University of Amsterdam
Melancholy and the unfamiliar space
The melancholic experience in the foreign city space and in the
proximity of the void in outer space
Alexander Post
Thesis for the
Master of Arts in Cultural Analysis
Dr. Esther Peeren
15 June 2014
Table of contents
Introduction .............................................................................................................................. 1
Charting the vast discourse of melancholy ............................................................................. 2
The contagious nature of melancholy ..................................................................................... 6
The spatial elements of melancholy ....................................................................................... 7
1. Capturing melancholy in the unknown city space .......................................................... 10
The melancholic lining of romance ...................................................................................... 12
Shaping Bob’s melancholic archetype ................................................................................. 15
Charlotte’s melancholy exposed ........................................................................................... 17
Bob’s displacement from his own image ............................................................................. 21
The futile search for purpose ................................................................................................ 22
The melancholy of being alone together .............................................................................. 25
The mocking smile as melancholic relief ............................................................................. 29
The vast and solitary space of melancholy ........................................................................... 35
2. Melancholy in the proximity of the absolute ................................................................... 39
The ambivalence of loss ....................................................................................................... 40
A melancholic desire for other worlds ................................................................................. 42
The corporeal composite of Chris’ melancholy ................................................................... 44
The proximity of the void ..................................................................................................... 49
The confrontation with the absolute ..................................................................................... 50
The structure of melancholy in outer space .......................................................................... 53
Conclusion .............................................................................................................................. 56
Figures ..................................................................................................................................... 61
Works cited ............................................................................................................................. 66
1
Introduction
The relationship between melancholy and space has intrigued me since I spent a summer
living in New York City. Without knowing much about the complex nature of melancholy, I
remember using melancholy to describe the ‘empty’ feeling I experienced at the time. One of
my old journal passages written in New York illustrates this well:
I woke up feeling completely empty. Right now, it feels like everyone in this house
is dying slowly. Marissa went back home because her best friend overdosed on
heroin, Kate is thoroughly heartbroken and numb, Justin is living his life a lie, and
Charlie is pretty much dead already. The house is in disarray and it affects me.
New York is killing me. There is too much doubt, pain, misery, and hate to deal
with here. People are dark here. When they are light, it means they are drunk or
high. I am living one of those lives in which one hopes that things will start being
meaningful soon.
Curiously, these dark emotions quickly disappeared when I left this city. I believe my
melancholy tied to this particular space. Fascinated by this phenomenon, I started thinking
about the relationship between melancholy and space. How can a place ‘be’ melancholic?
When I started my research on the nature of melancholy, I discovered that melancholy is
a highly elusive concept that in its very nature resists signification, explaining why it often
leaves one feeling empty in its ungrounded sadness. The elusive nature of melancholy did not
make it easy to correlate it with a particular place without my writing becoming too intuitive
for an academic thesis. Nevertheless, I persisted and started looking for auditory and visual
cues in films that portrayed a melancholy, which reminded me of my own experience in New
York. I chose to analyse films, because I believe film is a medium that can aptly visualise
how the experience of subjects can shape the spaces they roam. In my analyses, I discovered
that moments of isolation and solitude often prompt melancholy. My findings resulted in the
2
following thesis, which investigates how certain qualities of unfamiliar spaces can affect and
intensify experiences that are closely associated with the experience of melancholy. I will
argue how these qualities allow the experience of melancholy to occur in a subject that is
susceptible to the effects of isolation and solitude, and how, in order to maintain a sense of
(subjective) reality, these qualities can actually necessitate the experience of melancholy in
spaces that are too close to that what the subject cannot understand.
Charting the vast discourse of melancholy
Before I proceed, I wish to clarify my definition of melancholy. However, positioning my
own research in the vast field of the study of melancholy is not an easy task. Over the course
of two centuries, melancholy and its relative melancholia have come to be associated with
(and disassociated from) humoural imbalances, behavioural and pathological symptoms,
affective mood states, intellectual capabilities, and, in Sigmund’s Freud’s psychoanalysis, the
work of mourning.
Given my experience in New York City, I am inclined to think of melancholy as an
affective state, a mood, or an emotion. The etiological definition of melancholy, specifically
in Freud’s melancholia, as a disease, long shaded this concept, which has its roots in the
Hippocratic tradition.1 My findings resulted in the following thesis, which investigates how
certain qualities of unfamiliar spaces can affect and intensify experiences that are closely
associated with the experience of melancholy. I will argue how these qualities allow the
experience of melancholy to occur in a subject that is susceptible to the effects of isolation
and solitude, and how, in order to maintain a sense of (subjective) reality, these qualities can
actually necessitate the experience of melancholy in spaces that are too close to the
unimaginable.
1
Writers have used the concepts of melancholy and melancholia inconsistently since their
first emergence in Aristotle’s work, but under the influence of the writings of Emil Kraepelin,
melancholia came to represent the psychological disorder of clinical depression, while
melancholy remained associated with the mood state (Radden 64).
3
With the rise of clinical psychiatry in the late nineteenth century, melancholy lost its
prominence as a pathological disorder and became just one of the symptoms of (clinical)
depression. This resulted in a renewed interest in melancholy as an affective mood state.
Because I will use the latter notion of melancholy extensively, I believe Jennifer Radden’s
elaborate historical account of the concept of melancholy as a mood state is worth pursuing
before I proceed.
In her book Moody Minds Distempered, Radden describes how the various
conceptualizations and historical accounts of melancholy and melancholia have developed in
the Western hemisphere over the course of the last two centuries, leading up to what
melancholy is generally considered to be today. She asserts that, around the second century,
the Hippocratic humoural lore identifies melancholy as an eponymous disorder. Melancholy
was the effect of black bile, one of the four bodily humours, becoming overly excessive,
heated, or viscous. Its symptoms include moods of fear and sadness without cause and
“unwarrantedly dispirited and apprehensive affective states” (Radden 5). In effect,
Hippocratic writing confirms the first psychological symptoms of a largely physiologically
constituted melancholy. In her work, Radden also describes another ancient trope that
attributed melancholy states “to men of brilliance, greatness, and creativity”, which she
defines as the Aristotelian notion of melancholy (5).
In the medieval period, Christian values merge with classical Greek themes; although
melancholy becomes a morally dangerous, demonic state, the Aristotelian notion of
melancholy survives. The homo melancholicus is born: the brooding, creative man of genius,
who is under demonic and magical influence.2 Between the seventeenth and eighteenth
century, the Greek humoural lore becomes less prominent in the conceptualization of
2
In his book Stanzas, Giorgio Agamben describes how the medieval noonday demon was to
strike religious monks at noon, insinuating a horror of one’s place in the monastery. After
exhibiting inertia and rancour, the victim would suffer from a peculiar restlessness, senseless
confusion, and emptiness. Agamben identifies the Renaissance as the period when “the moral
doctrine of the noonday demon emerged from the cloister to join ranks with the ancient
medical syndrome of the black-billed temperament”—making melancholy the “lay heir of
cloistral sorrow and gloom” (13).
4
melancholy and black bile becomes nothing more than a metaphor for the darkness associated
with melancholy. Radden does emphasize that the link with intellectual pursuits and
brilliance remains, but is now compensated by the notion of suffering: “new focus came to be
placed on the melancholia’s unsociability, his love for solitude, and the discomforting selfconsciousness that was acknowledged as both cause and symptom of his condition” (7).
However, mood states of apprehension and sadness remain undiminished and Radden, using
Robert Burton’s work on melancholy, identifies melancholy as “momentary, felt, affective
occurrences in contrast to more habitual states” (43).
In the wake of late eighteenth-century Romantic sensibility, the poetic notion of
melancholy as transitory and passing subjective moods eclipses the notion of melancholy as a
biological imbalance of humours. For the first time, “the expression ‘melancholy’ lost the
meaning of a quality and acquired instead the meaning of a ‘mood’ that could be transferred
to inanimate objects” (Radden 44). William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet is one of the
first recorded texts to use melancholy in this way. When Capulet realises that Juliet is dead,
he declares:
All things that we ordainèd festival,
Turn from their office to black funeral:
Our instruments to melancholy bells,
Our wedding cheer to a sad burial feast;
Our solemn hymns to sullen dirges change;
Our bridal flowers serve for a buried corpse;
And all things change them to the contrary. (Shakespeare 186-7)
Shakespeare describes the funeral bells as melancholy, because their sounds evoke a passing
mood of sorrow and grief. Melancholy became an associative mood that hid in all sorts of
things, ready to assail the sensitive subject. Feelings of “solitude, darkness, grief, suffering,
despair, longing, and elegiac sadness” were profound and artistically favourable (Radden 44).
Moreover, intellectual pursuits increased the vulnerability to melancholy. The melancholy
subject will suffer, but will also reach deeply into the depths of his own being. He is sensitive
and creative, and “might be melancholy for a morning or a lifetime” (Radden 63). The charm
of this poetic melancholy has been resurgent since ancient Greek times and is still visible in
recent times. However, when the psychiatrist Emil Kraepelin starts describing neurotic
5
disorders in the nineteenth century, “notions of melancholy were narrowed and adjusted to fit
the expectations and demands of modern-day, scientific psychology and psychiatry” (Radden
7). In the nineteenth century, melancholic subjectivity loses its importance in light of the
renewed interest in the behavioural and the bodily: “against subjective symptoms like felt
sadness, directly observable signs like sleeplessness and weight loss better fit prevailing
conceptions of scientific rigor” (Radden 45). Radden describes how the rise of faculty
psychology and the earlier eighteenth-century distinction between reason and passion
polarised the mental functions of thinking and feeling, effectively requiring melancholy to be
fitted into either one of these categories. As a result, “a growing emphasis on the affective
symptoms of melancholia and a corresponding neglect of its more cognitive delusional
features occurred”, and the Aristotelian notion of melancholy loses its significance (Radden
41). Feelings and passion, in contrast to reason, were forces “beyond their subject’s control
and eluding rational understanding” (Radden 41). Moreover, the term depression came into
fashion for describing a symptom cluster, “rather than being merely one symptom of the
broader category of melancholia” (Radden 39). Thus, towards the end of the nineteenth
century, depression eclipses melancholia as a disorder category, and melancholy and
melancholia diverge. Melancholia became one of the symptoms of a clinical abnormality,
while the subjective suffering associated with melancholy became an integral part of
normative human experience.
