u/toastypyro

So far Lynch has been a director that clearly doesn't hit for Adum the way it does for his fans (i.e. me). But I really wonder how a dive into what might be his greatest work - Twin Peaks - would go. There's a good chance it'd be better to just give him the stretch of episodes in season 2 to skip so he doesn't drop it, especially when I think his reaction to Fire Walk With Me and The Return would be incredibly interesting to see.

I always thought The Return's style felt like it circles into being what an unironic masterpiece from Neil Breen would look like. Breen is clearly influenced by Lynch, but has a low-budget, incompetent, Vegas-man approach that makes it perfect outsider arthouse good-bad. But The Return's anti-style, commentary on enshittification, and low-budget approach, along with large segments set in the Las Vegas area, made it weirdly full-circle into echoing the style of 'Lynch-inspired' filmmakers like Breen. Evil Coop is literally a Neil Breen character in how he dresses and how his storylines go. The fact there are twin Coopers throughout gives heavy Cade and Cale Breenness as well. But even more bizarrely, The Return has this anti-style yet still works completely, with genuinely effective scenes, characters, and filmmaking. I want to see how Adum's brain reacts to this.

So i finally caught Obsession last night, and in short I do find it a great horror film. the surface level has been discussed plenty already, but I want to explore what I saw as larger ideas contained within.

the feel of the movie is what really stays with me; there’s a tense and sad vibe that permeates from beginning to end, and I think is a key part of the real horrors its talking about.

The feeling of this movie really stands out, leading me into finding multiple meanings to it that feel like its hitting on a very contemporary version of misery that’s affecting young people. I felt like it shares a lot with Cloud, Kiyoshi Kurasawa’s latest film, where the awful protagonist is more the 'disgraced billionaire' archetype, but nevertheless is used to explore the empty pursuit and hollowed out life he actually lives as an average person. The obsession that’s eating away at the reality of gen z is to false feelings, served as a product in the form of a constant screen handed to them to escape from the abject nonexistence of hope for a better life from a hostile, downward society. From the beginning 'confession' in the diner, we see Bear engaging with an avatar of his affection, and pouring his real, vulnerable, troubled feelings at it. We then pull back to see the complete artifice of it, and introduce the environment in which Bear lives - having authenticity reinforced as embarrassing and a bad move by his friend Ian, who can only offer 'the plays' as how to get the girl (which becomes relevant when we find out his own situation with Nikki). This vulnerability, this embarrassment in putting yourself out there, is what an entire generation has built a risk-aversion to in the wake of social media. In the first act of the film, Bear can be seen as a victim of an environment that extinguishes a slower, more genuine pace of interaction. He's even supposed to be relatable to most guys watching. And it's a trap.

Bear part 1) People have sussed out that Obsession is portraying a kind of incel with Bear. But it does take the time to portray it realistically and sympathetically enough at the start that it doesn't alienate people who are on any level of the pipeline. Bear is clearly anxious and self-loathing all of the time. The banter between his friend group illustrates how he is out of pace with everything, in a way where others are the problem - he's just a hopeless romantic who wants to discover what he wants to say as he says it. Being genuine. But of course inside this self-perception are the truths he constantly keeps away. He is severely depressed, in the kind of way where he can't function in casual bar or party settings because he is deep into his own head and worried about issues not relevant to the social setting. The film starts off with him finding his cat dead, and it's genuinely tragic. It sets the stage for how insincere every interaction he has afterwards is. He's grieving inside, but can't let this consuming side of him out at all. Worse, he thinks he can use the idea of love to escape it all. His obsession with Nikki is a classic case of using a person as a fantasy of happiness. Only once you get that special person can you begin to heal all your inner demons, start becoming a better person, become an adult. He is aware of the monster within him from the start, but his misery is a self-absorbing one, and he will refuse help while not being able to take any steps himself to change until the inevitable conclusion comes to fruition.

