the loners. Because it is illegal to be alone, the loners are forced to live in the woods like animals and hide from the world. Which is ironic because that is the very punishment they are attempting to escape. This movie deals heavily in the exploration of the emotion love, but there is one other emotion that gets just as much screen time and is a constant presence in this film. Fear. Fear is thick in the air during every second of this film. Whether it is single people attempting to find a mate before their deadline is up, or loners falling in love and hiding it from their group, or the fear of giving up something of unmeasured value in order to stay connected to the one you love... Fear is everywhere in The Lobster. It was fear that drove both of these factions to punish those who were different. Conformity was the gospel in this world, and non-conformists were the pariahs. That is why this film was so unsettling. It was a love story, but make no mistake. It was dark. It was the juxtaposition of love and darkness where the beauty in this film was found. While companionship was the expected standard in this world, true love was nowhere to be found. Until it was. At which point I found myself desperately hoping that love would somehow survive.
Cody: The lengths people will go to fit into societal norms was on full display here. One man gives himself regular bloody noses in order to pair with his mate who has legitimate naturally occurring bloody noses. I know the unmeasured value of which you speak, but before I touch on the open ended finale for this film, I want to discuss the fascinating war between the factions. The symbolism was most clear to me here. The relationship faction hunted and captured single people and turned them into animals to be sent into the forest. They misunderstood and feared those that would choose to live alone, so they forced them to be simpler and lower, as in animals. The single people fought back, not with violence, but with sabotage. The loners didn't know how better to punish the lovers than to expose the frailties in their relationships, thus leading them down the path to being loners. There isn't a right or wrong side here, but the differences are interesting. I repeat, there is no right or wrong side. That's actually the entire point. Neither faction understands their opposite, and their misunderstanding breeds animosity. Let's all just agree to be more accepting of people who are different than us.
So back to the ending of the film. Here's a quick breakdown for those of you that haven't seen it and want to understand this last bit of the discussion. The two lovers who were supposed to be loners are discovered by their faction to be not loners, but in fact, lovers. This is a criminal offense. The punishment ends up being that the woman in the pair has her eyes surgically blinded. Because society has rules about matches, the man has a choice, he can either leave her and start again, or he can also go blind and stay with her. We see the man sitting in front of a mirror with a steak knife pointed at his eyeball. The film closes with the woman sitting and waiting for him to come back from the bathroom, after presumably violently blinding himself to be with her. Which choice does he make? Which would you make? True love or sight? Loaded question. I'm not going to guess at what choice the man makes, because Lanthimos doesn't want us to. There are two ways to interpret this. How far would you be willing to go for love? How far can society's expectations push you?
Roy: While you may not be comfortable guessing at the ending, I thought it was less ambiguous. I had no doubt that the man was about to puncture both of his eyes in order to be with the woman he loved. Their whole plan was to leave the loners and rejoin society as a couple, which they could now do. The entire film, this individual desired more than anything to find someone. He even pretended to be a psychopath just to find a match. Finding someone with anti-social personality disorder was preferable to being alone. He only joined the loners because he no longer had any choice in the matter. He loved his match more than anything and seemed completely willing to lose his sight if it meant he got to be with her forever. Lanthimos created a more powerful ending by not showing us the result of his actions. The film closed with the woman sitting at a table in a restaurant patiently waiting for her lover to blind himself. We heard no screams, had no evidence he was carrying out his intentions. Maybe it's the optimist in me, but I have no doubt that he blinded himself for love. A lobster wasn't just his choice of animal in the event the worst happened. Lobsters have terrible eyesight, and many of them are completely blind. Let us not forget that poor eyesight is what matched these people to begin with. And while lobsters do not mate for life, which is a common misconception the world has thanks to a sitcom that is decidedly not art, a cursory Google search proves people continue to equate that with lobsters. Viewing the end of the film from that point of view, I don't know how one could come to any other conclusion. Love wins. Even in the darkest of worlds, where happiness is the exception to the rule, it is nice to know that love endures.
Cody: I know how one could come to another conclusion. By not looking through a rose colored glass point of view and instead being open to different interpretations. See? That simple.
Roy: Or... one could stop trying so hard to be a hipstered up tortured soul and could possibly recognize they are actually super close minded when it comes to interpreting art.
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