Radden argues that, as a result of the institution of these new diagnostic categories in
the nineteenth century, nebulous moods of groundless anxiety, fear, and apprehension were
no longer as closely associated with melancholy as moods of groundless despondency,
despair, and sadness. In this thesis, I will make use of the latter notion of melancholy as a
mood state of despondency and sadness without an apparent cause. This concept of
melancholy still lives on today, but more importantly, this notion of melancholy is operative
in the films I will analyse.3
3
In the Oxford English Dictionary, melancholy is defined as “sadness, dejection, esp. of a
pensive nature; gloominess; pensiveness or introspection; an inclination or tendency to this”,
6
The contagious nature of melancholy
In the absence of a clear object, being in a state of ungrounded fear and sadness frames
melancholy as an affective experience. According to Radden, this absence is what sets moods
apart from emotions. She gives moods an ontological primacy over emotions, for “we are
always in some mood or another, and our moods are an inescapable way of being” (14).
Although important and ubiquitous, moods are elusive and unbounded, while emotions are
“expressed in terms of relation, usually that between a feeling or attitude and its object and/or
occasion” (Radden 15). When melancholic states are without identifiable cause, they are
moods that colour and frame all experience. Mood states of ungrounded fear or sadness, then,
become states of fear or sadness about everything, about experiencing the world in its
totality. Thus, the melancholic subject is not experiencing a particular form of melancholy; it
is its melancholy.
Because melancholy moods are objectless and elusive, Radden assigns moods to other
phenomena that evoke affective mood states. She uses the example of the desolate landscape,
arguing that a landscape can ‘be’ melancholy when its qualities remind us of the mood states
we usually associate with melancholy. In effect, this melancholy is associative and,
inevitably, culturally coded. Radden acknowledges this in her analysis, arguing that “we say
the landscape is ‘melancholy’ because it apparently possesses some of the visual properties
and other elements associated with familiar iconography and cultural lore of melancholy …
aspects of the landscape make us think of, not (or not merely) feel, melancholy” (186).
However, when subjective melancholy is considered an all-embracing affective mood state, a
way of experiencing the world, can melancholy really be ‘thought’ of?
With this question, I stumbled upon a complex dilemma, suspecting that the melancholic
experience makes it impossible to ‘think’ the totalizing feeling of melancholy completely.
Martin Heidegger’s Being and Time affirmed my suspicion, for Heidegger holds that moods
as well as “a cause of sadness; an annoyance, anxiety, or vexation”, and “a mood, state, or
episode of sadness, dejection, or introspection” (“Melancholy, n.1”).
7
occur before cognition: “[Mood] comes neither from ‘without’ nor from ‘within,’ but rises
from being-in-the-world itself as a mode of that being” (129). Moods are inescapably part of
human existence and never relate to something physical in the world; they are an intrinsic
part of our being. Mood assails on the level of existence (Da-sein), before all cognition, and a
bad mood specifically is “so far from being reflected upon that it precisely assails Da-sein in
the unreflected falling prey to the ‘world’ of its heedfulness” (Heidegger 129). This is another
way of saying that melancholy is an object-less state, whereas objects usually constitute
emotions. It also suggests that melancholy is elusive and ubiquitous, always merging into
other mood states, explaining why it is so hard to pin down. Melancholy channels the
profusion of words that all just about denote the same thing: “with moods there is no specific
thing, situation, or event that can be picked out and described independently of the mood
itself ... moods therefore spread to color everything” (Radden 184-5). Thus, with a
melancholy mood assailing, everything is suddenly sad and sorrowful. The melancholic does
not experience melancholy, but is its melancholy completely. As a result, any attempt to
capture melancholy is itself inevitably melancholic.
The spatial elements of melancholy
The pervasiveness of melancholy might explain why, when discussing or writing about the
concept, the writing itself tends to become somewhat elusive. It is easy to lose oneself in
trying to find words that accurately describe the experience of melancholy, because, as noted,
the concept tends to fill itself with an endless stream of words that evoke feelings of anxiety,
despondency, solitude, introjection, and so forth. Meaning tends to slip away in the
groundless, objectless sadness or fear that is associated with this particular mood. I believe
this is a slippery slope for an academic, argumentative work. Therefore, an attempt to unravel
the endless depths of feelings and emotions one experiences when feeling melancholic is
beyond my scope. Instead, in the following chapters I will scrutinise what Radden calls the
“visual properties and other elements” of melancholy, as evoked in a selection of
contemporary films, specifically in relation to the quality of certain spaces that can evoke
8
these properties and elements.
I base my argument on a twofold hypothesis. Firstly, a space that is unfamiliar to the
roaming subject can function as an arena where it can feel melancholy, arising out of the
subject’s isolation and disorientation feeding its instability of place and lack of purpose.
Secondly, a vast and isolated space can evoke melancholy in a subject, or will incarcerate the
subject in its melancholy when it is in the vicinity of the unimaginable, given that the subject
is already susceptible to experiencing melancholy, for example because it is in a personal
crisis, is refusing to sublimate a loss, or is suffering from depression. To support my
argument, I have chosen to focus on two kinds of unfamiliar spaces that are presented in three
films: the (foreign) city space in Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation and (the proximity of
the unimaginable in) outer space in Steven Soderbergh’s Solaris and Lars von Trier’s
Melancholia.
I will analyse the relationship between melancholy and the foreign city space, because it
relates directly to my own experience in New York City. When I discovered that the degree
of vastness and isolation of a space could evoke or incarcerate melancholy in the susceptible
subject, I chose to focus on the vastest and most isolated space imaginable (outer space), to
determine how melancholy functions in the margins of that what is known. However, my
choices by no means limit the possibility of other kinds of spaces with similar qualities
evoking a similar melancholy in a susceptible subject.
In the first chapter, I will focus on the foreign city space depicted in Lost in Translation,
to show how the spaces of an unfamiliar city can intensify melancholy in the subject,
specifically through (cultural) isolation and (spatial) disorientation. I will also argue how vast
and/or solitary spaces within this unfamiliar city can further incarcerate the melancholic
subject in its melancholy. In the second chapter, I will further develop this argument by
focussing on the vast and solitary qualities of outer space and its proximity to the
unimaginable, as depicted in Steven Soderbergh’s Solaris and Lars von Trier’s Melancholia.
I will show how the melancholic subject is (fatally) attracted to the unimaginable in outer
space, and is likely to incarcerate itself completely in its melancholy by removing itself
further from its subjective reality (on Earth). Finally, I will argue how an encounter with a
9
space that is proximate to the unimaginable will necessitate melancholy in a subject that
refuses to accept that it cannot fully comprehend the unimaginable.
10
1. Capturing melancholy in the unknown city space
A good place to start exploring the relationship between melancholy and space is Sofia
Coppola’s film Lost in Translation. In her film, Coppola utilises the romantic notion of
melancholy as the profound black passion that elevates one’s dark feelings to more
perceptive and inspiring heights.4 The film’s narrative and style exhibit the melancholy of
two protagonists, who experience cultural alienation, loneliness, dislocation, and
disenchantment with life in general during their short stay in Tokyo. However, despite the
disheartening nature of these emotions, the film is not doleful. There is a light-hearted beauty
in the disillusionment of its protagonists, who find comfort in their situation and in each other
by briefly connecting in an asexual, romantic relationship. Thus, the melancholy in this film
is not miserable or sorrowful; there is a peculiar beauty in the dislocation and loneliness of
the protagonists, which is exposed in the film’s intimate style, portraying Tokyo as an alien,
but enchanting place for outsiders.
The sense of feeling ‘lost’ or displaced seems to help put to words how one feels when
feeling melancholic. This implies that melancholy correlates to the sense of being out of
4
In interviews following the film’s release, Coppola uses melancholy to describe the specific
feeling that she looked for in her film. Asked about her choice to use film and not high
definition video, she argues that film helped her evoke a “fragmented, dislocated,
melancholic, romantic feeling” (Thompson n. pag.). Coppola also worked closely with Kevin
Shields from the band My Bloody Valentine, because his music reminded her of her own
visits to Tokyo: “it is that melancholic, romantic sound that Kevin Shields is so great at”
(Knegt n. pag.). Finally, on The Late Show, when asked by David Letterman whether “that
sort of bittersweet excitement and loneliness that seems to be conveyed in the film” overcame
her during her stay in Japan, Coppola describes how she found melancholy in the feeling of
being lost in the foreign culture, in feeling displaced and disconnected (“Sofia Coppola on
Letterman in 2004”).
11
place. I am particularly interested in this relation between melancholy and the spatial
sensitivity of its subject. In the following film analysis, I set out to elucidate the relationship
between melancholy and the alien spaces of Tokyo, as the two foreign protagonists
subjectively experience them. More specifically, I am concerned with the relation between
the visual and narrative traces of melancholy and the spatiality of the unknown city, in order
to determine whether the film’s spaces manage to capture a footprint of the melancholy that
the displaced protagonists feel.
I will argue that melancholy encircles the intimacy of the main protagonists and that
traces of the romance of their melancholy hide in the film’s cinematography. By entangling
the male protagonist’s pleasure and sorrow, I will set out how he is depicted as the archetypal
melancholy man, and how the spaces of the city isolate his melancholy through the loss of
language and meaning. I will show how the city’s many reflections of the female
protagonist’s image reflect her melancholy, and how these mirror images feed her
melancholy by destabilising her place in its spaces. In a similar manner, I will explore how
the city pushes the male protagonist deeper into his melancholy by exposing his melancholic
images. I will also argue that instability of purpose is often associated with disorientation and
a sense of feeling lost, and that as a result, Tokyo reflects the loss of direction present in both
protagonists. I will suggest that a romantic relationship in this city will offer temporary relief
from personal melancholy, but will ultimately instil a new melancholy, because the
protagonists are conscious of the finite nature of their encounter. To address the evident sense
of humour present in the film, I will show how melancholy and humour often work together
to expose the perverted pleasure in (self-) mockery. I will show how the mocking smile can
disintegrate melancholy temporarily by mocking its inauthenticity. Finally, I will argue how a
nebulous cloud of melancholy veils vast and solitary spaces, and is likely to incarcerate its
subject in melancholy. This will allow me to isolate the external qualities of melancholy that
the protagonists feel in this foreign city, which in turn will provide an answer to how the
foreign city space can instil melancholic associations of isolation and solitude.
