Dr Mary Kline = Melanie Klein
So what is the Backrooms really about? A psychoanalytic interpretation
Let us begin with the character of Dr. Mary Kline, whose figure cleverly references the psychoanalyst Melanie Klein. Even at this stage, the viewer can guess that if a reference to such a figure is made, the film will be deeply immersed in theories regarding our unconscious - and that is exactly the case.
The Backrooms is a manifestation of the defense mechanisms used by the main character - splitting and projection. Crucially, splitting is a mechanism that organizes experiences, protecting what is perceived as good from what is seen as bad and threatening. We use these mechanisms both during the phase defined as the paranoid-schizoid position (the first months of our life) in Melanie Klein's object relations theory, and following a lived trauma, which the protagonist has undoubtedly faced.
As a result of his trauma, personality fragmentation occurred, wherein the mind "cuts off" difficult emotions and memories from consciousness to protect itself from overwhelming suffering, pushing them into the unconscious. Instead of a single, coherent identity, distinct states and parts of the psyche are formed - hence his presence both in reality (e.g., during therapy sessions with Dr. Mary Kline) and in the Backrooms (the emotional part stuck in the time of the trauma to protect him).
His journey from the furniture store through the Backrooms is a primitive mechanism protecting the coherent, "good" parts of the ego from destruction. The main character lives in a state of suspension. Part of his ego attempts to function in "normal" reality, but his emotional core is trapped in the labyrinth of trauma. Until these two parts are integrated (which in Kleinian theory represents the transition to the depressive position), the protagonist will remain a prisoner of the Backrooms. The Backrooms is a space into which these terrifying, unfelt affects and isolated "bad objects" have been repressed.
Why does the protagonist's therapy with Dr. Mary Kline fail?
It fails because she herself, as a result of her own early childhood trauma, has a fragmented personality (referencing her relationship with her mother). Consequently, according to therapeutic practice, she is incapable of "guiding" the patient any further than she has gone herself, and her capacity for containment is limited. The protagonist, trapped in his traumatic fragmentation, subconsciously senses that Dr. Kline does not understand his suffering on an intellectual level. A patient withdrawn into the paranoid-schizoid position does not need talk therapy - he needs someone to feel exactly what he feels.
Through radical projective identification, the protagonist "forces" Dr. Kline to experience his own terror, making her a prisoner of his internal labyrinth. Now she is the one who must flee from monsters (his anxieties) and wander through empty corridors (his emptiness). This is a metaphor for countertransference - the therapist has been so intensely infected by the patient's emotional state that she has lost her own identity.
Dr. Mary Kline does not end up in the Backrooms by accident. She arrives there because she attempted to contain the patient's trauma, which proved larger than her own unresolved psychic resources. As a result, the patient's labyrinth devoured the therapist's "container". To sum up, there is a principle in psychoanalysis that a therapist cannot help a patient descend deeper into the unconscious than they have descended themselves.
Interestingly, this plotline has a brilliant foundation in the history of psychoanalysis. The real Melanie Klein had an incredibly difficult relationship both with her mother and, later, with her own daughter, Melitta, who, as an adult psychoanalyst, publicly and fiercely attacked her mother’s theories.
The symbolism of the Backrooms characters
- The Pirate: Whom the protagonist played in a commercial for his own store, is a classic figure of compensation and splitting of the ego. In reality, the protagonist feels utterly powerless - he allowed himself to be exploited, paid for his partner's tuition, and was ultimately thrown out of his own home. He became a victim. In the unconscious (the Backrooms), his mind therefore creates the figure of the Pirate - an archetype of someone who takes what they want, rules their own territory, and is aggressive and ruthless. He is "larger than life" because he represents a narcissistic, defensive alter ego. This is a fragmented part of his psyche meant to protect him from a sense of total castration and weakness. Since the therapist proved to be a weak container and broke, the Pirate did not see her as a healer, but as an invader wanting to strip the protagonist of his sole defense mechanism (schizoid isolation). The Pirate literally tries to corner Dr. Kline, forcing her into the role of a helpless victim. The Pirate also destroys the previously weak, harmed protagonist because he despises him. The protagonist's psyche deems its own "suffering self" a threat and decides to put it to death.
- The woman with red hair: Represents the protagonist's partner. The protagonist paid for her life and studies, which in his unconscious was meant to grant him control over her (creating a safe debtor-creditor relationship). Pushing her into the labyrinth as a figure who "does not follow his commands" (the scene where he asks her to turn on the light) is a neurotic reenactment of the same trauma: despite my efforts and resources, she still does as she pleases and rejects me. The patient cannot process the fact that his therapist and his partner are two different people. In his fragmented mind, both have failed him (his partner abandoned him, and Dr. Kline failed to save him). Through scalping (i.e., stripping the identity of one and forcefully thrusting it onto the other), the protagonist executes a fusion of part-objects.
- The fat man who can be eaten (cannibalism introjection ant the primal breast). This is the most Kleinian motif in the entire selection, referencing the so-called oral-sadistic phase. When an infant experiences a chronic lack of love, security, and nourishment (and the protagonist lost his home, a symbolic shelter and "feeding"), a primitive survival instinct awakens in his psyche through the literal engulfment of the object. Because the Fat Man feels no pain, the protagonist can consume him without guilt. Under normal conditions (in the depressive position), destroying or harming someone triggers immense remorse. Here, in the schizoid labyrinth, the protagonist's psyche has created the perfect object to satisfy its own void: it can be torn apart and consumed, yet it does not suffer. This is a pure, biological fantasy of survival at the expense of another.
- The figure in the armchair turning the light on and off: Light and darkness are a metaphor for presence and absence, the safe labyrinth and the terrifying nothingness. During the reenactment of the scene, the protagonist orders the woman to turn off the light, and when she refuses, he does it himself in a fit of anger. However, absolute darkness means coming face-to-face with raw, boundless annihilation anxiety. When the figure in the armchair turns the lamp back on, the protagonist feels immense relief, thanks them, and says that "it is much better now". This figure is the regulator of his psychotic equilibrium. It ensures that the defense system of the Backrooms does not go out - the protagonist prefers the predictable madness of the illuminated labyrinth over the black void of his actual, real-world pain.
Dr. Kline herself gives us the key to understanding what the Backrooms are during a session. She speaks of a situation in which you have to explain to someone what a dog looks like so that they can draw it, even though they have never seen it. Such a person will draw something similar, but ultimately it will not be a dog.
When a person experiences a terror that drastically exceeds their psychic resources, their battered mind cannot truly feel or name it, causing it to desperately begin reconstructing reality based on cold descriptions and defense mechanisms. The result of this painful process is a world resembling that drawing of a dog created by someone what a dog looks like so that they can draw it, even though they have never seen it. Such a person will draw something similar, but ultimately it will not be a dog.
When a person experiences a trauma that drastically exceeds their psychic resources, their battered mind cannot truly feel or name it, causing it to desperately begin reconstructing reality based on cold descriptions and defense mechanisms. The result of this painful process is a world resembling that drawing of a dog created by someone who has never laid eyes on one.
The entire space of the Backrooms, along with its soulless, faceless characters, is precisely such a tragic, distorted mock-up that the protagonist's traumatized mind molded from the remnants of memories, because raw pain blocked his capacity to authentically process and understand his own suffering. This is a reference to what in psychoanalysis (in Wilfred Bion's theory) is called the failure of the alpha function, meaning the inability of the mind to transform raw trauma into healthy symbols.
That's all fresh after the screening, but the movie certainly has more psychoanalytic references, and I would gladly read about them from others.