What's scary about the tone of the film is a complete absence of love in the wake of fast-paced vicarious experience and inauthenticity. The real Nikki says a central line early on, where she's talking about her dream, which is writing, and how she can't get to the heart of her story because she doesn't feel love. The whole energy of the movie communicates this horrifying void where love is supposed to be in modern life. I think it's intentional how parents are portrayed -- or really Not portrayed -- as a presence in the characters' lives. Sarah, the most likeable character probably, does seem close to her dad. Just her dad, no mom. And this relationship exists as her working at his store. And getting her friends jobs there (where they clearly don't need all of them). The relationship of this generation to their parents and grandparents is steeped in transactional dependence, in a way where they've inherited no sense of love either. Bear never mentions his parents ever or contacts them; but he can afford to live in a house because he got it from his dead grandma. Nikki is revealed to be distant and separate from her father; no mention of mom either; and how does she have a place of her own? Ian looks like he lives at his parent's place, but they are never seen. It feels like there's an absence of any roots these people have, and that they've been raised more like pets, dependent on their family for food and housing and detaching from them emotionally because of it. These are all characters at the age of graduating high school and needing to become adults -- but they are completely unprepared to take on this role. They have no prospects, are self-absorbed and desperate... Bear can't even be responsible of taking care of a cat. They're not on their way to the picture of a happy family life that you know exists in their heads as what they're supposed to have.

Added to this is a huge tonal component of the film, mortality. It's in the dialogue about having time left, the dead cat, the dreams that aren't coming now that they aren't kids anymore. The silent-hill esque score is very ethereally creepy, and Bear's inevitable path towards suicide is felt throughout. The wrongness is present in the entire film, in a way where these mundane environments, the extras seen around, the friend group dynamics that go nowhere, are all meaningless details in the march of time. The film is filled with artifice, from the lighting to the cinematography to certain dialogue, to how the moments of gorey violence also come off as a bit incorporeal. Death is like a switch throughout. sarah is killed in a very drawn-out way, but as soon as Nikki burst through the window and we see what she's doing, Sarah is like a ragdoll, already no longer a person. Ian is shot and gone in half a second. The way the wishing willow stops it's effect upon death gives the exact moment Bear dies a 'switch' like quality, playing a heavy role in what will happen to Nikki. At this point it's even pulling its audience to root for Bear's death even as it presents it as cosmically terrifying and infinite for him. I feel like it's capturing a generation that lives online, virtually at an accelerated pace, exposed visually to all the world, and then off-screen having nothing to do, nowhere to go, no one they feel truly connected to. Bear looks like a barely-functioning mess throughout, and it further sets him apart from everything. He's bewildered by his own existence and his involvement with any crazy thing that happens around him; and this level of solipsism makes him a tragic villain in his own story.

So once Bear makes the wish, what is the 'love' that gets explored?

Bear part 2) We begin the film seeing Bear’s unhappiness coming a lot from his peers and environment holding no place for romanticism or vulnerability or even just speaking more slowly; he’s what a lot of guys of his type feel themselves trapped in. But it needs to be said: how can you expect to love someone if you can't love yourself? Bear made his wish expecting that a Nikki who loves him more than anyone will take care of him and his needs. But the reality is that a relationship involves him having to take care of her and her needs, which only drives him to continue burying his preexisting issues, and building resentment in turn. Now this could be portrayed by any story from any time as it's pretty universal relationship dynamics. But something about Obsession does come off as specific to this generation. Through media, pornography, virtual realities, people are so encased in their worlds of cheap, dissipating reward. When Nikki first changes, the cinematography frames her front in dark shadow, emphasizing that Nikki has been used a mold to fill with Bear's desires. And if he had to say what he's looking for in a person specifically, he wouldn't even be able to say. The shape of his wishes is a vacuum, born of a vague need to be loved. It also emphasizes that Nikki's body type (silhouette) is probably a bigger factor in his obsession than he wants to admit. It's clear she's a different person, and he realizes his wish actually made this happen; then he has sex with her. Up to the first night with fake-Nikki where he doesn't sleep with her, he is paralyzed by the ambiguity of a person's feelings, and cannot will himself to engage in figuring out what dynamic between him and another exists, with the possibility of rejection. But as soon as he knows there is nothing out of his control, he goes for it. I think he knows fully well that he took Nikki's agency away from the start; the belief that it kept the real Nikki but made her love him is a thin deniability. I like that the level of obsession fake-Nikki has is as high as it will get from the start. That was the wish, and the unchanging nature of it is in the face of Bear's character development, where he pretends he's changing or realizing anything new as the consequences just continue to pile up and he continues to fail in actually loving Nikki the way he wanted her to love him. As his character is revealed more and more, it clarifies how untreated self-misery is a vehicle for rape, despite the way people deny they would be that person. People also escape into their screens to avoid ever putting themselves out there, partly because once you do, the worst parts of you come out too. Many men in the incel sphere can only see the two options of terminally online isolation or predatory gaming of women.