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The melancholic lining of romance
Bob, a famous actor in the midst of his midlife crisis, flies to Tokyo to feature in a whiskey
commercial for Santori, while Charlotte, a philosophy graduate in her early twenties, finds
herself stuck in life after her graduation, and decides to accompany her newlywed husband on
a work trip. Bob and Charlotte meet at the Park Hyatt Hotel in Tokyo and quickly become
friends. Their predicaments are similar; both feel disconnected from their lives back home
and both have lost their direction in life. Bob and Charlotte’s friendship relies on their mutual
understanding of one another’s solitude. They find comfort in each other, in knowing that
they are not (completely) alone. In their shared loneliness, I find the onset of their
melancholic condition.
Julia Kristeva introduces the melancholic condition as the sombre lining of amatory
passion in her book on depression and melancholy, Black Sun:
A sad voluptuousness, a despondent intoxication make up the humdrum backdrop
against which our ideals and euphorias often stand out, unless they be that fleeting
clear-mindedness shredding the amorous hypnosis that joins two persons together.
Conscious of our being doomed to lose our loves, we grieve perhaps even more
when we glimpse in our lover the shadow of a long lost former loved one.
(Kristeva 5)
For Kristeva, melancholy is a double-edged sword. Feeling low or losing track of oneself
poisons the mind, but there is a perverted sensual pleasure in the sorrow that encircles love
and intimacy. Kristeva implies that because passion is in essence narcissistic, melancholy
will always cast a “shadow of despair” on the self. Traces of this shadow hide in the
cinematography of the film’s first scenes, and condition the melancholic nature of the
characters’ future romantic affair.
The first two shots of the film show the two protagonists, resting. In the first shot, we see
Charlotte’s figure lying in bed. The blinds block the little light that is available in her room,
although a faint glow illuminates the edges of her body. The lighting is dark and desaturated,
suggesting dusk. The faint noises of a city rumble below. The film fades to black and the
echoing sounds of Tokyo International Airport overlap these sounds, welcoming the
protagonists to Tokyo. Non-diegetic music fades in over the airport noise; ethereal sounds
13
with voices chanting soothingly. The quality of the music is dreamy and distant. The film
cuts close to Bob’s profile as he rests his head against the rear window of a taxi, his eyes
closed. The car is moving slowly while the blurry contours of the neon architecture of the city
dance in the rear window. The faint music is calming, but is not joyous or light-hearted. The
blurry lights outside are captivating, but dark and cold-toned. Despite the faint lighting, the
cold toning, the evident fatigue, and the fragile music, the mood of the scene is pleasant and
pensive.
Bob and Charlotte share a comfortable darkness, their connection established by the first
cuts of the film. Both characters seem worn out, but find comfort in the shadows. This
comfort circulates through the safe spaces of the hotel room and the taxi. The glass and steel
seals off the outside world, allowing for relative silence. These ethereal conditions create the
type of “humdrum backdrop” that Kristeva writes about. For Kristeva, melancholy lines
passion and love, as the one in love is always conscious of the imminent loss of this love.
Cast in the shadows of despair, the melancholy lining of these first shots suggest that
Charlotte and Bob’s relationship will be intimate and romantic, and therefore melancholic.
Although Bob and Charlotte will only meet later in the film, the film continues bringing
them closer by visually aligning their melancholic state of mind. In the night scenes that
follow, the protagonists lie awake in their beds. The tonal quality of the light and the rich,
impenetrable shadows shape a visual melancholy that forges a romantic bond, because the
city’s pale light touches both protagonists. These specific shots are so darkly exposed that the
grain of the film becomes visible in the shadows. Coppola used celluloid because it would
give the film the romantic melancholy she was after, despite her father, Francis Coppola,
urging her to shoot digitally (Thompson n. pag.). 5 A part of the unique quality of film lies in
5
In her book Death 24x a Second, Laura Mulvey associates the decaying nature of celluloid
with the process of ageing and, ultimately, with death. Moreover, she holds that “the physical
link between an object caught by a lens and the image left by rays of light on film is the
material basis for its privileged relation to reality” (18). I believe the uncertain and unstable
materiality of film and its connection to reality conditions its melancholic nature, because
celluloid confronts the audience with the loss of reality, or what Mulvey calls “the presence
of death” (22).
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its organic structure. The structure of the film grain relies purely on chance and changes with
every frame. The grain plays with the shadows, creating structure where we might only
perceive pure black. What lies in these shadows, what cannot be seen by the naked eye, and
what therefore is lost through exposure, is now marked with a shadow, with the dance of the
grain of the film itself. Kristeva attributes to melancholy the glimpse of a shadow of
something that was once lost. Perhaps the film grain is the only glimpse of a shadow in what
else records as pure darkness. The film grain is a visual reminder of that what was once lost,
an alluring organic texture that reminds us of the melancholic beauty of love. High definition
video loses this gentle slope downward, the gradations from pure black to pure white are
finite, and nothing remains once we hit zero. The medium does not expose itself; it vanishes
completely, while film exposes its own texture once no light is left. It is comforting knowing
that there is always something else. Even in the deepest shadows, one can always see
something. The grain paints the romance of this darkness on Bob and Charlotte’s bodies; it
seeps into the shadows of their distraught faces, bringing them closer. The grain in the
shadows visualises a comfortable melancholy that touches them both. Thus, before they even
meet, melancholy already encircles their romance.
Melancholy finds the characters of Bob and Charlotte, because Tokyo positions them as
outsiders; the city displaces and isolates them. Their melancholy enfolds their experience of
the spaces they roam. I believe visual and aural traces of this melancholy are visible in this
film where language falls short. The soft, muted colours and silver halide particles dancing in
the shadows characterise all images of this city, enveloping our protagonists in their
melancholy at every turn. I find their diffused shadows of despair in the grain, in the motion
blur, in the bokeh, its patterns exposing their melancholy.6
6
The bokeh of an image is defined as the quality of the lens blur produced by the lens in
areas of the frame that are out of focus. Coppola uses these blurs artistically, intentionally
keeping many shots out of focus, to capture diffused light and shadowy figures. This gives
the film a soft, ethereal look.
15
Shaping Bob’s melancholic archetype
Bob’s displacement and isolation further shape his melancholic condition. In the taxi on his
way to the hotel, the film connects Bob to his melancholic image plastered on a billboard,
illuminated by pale spotlights. The desaturated image captures Bob surrounded by blue
smoke (Figure 1.1). The only colour in this image is the caramel tint of the whiskey in his
glass. His gaze aims downward, his body bents over, and his expression is sad and pensive.
Bob seems lost in this image, although an old-fashioned elegance gives him the air of a
percipient man. I believe the image depicts him as the archetypal melancholy man, burdened
by his sorrow.
The connection between sorrow and percipience is archaic, introduced by Aristotle as the
first problem connected to thought, intelligence and wisdom, posing why it is that “all men
who have become outstanding in philosophy, statesmanship, poetry or the arts are
melancholic, and some to such an extent that they are infected by the diseases arising from
black bile” (155). Aristotle connects various types of Hippocratic humeral imbalances with
both inertia and hysteria, stating that in some people black bile (melan chole) exists in
excessive quantities, producing “apoplexy or torpor, or despondency or fear” and in others it
is overheated, producing “cheerfulness with song, and madness, and the breaking out of sores
and so forth” (161-3). He identifies those in whom the excess in black bile has cooled as
melancholic, considering them “more intelligent and less eccentric, but superior to the rest of
the world in many ways” (163).
Towering above meticulously suited Japanese men in the hotel elevator, Bob is isolated
in the crowd by his height and his casual dress. Looking up, he seems somewhat anxious to
reach his floor. His cultural displacement is obvious. In the room, positioned on the edge of
his bed, his gaze mimics the billboard image. His posture is lethargic, illuminated dimly by
the bedside lights. Shadows veil a large part of the room. The dark, blue city of Tokyo looms
through the large windows behind him. Bob seems completely lost and somewhat scared, but
the small kimono and tiny slippers he wears mock his despondency. The film cuts to the hotel
bar where Bob is sitting at the bar despondently. His eyes closed, with a large glass of
whiskey on ice and a cigar that looks incommodious, Bob seems to be drowning his sorrows
16
in luxury. Hunched down, his figure fades away in the shadows, darkness enveloping him
(Figure 1.2). He carries the weight of this negative space on his shoulders. The lens softens
all but the hard lines on his face, isolating him completely in the crowded bar. The
desaturated, smoky light, the unrevealing shadows, and the selective depth of field create a
space that visually isolates and shapes Bob’s melancholy. The image is aesthetically pleasing,
but in an ominous way.
If melancholy is a form of sad voluptuousness, Bob’s lonely consumption of expensive
alcohol and cigars in a luxurious hotel bar is his way of experiencing sensual stimulation and
pleasure in an otherwise disheartening world, with the knowledge that the pleasure that
comes with consuming these luxuries resides in their detrimental nature. Bob’s elegance
complements this comic apathy, but because his sorrow entangles his pleasure, he accurately
depicts the subject of melancholy as described by Aristotle.
Isolating him from his environment, the spaces Bob moves through further shape his
melancholy. In the confined space of the elevator, Bob’s physical appearance prevents him
from blending in. His ill-fitting Japanese clothes further intensify this displacement. The
hotel bar completes his isolation and visualises his despondency. The shadows around him
are impenetrable, placing the focus solely on his experience of the moment. Through Bob’s
displacement and isolation, the spaces that he occupies not only establish but also actively
shape Bob’s torpor, despondency, and fear.
The next morning, Bob experiences how the loss of language and meaning can also
evoke a sense of displacement and isolation. The director for the Suntory commercial does
not speak English, so Bob has to rely on the interpreter, who does a horrendous job
translating for him. There are no subtitles, so anyone who does not speak Japanese will share
Bob’s confusion. The scene is humorous, but moving as well. Bob is completely lost in
translation when asked to express wholehearted tenderness, tension, and most importantly
passion. The director is pursuing an image of Bob that is romantic. He wants the commercial
to associate the melancholic beauty of reconnecting with old lost friends with the act of
drinking an exclusive whiskey. In other words, he is trying to commodify the image of Bob’s
melancholy. He is demanding more emotion, asking Bob to let the whiskey remind him of all
17
the beautiful things that he has lost. If the director had photographed Bob the night before, he
would have obtained that passion, but confusion arises because of the interpreter’s inability to
communicate the director’s wishes to Bob. As a result, Bob’s amusing anxiety and
displacement replaces the carefully constructed melancholy image of a refined man in his
study drinking an expensive glass of whiskey. Bob has lost the ability to project the image
they are looking for, and ironically, Bob leaves with the melancholy mood that the director
and his interpreter failed to explain in words. Therefore, I believe Bob’s displacement and
situation of cultural isolation easily capture his melancholy in visual and aural terms, but do
not explain themselves very well in language. Images and sounds convey Bob’s melancholy,
as a sense of the inexplicable, far more effectively.
Charlotte’s melancholy exposed
Charlotte’s reflections further establish her melancholic condition. In her hotel room, the
city’s night sky is in focus, before the focus pulls to Charlotte sitting awake in the
windowsill. The pale pulsating lights that shimmer in the background intoxicate her, and for a
moment, we witness the raw, cold beauty of the dark city outside. However, gazing out the
window, Charlotte shows discomfort.
I believe there is something inherently melancholic about looking through a window,
witnessing the humdrum of a city, letting time pass by. The act is solitary, experienced alone,
usually lost in thought, or perhaps glaring out vacantly. The window separates one from the
things happening outside; it lets through light, but isolates the elements. There is a sad
comfort in not taking part for a moment, standing still, lost in thought. However, the act of
standing still only becomes noticeable when everything else moves on. Melancholy demands
the solitary act of standing still as much as it demands the presence of a busy arena of people;
we are melancholic when we feel alone in a crowd.
In his essay “Hüzün—Melancholy—Tristesse of Istanbul”, Pamuk describes hüzün, the
Turkish word for melancholy, as “the emotion that a child might feel while looking through a
steamy window” (291). The world outside full of unbridled potential and opportunity, but
18
never so out of reach. This solitary feeling of longing is what binds the people of Istanbul
together; one black melancholy that is shared by millions of people. It is felt by seeing the
scenes and evoking the memories “in which the city itself becomes the very illustration, the
very essence, of hüzün” (Pamuk 292). Pamuk’s melancholy is a Turkish experience that
requires the melancholic subject to be part of the intimate cultures of Istanbul. However, it
rises the question whether for Charlotte, in seeing the scenes of the unknown city play out
from a distance, can the city still expose the essence of her melancholy? The unknown city
would act as a mirror to the deeper self, reflecting feelings of melancholy in every
skyscraper, every street, every pedestrian and car that passes, itself becoming the melancholy
in which her melancholy is reflected. When the film blends Charlotte’s hazy reflection in the
window with the city outside, the film visually mirrors Charlotte in the city (Figure 1.3).
Given the hypothesis that the city is reflecting Charlotte’s deeper self, Charlotte can only
observe the reflection of her own despondency in the streets of Tokyo, but it could also feel
as if the city is the essence of her melancholy, its spaces shaping her emotions. The film
again suggests this in a scene that takes place at a subway station in the city. When a train
passes before Charlotte, her image loses its contours for a second (Figure 1.4). The city
shortly reveals her reflection, creating a diffused image of Charlotte similar to her reflected
image in the hotel window. Her reflection in the windows of the train blends into the
elements of the underground, turning everything and everyone into obscurity. Her shadow
becomes part of all the other shadows. Therefore, I suggest that the moving mirrors of the
city reflect the shadow of melancholy cast on Charlotte’s fragile self, creating rare but
beautiful visualisations of her melancholy.
A following scene further establishes the premise of the city reflecting Charlotte’s
melancholy. In the scene, Charlotte dresses herself in front of her hotel room mirror. The
camera disobeys the cinematic 180-degree rule and spins over its axis, creating a mirror
image of her reflection. Because a turn over the axis usually signifies a conversation between
two characters, the editing suggests that Charlotte is in conversation with herself. Both shots
can function as her reflection in the mirror, but since the camera frame omits the edges of the
mirror, we cannot tell when we are looking at her directly. The film gives the world inside the
19
mirror the same prominence, suggesting Charlotte’s place in the hotel room is unstable.
Charlotte is looking at her reflection as if she is trying to recognise herself in this mirror, but
seems confused.7 She puts on lipstick and plays with her hair, but these actions seem to
distress her. Kristeva equates melancholy with depression as a shadow that one can see
exposed in a mirror:
Depression is the hidden face of Narcissus, the face that is to bear him away into
death, but of which he is unaware while he admires himself in a mirage ... we shall
not encounter the bright and fragile amatory idealization; on the contrary, we shall
see the shadow cast on the fragile self ... the shadow of despair. (5)
By putting on lipstick, perhaps Charlotte is trying to find admiration in her self-image, but
her estranged reflection suggests that she does not recognize herself. By crossing the
imaginary 180-degree border, confusing the mirage with its truth, the scene displaces
Charlotte while she tries to recognise her image in her reflection, turning her uncertain image
into a visual shadow of her melancholy.
In medieval times, melancholy was a combination of the slothful and the sorrowful
condition. Before the catholic tradition, there were eight capital sins, but with Saint
Gregory’s reign of the Catholic Church in the fifth century, acedia (sloth) and tristitia
(sorrow) fuse to form one of the seven capital sins (Agamben 7). As a result, what defines
melancholy in the present day relies partly on the fusion of inertia and desperation. As noted
before, Agamben holds that in the Renaissance the medieval noonday demon joined ranks
with the syndrome of melancholy. Therefore, the possible effects of the pathological
condition of melancholy vastly expanded and, because melancholy becomes an invisible
entity possessing the mind of its victim, the damage it caused was mostly internal. Its
7
In this scene, the film invokes Jacques Lacan’s notion of the mirror stage, which Lacan
describes as “the transformation that takes place in the subject when he assumes an image”
(Lacan 1-2). In the mirror stage, a subject identifies itself with an external image of its body,
but since the mirror image does not correspond with the subject’s idealised self-image (the
Freudian Ideal-I), the subject remains incomplete, fantasising about moving from “a
fragmented body-image to a form of its totality” (Lacan 3). Charlotte’s misrecognition of her
own image in the mirror shows that she is a melancholic subject, because she is searching for
an image of herself that cannot be attained.
20
physiological symptoms were of secondary experience and a spectator was only able to
witness its effects.
The film shows Charlotte exhibiting the effects of this medieval notion of melancholy.
She is slothful and idle, spending time in her hotel room for no particular reason. Often she
sits in the windowsill of her room, intoxicated by the panoramic city view. In one of these
scenes, the film cuts to a Tokyo sunset, showing dusk, the darker stage of twilight. We see a
last glimpse of Tokyo’s warmth, but the mood is dark and slightly ominous. In this scene,
Charlotte resembles a victim of the noonday demon, who would fix his eyes on a sunset,
hoping to slow it down:
Then he begins to look about himself here and there, he enters and exits several
times from the cell and fixes his eyes on the sun as if he could slow down the
sunset; and finally, a senseless confusion comes over his mind, similar to the mist
that envelops the earth, and leaves it inert and empty. (Agamben 4)
The film consistently cuts between Charlotte’s gaze outward and views of Tokyo’s high-rise,
forging a strong visual relationship between Charlotte and the city. The dull, grey, concrete
buildings adequately project her state of mind. However, Charlotte’s relation with this city is
uncertain. Tokyo is foreign to her and although the editing of the film suggests it relates to
her, the uncertain nature of her mirror image suggests that she has no established place in this
city. As a result, Charlotte’s internal struggle alters our perception of the space she inhabits
and the film exhibits the space as she experiences it. In addition, by giving us the impression
that she is unsure on which side of the mirror she can find herself, it alters her sense of place
as well.
In Stanzas, Agamben shows how this instability of place was one of the symptoms of the
melancholic condition. He describes how the church fathers presented one of the daughters of
melancholy as the wandering of the mind (evagatio mentis). This wandering manifested itself
in garrulity (verbositas); an insatiable desire to see for the sake of seeing (curiositas); the
instability of place and purpose (instabilitas loci vel propositi); and the importunity of the
mind (importunitas mentis). When suffering from evagatio mentis the mind loses its balance
and begins to wander aimlessly, resulting in temporary mental instability. Therefore, I retrace
21
the melancholy that the mirror scene exhibits to the instability of place that the
unconventional framing and editing expresses. These stylistic interventions expose the spatial
instability Charlotte feels herself. The precarious sensation of losing one’s place accurately
expresses the sensation of feeling lost, and feeling lost evokes a melancholy that leads to a
slothful condition. It is therefore no coincidence that, directly after the mirror scene, the film
cuts to Charlotte lying on her bed apathetically, for instability of place is one symptom of a
larger constellation of symptoms that together configure the daughters of melancholy.
Therefore, it is likely that one symptom can lead to another, or cause its victim to fall back
into a general state of sloth—and therefore melancholy.