By the 3rd act, Bear is just a totally pathetic person with no sympathy. All he can think about is himself, to greater and greater detriment of everyone else. It ends with him facing death, but ultimately going out like a bitch. Failing to commit to sacrificing himself (and I'm guessing inevitably going to kill Nikki instead of himself) but dying anyway, and being tossed off like trash. The ending leaving Nikki alive feels kind of easily interchangeable, like it could've ended either way, and they chose the more 'responsible' one that lands on at least a little bit of feminist optimism. She is the victim, and though both dying would solidify the horror and total failure of Bear as a person, it does feel conscious about the message it sends about the women in these scenarios, letting us see the real Nikki again and give her agency. It's definitely not a happy ending for her, but hey, you're either alive or dead.

In another 2020s way, the ‘relationship’ in the film between Bear and Nikki reminded me of AI at some points. The arc of a lonely man getting an AI girlfriend who can only confirm their biases leading to them killing themselves has already happened. The fucking attitude of the moguls selling this supernaturally powerful product just kinda bumbling like ‘yeah well i sell it and you buy it dude’. The owner of the product answers the phone himself and sounds like the kind of dudebro who mindlessly began his startup, pursuing the bag over even a comprehension of the technology (magic here) he's acquired. The lower-level vendor at the shop also shows no care or accountability, and before his voice is tuned out in the sound mix is telling Bear he could just kill himself. Who’s going to hold those who created this for-profit brainsucking media environment accountable? Just as people's lives are ruined by the current paradigm of big tech, they clamor for it. It grows unopposed, unlegislated, unregulated, off an addiction model and a manufactured treatment of it as like magic, beyond anyone's control.

Another fact people should know: the portrayal of their interactions is clearly modeled on that of an owner and a cat. As someone who recently became dad to two cats that turned into four temporarily, involving lots of drama along the way, this film was attacking me personally. It also just brings the death at the beginning and the power dynamic into clear focus. Bear lost his cat at the start, and in a way just replaces it, with a woman. It becomes more apparent over time, like with Nikki pissing on the floor, having weird lithe movements, and even wearing a tiger-print top for a while. The thing about cats is a lot of people get them expecting to train them, but cats try to train their humans too. The strategic shows of cuteness or affection in order to get what they want, the yowling and clinginess (not wanting their owner to leave the house for example), that doesn't erase the potential for predatory instinct or violence at any moment. The way Bear yells at her when he wants her to listen to him, and it's clearly not going to get through to her, is as pointless as yelling at your cat to do something. The way it portrays jealousy/possessiveness at her 'owner' interacting with another woman also has a cat-like silliness within its toxic-relationship mold. Thematically, the cat thing is part of a commentary on the protagonist and his inability to love or take care of another living being. Sandy's death was in fact due to his negligence. He even neglects his grief over the death when his 'aspiration' in the form of Nikki talks to him. The demon-Nikki even acts unusually insidious by touting the cat's dead body over Bear. Could it be to torment him into accepting he can only have a fake-love like hers, and this is what happens to his real relationships? The vigil even comes off as the demon overestimating Bear's capacity for feeling - he just tossed Sandy into a trash bag, and calls the setup she did psychotic (it kinda is contextually), ironically ignoring the evasive psychopathy within him.

A flaw i felt was in straddling the comedy-horror tone that’s very in vogue right now. It kinda relinquishes a lot of the bodily horror present, which diminishes the full horror they could've achieved along with its existential, thinking-plane ones. Imagine if this also matched Possession’s level. It made moments of violence feel glib in a way that’s afraid to be uncompromising despite in many ways wanting to be that. If that, the easy premise, and the Blumhouse distribution were all to get a wider audience, it worked. But that just means i sat in a theater with constantly yapping, joking, noise-making phone-goblins who tragically missed that the film is a warning about them.

There are also some flaws in the script, but the character dynamics are incredibly well thought-out and do a lot to elevate the story as a whole, instead of all the side characters being distractions from the main plot. You can feel when a movie is saying something true and deep on a metaphorical level, and Obsession is rich with it. It’s why the feeling of this movie is so potent. An environment so devoid of likeable people. Such cynicism towards these people possibly achieving their dreams. The scene of a billion dollars plummeting to the ground in front of them while he looks absolutely miserable is such a great encapsulation of what wealth looks like from outside now (Mr Beast videos, anyone?). Sarah's dream of getting into a college is a classic mode of escape from dead small towns like the one Obsession is set in. But what we're seeing currently, in college applications and job hunting, is higher rejections and impersonality. She gets the acceptance as a sick joke, because she was never going to get her wish. No one is.

The story may feel very contained, but the more i think of it the more this film works as a deceptively abstract representation of the 2020s and all its maladies.