Bob’s displacement from his own image
Much like Charlotte’s melancholy, Bob’s images express his melancholy. At nightfall, he
retreats to his hotel room, flicking through Japanese TV channels while sitting on the rim of
his bed. He stumbles upon one of his own films, an old buddy-cop detective in which he
collaborates with a monkey. On the screen, he is talking to his partner in Japanese. By
witnessing another voice channelling through his body, the film disconnects Bob from his
self-image. Such disconnections occur repeatedly in the film. In the first minutes, as
described above, a billboard exposes Bob to his melancholic image. During the shoot, the
commercial director is hunting for the same image, but this time Bob reacts confusedly and
somewhat anxiously. Now, a mocking image of his young image talking to a monkey enters
the relatively safe space of the hotel room, leaving him weary and disconnected.
The film intensifies Bob’s disconnection during a following photo shoot for Santori.
What happens to Bob during the shoot is ambiguous, because although the mood of the scene
drifts somewhere between humour and tragedy, the mood of its ending remains open to
interpretation. The photographer asks Bob to ‘do’ famous actors and their typical facial
expressions, once again with more ‘intensity’ and ‘emotion’. He plays along well, but after a
few rolls of film, when asked to do ‘more Roger Moore’ he chuckles out of frustration and
loses his composure. The camera position remains fixed on Bob’s profile when he stops
22
trying to be someone else or ‘more sexy’. The sound of the analogue film camera capturing
plate after plate of Bob’s empty expression rolls over a cut to a city panorama by night,
relating the tone of the city that envelops Bob to his despondent situation.
After the shoot, Bob is alone in the elevator, expressing nothing but apathy. The
confined space of the elevator forces him to look at himself in the elevator mirror. This
confinement is the visual afterthought of Bob’s experience during the shoot; it is another
interjection pressing him to face his reflection. He imitates the grin he held onto during the
shoot. He only seems to see a shadow of himself, a body dressed in a tuxedo and wearing
mascara, representing the romantic ideal of the sophisticated man who drinks a good
whiskey; he is the melancholy man, bearing the weight of the world on his shoulders. By
grinning, Bob finds a perverse humour in the delusion of this carefully curated image; he
finds the “grief that makes joy” (Agamben 7). Agamben defines this grief as “a sadness of the
soul and an affliction of the heart that seeks always that for which it is ardently thirsty; and,
as long as it is deprived of it, anxiously follows it and goes after it with howls and laments”
(7). There is grief in Bob’s search to retrace his image, but the desire to obtain that image can
also be joyous or, in Bob’s case, slightly amusing. Nevertheless, Bob cannot escape the
disassociated reflections of himself that this city throws at him constantly, pushing him
deeper into his despondency. These reflections displace him by distancing him further from
that image of himself he might be looking for, confronting him with the shadows of his self,
of what he could be, of what perhaps he once was. At least he can find humour in his own
condition, which is something I will return to later.
The futile search for purpose
As noted before, one of the main symptoms of the victim struck by melancholy (evagatio
mentis) expresses itself as a feeling of instability of place and of purpose. Although I have
discussed the instability of place Bob and Charlotte experience, I have not given much
attention to the instability of purpose, which expresses itself in terms of disorientation.
Purpose seems to be the route that we draw on the larger plan of life. If we can find the right
23
route, we might get to our destination, but the ways that lead to our destination are nearly
infinite. This bears a striking similarity to how a city is structured and navigated. One can
easily get lost in an unknown city, and Bob and Charlotte are in a city where they do not
know the way.
The film literally spells out Charlotte’s disorientation when it depicts her lingering in her
hotel room listening to an audiobook called A Soul’s Search. Charlotte’s eyes set on the
cityscape; we hear the narrator’s voice:
Did you ever wonder what your purpose in life is? This book is about finding your
soul’s purpose or destiny. Every soul has its path, but sometimes that path is not
clear. The inner map theory is an example of how each soul begins with an
imprint, all compacted into a pattern that has been selected by your soul before you
even got here.
I have suggested before that, in different ways, the Bob and Charlotte’s images reflect their
melancholy. If the city of Tokyo reflects the melancholy that Bob and Charlotte bring to it,
the map of Tokyo might be an imprint for their ‘inner map’ of the soul. This implies that their
purpose can be found somewhere in Tokyo and that there is a path to take in their lives. In
medieval psychology, sloth was the kind of sorrow that contemplated the greatest of goods,
the slothful desired to know what it could not know: our place before God. “Fixed in the
scandalous contemplation of a goal that reveals itself by the act by which it is precluded and
that is therefore so much more obsessive to the degree that is becomes more unattainable, the
acidiosus (slothful one) finds himself or herself in a paradoxical position” (Agamben 6).
Contemplating the unanswerable could therefore only result in melancholy, because even if
the destination of the thought experiment was in sight, there was no path leading towards it.
Furthermore, once lost in this void, “there is no escape because one cannot flee from what
cannot even be reached” (Agamben 6). In the diegetic world of the film, this suggests Tokyo
will not give way to our protagonists. Even if one roams its streets and uncovers its secrets,
the city will merely reflect the personal abyss that the search for purpose creates. Even if the
destination is in sight, one cannot map out the path. Melancholy forces its subject to keep
looking, trying to find possible routes in the city that correspond to the soul’s inner map,
which will only further destabilise both place and purpose. This rules out the possibility that
24
Bob and Charlotte will find their path in Tokyo (or anywhere else), but their desire to reach
their destination will remain as strong as ever. They might know they can find their purpose
as much in Tokyo as they can find it elsewhere, but since they are melancholic, there is no
escape from the search.
Captivated by her desire to find her purpose, the film indeed shows Charlotte searching
desperately. By often showing how Charlotte gazes at the city in her windowsill, the film
gives a lot of prominence to her watching the city, as if she is tracing its map from above, as
if she is trying to find her purpose in its streets.8 She explores the city’s game halls, clubs,
and brightly lit squares with a peculiar interest. Although the spaces she wanders in are
foreign to her, she walks around with a faint smile, finding joy in her explorations. Being lost
in a space can be a pleasurable sensation, which corresponds to the sensual pleasure one can
experience in feeling melancholic.9 The camera also expresses Charlotte’s loss of purpose
visually by playing with her reflections (Figure 1.5). By blending her image with the city,
Charlotte merges with its space, becoming one of its many shadows.10 In these brief
moments, we see her for who she is, a shadow of herself, looking for direction, looking for
stability of place and purpose in these foreign spaces. Her futile search embodies the
melancholy of her condition. By depicting reflections and shadows of her image, the film
further destabilises Charlotte’s location, suggesting that she is nothing but a thin shadow in
8
In his The Practice of Everyday Life, Michel de Certeau describes how seeing Manhattan
from the 110th floor of the World Trade Center lifts one “out of the city’s grasp”, putting the
subject at a distance (De Certeau 92). However, the paths traced on a city map “only refer,
like words, to the absence of what has passed by” (De Certeau 97). While the paths
themselves are visible, tracing these paths “has the effect of making invisible the operation
that made it possible” (De Certeau 97). If Charlotte is trying to find purpose by tracing the
city’s paths from above, her attempts will only expose an absence of meaning. Therefore, I
read Charlotte tracing the city’s paths from her hotel room as expressions of her melancholic
search for purpose.
9
In his discussion about walking, De Certeau states that the act of walking is to lack a place;
“[walking] is the indefinite process of being absent and in search of a proper” (103). Indeed, I
believe Charlotte is absent from her own reality, searching for her purpose in Tokyo.
Therefore, I contend her meandering explorations aptly portray the melancholy of her search.
10
This invokes De Certeau’s idea that the act of walking in a city can manipulate its spaces,
creating “shadows and ambiguities within them” (101).
25
this city, a reflection of herself in its light.
The melancholy of being alone together
A foreign city allows one to be alone together, only sharing a sense of isolation with one
another. The film depicts Charlotte standing in the rain, gazing upward to the projection of a
dinosaur on a building. Although a crowd of people surrounds her, she seems alone (Figure
1.6). Centring her in the middle of the frame creates this effect, but the slight distance
between her and other pedestrians also creates a subtle sense of isolation, bringing forth a
melancholic beauty in this ordinary but somewhat depressing composition. In addition,
Charlotte stands out from the crowd, as being lost among many, because of her different
appearance. However, although she is alone, everyone else around her seems to be alone too,
waiting for the same light to turn green, standing in the same rain.
I suggest the romantic relationship between Bob and Charlotte reconfigures the spaces of
this unknown city as a place where they can be isolated together, relieving them temporarily
from their melancholic condition. Together they unravel the city, or perhaps they stop
searching for a moment, because the act of exploring together has become the goal. They are
now out of place together, lost, but intentionally so. Despite their age difference, Bob and
Charlotte build up an intimate friendship over the course of a few days. Their innocent and
somewhat awkward way of getting to know each other exposes their own insecurities about
life in an endearing way. They share looks and smiles as if they understand each other
completely. The film shows this connection when Bob finds Charlotte’s copy of A Soul’s
Search in her room. Charlotte noticeably feels embarrassed, but Bob reliefs her by telling her
he owns it as well.
The protagonist’s three-day romance is beautiful in a sad way, because both know it has
a definite end. They will part ways and move on with their own relationships. Melancholy
fogs the scenes in which they are together, because Bob and Charlotte are conscious of this
imminent loss. I find sadness in the smiles and the amorous looks they share. After singing
love songs to each other in a karaoke bar, Charlotte rests her head on Bob’s shoulder. The
26
moment is gentle and innocent, but when I study it as an image by itself, the two protagonists
seem worn and tired, as if they have been together for a long time and have reached the end
of their relationship (Figure 1.7). Bob carries Charlotte home through the dimly lit hotel,
surrounded by impenetrable shadows and muted highlights. This old, faded look carries the
sad romance between the two characters. The images of them together have lost their light
and lustre, their colourful vibrancy, giving the impression that time has had its effect on its
surface, hazing it with age. The film implies that Bob and Charlotte’s romance lies in the
shadows, in between their realities, conditioned by this city, destined to end sooner than later.
In the film’s search to convey a romantic melancholy, the images suggest that something is
lost already.
The film expresses this melancholy visually when it cuts in the familiar view of the dark
city with the darkest images of Charlotte so far (Figure 1.8). Her image resembles what
Agamben describes as the medieval icon of melancholy, “this desperate sinking into the
abyss that is opened between desire and its unattainable object ... represented as a woman
who desolately lets her gaze fall to earth” (6-7). The blue light illuminating her face is so dim
that the shadows take hold of her completely. Now that Charlotte has experienced romantic
moments that might have felt like the unobtainable she desires, the abyss deepens with her
knowledge that these moments will be lost. Unable to sleep, the film reflects the image of
Charlotte pacing around her room in her window, which superimposes her image on the dark
city outside. It is as if Charlotte’s reflection is walking into the dark city below her.
Intoxicated by what the city reflects back at her, for a brief moment she seems to lose herself
in the anxiety of her wandering mind, but relief comes with a note from Bob. They spend the
night talking in his room, while the city lures in the background. Again, by capturing the city
view through the window, the film superimposes Bob and Charlotte’s reflections on the
architecture of the city, suggesting that even when they are together, they are mere shadows
in this city. Charlotte tells Bob that they should never come here again, “because it will never
be as much fun”. She is aware of the transience of their moment together, and how this
foreign city conditions it. The city of Tokyo is their arena of displacement, the place where
their melancholy and the melancholy of their encounter is exposed, the place where they get
27
lost and the place where they will finally lose what they now share together. Tokyo reflects
their fragile shadows in the lens, depicting the elusive nature of their fragile selves in a
fleeting moment.
As noted, their romance relieves Bob and Charlotte temporarily from their own
melancholic condition. This is shown when Bob and Charlotte stumble upon Bob’s image on
a large truck after hauling each other through a maze of game halls, buildings and parked cars
taxi cabs (Figure 1.9). Charlotte waves at Bob’s image and after a brief moment of hesitation
and surprise, Bob waves at it as well. By waving at the image, Charlotte rightfully recognises
the image of Bob’s melancholy as something that can be left behind, as something that is not
him, temporarily relieving Bob of the burden of his melancholic image. Supported by
Charlotte, this is the first time Bob recognises his own image as a melancholic reflection the
city throws at him.11 He smiles and seems relieved waving his image goodbye.
Nonetheless, in the moments Bob and Charlotte spend apart, without the other to confirm
the nature of their melancholic image, both face their own shadows again. Charlotte is shown
staring apathetically at her shadow in the reflection of a train window, while Bob opens and
closes his eyes in front of his bathroom mirror, as if he is trying to wake up from a dream.
Alone, both seem to be disappointed with what they see in their reflection. Consistently,
whenever the film reflects their reflections, the city looms in the background. The connection
between their lack of place in this city and their instability is therefore inescapable. The city
holds the destination of their search, like any other place would, but it obscures all paths to it.
The city is an inescapable entity that remains unknown to the protagonists, but nevertheless
channels their melancholy and diffuses it across its spaces. The many reflections in the film
visualise this diffusion, creating shadows of Bob and Charlotte wherever they go.
Over time, however, the city can expose itself to its visitors, dissolving some of the
melancholy instilled by a loss of place through the subject’s isolation and a loss of purpose
11
Bob needs the support the other (Charlotte), in order to recognise his melancholic image;
the scene marks his dependence on the other to normalise his incomplete (melancholic) selfimage (cf. Lacan 4).
28
through the subject’s disorientation. The first veil lifts when Charlotte draws Bob a map of
the city during their final day together. Although it merely directs him to the sushi restaurant
where they are supposed to meet, the map unravels, for the first time, a little bit of the inner
structure of this city. Most shots in the film either depict Tokyo from a bird’s eye perspective
as a massive, towering city of blinking skyscrapers, or move into its heart without providing
establishing shots, showing a chaotic buzz of people and lights that flow along the rear
windows of taxicabs. By briefly framing this little map, the film attributes a fragment of logic
to the city. The map localises a bookstore, a shrine, and a police station, symbolising how the
city can become familiar to the outsider.12 This newly found familiarity might be one of the
reasons that, during their last night together, Bob tells Charlotte that he does not want to
leave. However, Charlotte kills their dream mockingly, bringing Bob back to reality,
revealing the impossibility of their affair.
Inevitably, Bob and Charlotte part ways. They walk away from each other, losing
themselves in the city once again, returning to their lives apart. The final scene of the film is
infamous, because as a final goodbye Bob whispers something in Charlotte’s ear that only
they can understand. It is interesting to think that, perhaps all along, their unobtainable
object, their melancholic desire of the impossible, was not finding their way out of their
despondency or finding their purpose, but their romance itself. This leaves the audience with
an ironic twist, because the romance was in itself melancholic, embodying an impossible
desire of two people to be together. Either way, the film excludes the audience from the
protagonist’s last intimate moment. This symbolic loss of translation reminds us one last time
of the abyss that lies between the desire to know and the unobtainable nature of their final
conversation. As such, it embodies Coppola’s desire to evoke a romantic melancholy in us.
12
Much like watching a city’s structure from above, a map can elevate the subject from the
city’s grasp (cf. De Certeau 92). Therefore, a map can provide relief from the dislocation Bob
and Charlotte experience. However, as noted before, De Certeau holds that this fragment of
logic attributed to the city in the shape of a map obscures the absence that conditions its
existence. Therefore, familiarising themselves with this unknown city will most likely not
relief the protagonists from their melancholy for long.
29
The mocking smile as melancholic relief
My reading of the melancholy exhibited in Lost in Translation has sidestepped one crucial
element: its unmistakable sense of humour. The film floats somewhere between comedy and
tragedy. I believe the exaggeration and overexposure of despondency and displacement is
humorous, particularly the evident mid life crisis Bob is in. I will show that there is an
indisputable relation between humour and melancholy, for the origin of the concept of
humour is remarkably close to the origin of the concept of melancholy. Just as melancholy,
comedy is an effect of one’s humoural condition. In his book On Humour, Simon Critchley
traces the strange relationship between humour and melancholy back to the concept of
Freudian humour, coined by André Breton as l’humour noir, and interpreted by Critchley as
the super-ego observing the ego, “making the ego look tiny and trivial” (Critchley 94-5).
Freud acknowledges that there is something in black humour that is not depressing, but
liberating and elevating. In humour, one acknowledges the ridicule of the self in laughter or a
smile. Humour, then, stands apart from the joke, for it is pointed inward and not outward.
When we are humorous, we do not laugh at others, but at ourselves; humour is “self-mocking
ridicule” (Critchley 94). Freud’s defines melancholia by the melancholic subject’s grief over
an object that it not knows to be lost, while the mourning subject knows what object was lost.
The split between the super-ego and the ego results in the ego itself becoming an abject
object, explaining for Freud why the melancholic often talks about oneself with abhorrence
and animosity (Freud 242-9). Critchley offers Woody Allen’s “endless monologues, where he
complains about himself in the most voluble manner” as an amusing example of a tendency
of the melancholic to talk about himself as if “they are talking about someone else” (98).
Again, Aristotle already identified melancholy as a pathological disorder that predominantly
struck fine men who excelled in philosophy, diplomacy, poetry or the arts, which leads
Critchley to quote Ludwig Wittgenstein stating that “philosophy is indeed a kind of sickness”
(99). Humour is thus an integral part of melancholy, working as an “anti-depressant that
works by the ego finding itself ridiculous” (Critchley 101). Because humour relates oneself to
the world, finding consolation in laughter reminds us of the finitude of the human condition,
instilling modesty and therefore mirth. The strangely joyous tragedy (or tragic joy) that Lost
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in Translation depicts might correlate with what Critchley calls “weaker Freudian laughter”,
“the sardonic and more sarcastic comedy ... which arises out of a palpable sense of inability,
impotence and inauthenticity” (106). This laughter is different from the laughter that Freud
relates to mania, a condition that melancholy can cause when despondency turns into fearless
and overly joyous emotional catharsis. A manic episode overpowers the ego, resulting in a
Freudian laughter that is heroic but gratuitous, the kind of laughter that emanates “from the
mountain tops, from the cool summits of lofty isolation” (Critchley 105).
I previously read Bob’s forced smile in the elevator as his way to mock the ridicule of
his situation, finding his melancholy in the grief that made joy, finding perverted pleasure in
his own despair. In light of Critchley’s argument, Bob’s smile becomes a moment of
reflection, the moment he reminds himself of the comedy in his disillusioned situation. By
smiling at himself, he mocks the despondent and inauthentic melancholy image that stares
back at him in the mirror. His super-ego overcomes his melancholic ego shortly. This is his
lucid moment; by smiling, he lets us know that he is aware of the comedy in his tragedy. His
smile puts him back in his own world, he locates himself, if only for a moment, in this
elevator, in this moment, as something more than a despondent shell of a person, as
something more than a reflection of his melancholy.
This allows for a different reading of Bob’s photography shoot. I previously interpreted
this scene as an expression of Bob’s melancholy, in which the sound of the analogue camera
capturing images of Bob’s empty shell slowly becomes painful. However, although his eyes
are empty, Bob is smiling wryly (Figure 1.10). When I focused on the sadness of Bob’s
situation, he was the passive victim, but he could just as well be the active aggressor of his
own ego, mocking the melancholy image of a sophisticated man that the photographer is
trying to capture. For example, when asked to imitate James Bond, Bob rightfully observes
that Bond drinks martinis, not whiskey. By imitating him anyway, he is giving the
photographer a perverted image, an image that does not correspond to the classic image they
are looking for. His mocking imitation suggests that Bob is in control of the situation, not the
people behind the camera. Now, his smile is rueful, and no longer seems forged. I contend
Bob’s rueful smile is a subtle but effective way of Bob exerting power over his own image,
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and thus over the people that attempt to capture it. With the smile, he overcomes his own
melancholy, and therefore loses (if only momentarily) the impotent inability of his lethargic
state of mind. His smile, though silent and subdued, seems slightly malevolent towards his
provokers. Smiling, Bob distances himself from the strange requests of the photographer; he
distances himself from his own body and therefore his own image, exerting control over his
image through sarcasm. Moreover, by smiling, he not only overcomes his own melancholy
image, but evokes a wry humour as well; the miscommunication with his photographer is
unfortunate, and therefore humorous. Bob’s smile evokes an ambivalent, but highly
emblematic feeling of comic melancholy—or melancholic comedy. As noted before, pleasure
and pain saturate one another, making it exceptionally hard to evaluate either melancholy or
humour separately. Critchley goes as far as to describe the mocking smile as the mark of the
human condition, for “this smile—deriding the having and the not having, the pleasure and
the pain, the sublimity and the suffering of the human situation—that is the essence of
humour” (109-11).
What fascinates me is how the smile, and the intimate relation between melancholy and
humour, relates to Bob and Charlotte’s place in Tokyo. If the smile can help the melancholic
subject to acknowledge the finitude (or, as Critchley coins it, the ‘limitedness’) of our human
condition, can mocking the melancholic self (temporarily) close the abyss between the desire
and the unobtainable? With laughter, the importance of the unobtainable disintegrates,
because the ego suddenly finds its own desire ridiculous. Therefore, the symbolic
displacement that is caused by the futile and meaningless search for a path to the
unobtainable has lost its meaning. The question then becomes: does laughter give Bob and
Charlotte a place in the moment? Moreover, can the evocation of sardonic humour that is an
integral part of the melancholic condition re-establish Bob and Charlotte’s stability of place
and purpose?
Most smiles captured in the film are smiles shared between Bob and Charlotte. In fact,
the first smile the film captures is Charlotte smiling at Bob in the hotel elevator. The smile
creates a bond between the protagonists. Far into the film, Bob recalls this moment as the
first moment they saw each other, while Charlotte can only remember seeing him in the hotel
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bar, when they again smiled at each other. Charlotte is surprised that she smiled at him:
“I guess you do kind of blend in, huh? Did I scowl at you?”
“No, you smiled.”
“I did?”
“Yes, it was a complete freak accident; I have not seen it since. Just that one time.”
Smiling, Bob and Charlotte refer laconically to their melancholy. Charlotte assumes she
scowls at everyone. Nevertheless, these short-lived expressions of happiness can suppress
other sensations. A smile shared across a space can focalise the senses, isolating the
protagonists from their surroundings in their moment of connection. The space is effectively
‘narrowed’ to their experience, because in this moment the space becomes a place of
recognition. This experience temporarily relieves them from their melancholy; for a moment,
there is no more instability of place, no more searching for the right path. The shared smile
creates a temporary, mutual path between the two protagonists, relieving the sensation of
feeling lost, and it suppresses the inhibitions of the ego, so instability becomes irrelevant. The
memory of this moment, if it sticks, can again evoke the sensation of loss, which in turn can
evoke a new melancholy, but in the moment, it seems that a shared smile can disintegrate
melancholy completely, if only temporarily.
The laughter Critchley writes about is sardonic. Melancholy hides in the cynical
expression of self-mockery. Therefore, it is of importance why Bob and Charlotte are smiling
at each other. They share a moment of connection, because Bob and Charlotte notice they
share the same cynicism towards their situation. They are both getting drunk in a mediocre
hotel bar, listening to a banal live performance. Both have no better place to be. Their shared
smile shows how they can laugh about the contempt they have for their own situation. Their
shared sarcasm connects them. They are both mocking their own despondency, and in each
other’s mocking smile, they can read that their cynical attitude is rooted in the same
melancholic condition. By smiling at each other mockingly, mocking themselves, laughing at
their situation, they understand each other’s melancholy. Later, Charlotte remarks that Bob
looked very dashing in his tuxedo, wearing his mascara. She ridicules his inauthentic
melancholy image affectionately, while Bob reliefs himself of the sadness carried by this
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image by smiling mockingly at the same image in the elevator mirror. I read Charlotte’s
mockery as an affectionate way to show Bob she understands the inauthentic nature of that
melancholic image. This brings them closer together.
Having said that, Critchley asserts there is only melancholic humour in self-mockery. He
draws the important distinction between laughing at oneself and laughing at someone else;
“humour consists in laughing at oneself, in finding oneself ridiculous” (95). Because
Charlotte mocks Bob with a smile, throwing him off his pedestal of the famous actor, she
creates a shared moment of liberation from their despondent situation. The rueful smile
lingers in what is now their space. Therefore, I suggest Bob and Charlotte’s melancholy
produces a black humour that the protagonists not only express through self-mocking
laughter, but also share between them through their intimate mockery of one another. The
emblem of this mockery is the mocking smile they share many times in the film.
I previously suggested that Bob and Charlotte’s impossible romance might be the true
unobtainable object of their melancholy. When they mock one another, they are in fact not
mocking their own egos, but the melancholic nature of their romance. If the romance, and not
their ego, is the abject object of their melancholy, their mocking laughter can elevate and
liberate their romance. With laughter, they can find the pleasure in the pain of the imminent
loss of one another. This also explains why Charlotte mocks Bob when he tells her he does
not want to leave; she ridicules their melancholy by saying that they will stay in Tokyo and
start a jazz band, elevating their romance from the melancholy of their condition. In my
opinion, Critchley neglects the possibility of a mocking laughter that does not direct towards
the self, but towards the melancholic condition. Charlotte finds the dignity in their situation,
turning their pain into pleasure, into a smile, for their smile “does not bring unhappiness, but
rather elevation and liberation, the lucidity of consolation” (Critchley 111). Their mocking
smile comforts the abysmal sensation of loss that is characterised by melancholy. Bob and
Charlotte’s melancholic desire for purpose loses its importance in the lucidity of the moment.
In this moment, the spatial instability that characterises Bob and Charlotte’s condition is
resolved temporarily, because the gap between desire and the unobtainable object is closed.
The scene in which Charlotte visits a temple by herself shows how fragile and ephemeral
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this moment of relief can be, especially when Bob and Charlotte do not share it. The first shot
shows Charlotte looking at a Japanese wedding ceremony from a distance (Figure 1.11). The
symmetry of the image is appealing; the temple’s symmetry directs our attention to the
marrying couple in the distance. Charlotte’s image is small and somewhat insignificant in
relation to the large structure surrounding her. She is an observer, literally standing on the
margin of the event happening in front of her. Because her back faces the camera, she is
figure, a body on the margin, merely part of the space that envelops her. The film cuts to her
face. She is smiling faintly. Perhaps she is ruminating on the memory of her own wedding,
but the image of her tempered smile makes her part of what she is watching. Her smile is
wistful as well, as if she desires the beauty of the moment that takes place in front of her, but
knows she cannot have it. This smile gives the impression that she knows to appreciate the
moment for what it is; as if she knows the desire for something so unobtainable and far away
is ridiculous. She seems lucid in her appreciation of the moment, but I still read a faint
shadow of desire in her expression. Her smile is part of her melancholy, although she
temporarily reliefs herself from its grasp. The film demonstrates the fragility of this moment
in the following sequence of shots. The camera cuts close to the couple and we see the girl’s
partner holding out his hand for her. After a brief moment of hesitation, she takes hold of his
hand. The moment is tender and romantic, but the girl’s gesture also shows the fragile and
uncertain nature of their young marriage as well. Witnessing this hesitant gesture seems to
push Charlotte back into her despondency, because when we cut back to her face, the colours
have cooled and the camera has moved over its axis, showing her despondent mirror image.
By crossing that imaginary axis, the camera splits Charlotte’s ego, exposing the face of her
depression. All traces of her lucidity have disappeared. Thus, this scene shows how her
wistful smile arose out of melancholy and can (and perhaps always will) recede back into
melancholy as well.
The final scene of the film is emblematic for the close relationship between laughter and
melancholy. It shows that melancholy arises out of laughter and laughter arises out of
melancholy. It is difficult for Bob and Charlotte to part and their sorrow is evident. Although
we cannot understand what Bob whispers into Charlotte’s ear, it makes both of them smile.
35
Perhaps Bob relieves them from the imminent loss of their romance, closing the gap by
mocking their sorrow one last time. They part ways smiling at each other, seeing the beauty
in their pain for a brief moment, finding happiness that will hopefully stick with them for a
while.
The vast and solitary space of melancholy
As I have shown, Bob and Charlotte’s characters continuously balance on the thin line
between melancholy and sardonic humour; their situation desperate but endearing. The poster
image of the film comes to mind, which depicts Bob sitting in his hotel room wearing only
his ill-fitting kimono and his little white slippers (Figure 1.12). The image accurately depicts
Bob’s despondency in a humorous way. As noted before, Critchley asserts humour is always
self-inflicted, but I think that by laughing about Bob’s tragedy, perhaps I am able to
understand his situation. His situation touches me. This means that I relate to his situation
emphatically; I relate his situation to a melancholy that is within me. In other words, Bob’s
situation is not just a crude joke to me; rather, it is humorous because I understand and relate
to his condition. This means that the film now becomes part of my world, its symbolic space
coalescing with my memory. Because I feel empathic, perhaps I feel the need to laugh in
order to alleviate Bob’s tragedy, and thus, to a degree, my own memories remind me of
Bob’s situation. The film thus conveys a melancholy that I alleviate by laughing.
Perhaps one can visualise this melancholy as a dark, nebulous haze. This haze can fill up
a space and overpower those who are sensitive to it can attune to its effects. The most
probable reason Bob and Charlotte become romantically involved is that they both
experience their situation in Tokyo in a similar manner. Bob and Charlotte tap into the
melancholy of the spaces they are in, exposing a contagious melancholy mood, setting the
stage for the audience to experience what the two protagonists are experiencing on screen.
While I consider the scenes that depict Bob’s solitary struggle with melancholy to be
humorous, I believe Charlotte’s solitary scenes are darker. By visualising a sense of isolation
and despondency, the cinematography of these scenes exposes the dark, nebulous haze of
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melancholy. In Charlotte’s world, Japan is remarkably quiet and sombre. Many scenes depict
her wandering through empty spaces. Most of the time, the sky is overcast and the film’s
colours are monotone and dull. There is darkness in her world, a sombre mood that the film
depicts through the lack of light and colour. Her life has lost sparkle, and although her
situation seems comfortable in all its stillness and tranquillity, she is literally stuck in her
world. It seems Charlotte’s melancholy is of a different kind, her mood more pensive and
withdrawn, while Bob’s melancholy expresses itself in a humorous anxiety caused by his loss
of place and purpose. Whereas Bob seems lost in a foreign crowd, his world hectic and
alienating, Charlotte seems lost in the emptiness of a foreign world, her world more isolated
and muted (Figure 1.13, 1.14).
In her article “Melancholy as an Aesthetic Emotion”, Emily Brady holds that our
environment can evoke emotions associated with melancholy. According to Brady, this
emotive melancholy plays a role in many works of art. Brady distances herself from the
pathological aspects of melancholy, but recognises the ambiguity between pleasure and pain
that often characterise its definitions, stating that melancholy “has both displeasurable and
pleasurable shades of feeling” (Brady n. pag.). What distinguishes melancholy from other
emotions is that it invites what Brady calls “the pleasure of reflection and contemplation of
the things we love and long for” (n. pag.). Particular memories or thoughts thus cause a
desirable melancholy, which one experiences in solitude. This melancholy facilitates
imagination:
First, imagination makes associations between a present and past experience ...
Secondly, imagination is used to embellish or fantasize around the memories of
melancholy, perhaps imagining our return to some place. Through fancy,
imagination extends memories in a way that deepens reflection, and in turn, this
deepens the feeling. (Brady n. pag.)
A self-indulgent, narcissistic pleasure of experiencing rhythms of pleasure and pain, and a
reflective, solitary state of mind, characterise Brady’s definition melancholy as a complex
emotion. In Brady’s world, melancholy is calm and profound contemplation, lacking the
hysteria and anxiety that is typical to the pathology of melancholy, which comes after
overwhelming pleasure and pain. Although Brady’s own reflections on melancholy are brief,
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her concept of melancholy moves away from the nebulous and pervasive experience of
melancholy as a mood, and instead finds it only in moments of solitary reflection, where the
brighter and darker tones of life come together. Memory and imagination play an important
role in evoking this experience, but according to Brady, certain places have their way of
inviting the reflective and pensive melancholy she admires:
Sitting on a hard, wooden bench, with abundant space and light around us, at once
evokes feelings of exhilaration and loneliness. A similar case arises in aesthetic
contemplation of a desolate moor or the vast ocean, where solitude and a
contemplative state of mind bring on a melancholic mood that appears to have no
object. (n. pag.)
Brady attributes a spatial quality to melancholy; her melancholy is an experience evoked by
vast spaces that are desolate and solitary. The intrinsic qualities of a space can evoke
melancholy in its subject, without a cause or object. Hence, I believe this melancholic haze
can cloud a space, demanding both painful and pleasurable solitary reflection, prolonging the
sensation of melancholy. Brady assumes this is a good thing, but the imagination can lead the
subject to the dark recesses of its mind, deeper and deeper, until one is in a complete state of
desperation. Vast and solitary spaces further instigate this emotion, incarcerating its subject
in its isolation. This explains why the film often depicts Charlotte with the vast open space of
the city beneath her, spending time alone sitting in her windowsill. Tokyo imprisons her in
the dark recesses of her imagination, its presence keeping her from going to sleep, the blue
pulsating lights of its skyscrapers intoxicating her and keeping her in their grasp.
I find another particular striking example of a space demanding solitude in the image of
Charlotte in the hotel swimming pool at night (Figure 1.15). The undulating water reflects
Charlotte’s distorted shadow, visualising the image of her melancholy. The quality of the film
is dark and grainy, its tone a sinister blue that exposes the state of her mind. She is alone,
facing the dark water in front of her and the dark city behind her. The film literally traps her
between two vast bodies of space that offer complete isolation, incarcerating Charlotte and
keeping her from going to sleep. Therefore, I contend the quality of this particular space is
melancholic, incarcerating Charlotte in her melancholic condition.
This ends my analysis of Lost in Translation. In this chapter, I have tried to assess how
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melancholy relates itself to the spaces of a city that is foreign to the melancholic subject. As I
have shown, an unknown city can function as the arena where one can feel a melancholy
arising out of instability of place and instability of purpose through isolation and
disorientation. As a result, the spaces of the foreign city can feed and intensify a melancholy
that the subject already experiences because of personal crisis. However, in the case of Lost
in Translation, this arena also empowers a romance between the two melancholic subjects, as
their shared displacement temporarily relieves their personal melancholic sentiments.
Unfortunately, this romance is inherently melancholic itself, because the protagonists’
displacement and disorientation is temporary. The foreign nature of a city will be gradually
unravelled and their connection will most likely break. Bob and Charlotte’s impossible
romance therefore feeds back into their own melancholy, which they at times manage to
relieve with their mockery towards themselves and one another. In relation to the melancholy
evoked by the city itself, I have argued how the vast and isolated spaces in the foreign city
can incarcerate the subject in its melancholy. To develop this line of thought in the next
chapter, I will analyse two films situated in outer space, which I believe to be the vastest and
most isolated space imaginable.
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2. Melancholy in the proximity of the absolute
In the first chapter, I have primarily focussed on the exterior qualities of melancholy in the
arena of the foreign city. In this chapter, I will delve deeper into the subjective realm of the
melancholic, which is often characterised by desires that remain largely unknown. This
chapter will predominantly focus on psychoanalytical concepts of melancholy, in order to
unravel the structure of the desires constituting the concept of melancholy. Ultimately, I will
argue that melancholy is that what comes closest to the absolute. This will in turn explain
why a space that isolates a subject will most likely instil melancholy.
Solaris and Melancholia are two films that attempt to visualise that which comes closest
to the unknown in outer space. In this chapter, I will analyse these films to develop the
relation between melancholy, the unknown, and the qualities of outer space. In my analysis of
Solaris, I will argue that the film depicts the main protagonist as the Freudian melancholic
subject suffering from a loss, tearing him between love and hate. I will explain how the film
suggests that we can only encounter melancholy in the unknown, because we are unable to
sublimate the loss of our own reality. A mysterious force driven by the unknown presents the
protagonist with a composite of his melancholy, exposing how an irrevocable lack structures
his desire. I will show how this force occupies the void in our reality, intensifying the
melancholy experienced by the subject in its proximity, up to the disintegration of its reality.
In my analysis of Melancholia, I will explain how the film conflates the object of desire and
the (melancholic) object-cause of desire by introducing a sublime object that is capable of
disintegrating our reality completely. I will also argue that this sublime object functions as a
force that fills the gap of desire and therefore disintegrates melancholy when it enters our
symbolic realm. I will posit that we nevertheless cannot be conscious of the absolute, for our
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object-cause of desire is irrevocably unattainable. Finally, I will expose how this desire for
the unattainable roots melancholy in the unknown, explaining why spaces that confront the
subject with the absolute are likely to instil melancholy.
The ambivalence of loss
Steven Soderbergh’s Solaris, the third film inspired by Stanislaw Lern’s 1961 science fiction
novel, is set almost entirely on a space station orbiting the planet Solaris. The research
institution requests a clinical psychologist, Chris Kelvin, to visit the station and examine the
distraught scientists studying the planet. Solaris dances with the concept of melancholy on
many levels, telling a story of love, loss, and the unknown. Therefore, I believe Freud’s
psychoanalytic work is the primary theoretical underpinning of the melancholy exhibited in
the film.
Freud attempted to bind the broad spectrum of ambivalent emotions associated with
melancholy in his work on melancholia. He opposed melancholia to the work of mourning,
asserting that the distinctive feature separating melancholia from mourning lies in the direct
absence of the lost object, causing symptoms that are similar to those described in the
Hippocratic humeral tradition, and in relation to the medieval noonday demon:
The distinguishing mental features of melancholia are profoundly painful
dejection, cessation of interest in the outside world, loss of capacity to love,
inhibition of all activity, and a lowering of the self-regarding feelings to a degree
that finds utterance in self-reproaches and self-reviling’s, and culminates in a
delusional expectation of punishment. (Freud 243)
Freud connects the concept of loss to the melancholic condition. While the mourner grieves
over a lost object that it knows to have lost, the melancholic maintains the belief that a loss
has occurred, although he or she is not able to consciously perceive that which has been lost.
Even if the melancholic subject knows the lost object, it does not know what it has lost in the
lost object. Therefore, the object-loss is withdrawn from the conscious and resides in the
unconscious, in contradiction to mourning, “in which there is nothing about the loss that is
unconscious” (Freud 244). It is impossible for the melancholic to identify that what is lost in
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the lost object consciously, because the object-loss is actually the shadow of a previously lost
object. After an object-relationship is shattered, melancholy is the result of the ego
identifying itself with the abandoned object. This impoverishes the ego:
The patient represents his ego to us as worthless, incapable of any achievement and
morally despicable; he reproaches himself, vilifies himself and expects to be cast
out and punished ... This picture of a delusion of (mainly moral) inferiority is
completed by sleeplessness and refusal to take nourishment, and ... by an
overcoming of the instinct which compels every living thing to cling to life. (Freud
245)
The ego loses its will to survive because the love for the lost object has nowhere to go after it
has been lost. This love turns around on the subject’s self as hate. The subject will therefore
abuse itself, debase itself, making itself suffer and deriving sadistic satisfaction from this
suffering: “The self-tormenting in melancholia, which is without doubt enjoyable, signifies ...
a satisfaction of trends of sadism and hate which relate to an object” (Freud 250).
Furthermore, the melancholic finds satisfaction in the exposure of his or her self-reproach.
Freud writes that melancholic subjects “are not ashamed and do not hide themselves, since
everything derogatory that they say about themselves is at bottom said about someone else”
(247). The sadistic pleasure in melancholy is a consequence of the inability to cope with love
after its object has been lost, for “the ego can kill itself only if ... it can threat itself as an
object—if it is able to direct against itself the hostility which relates to an object and which
represents the ego’s original reaction to objects in the external world” (Freud 251). Hence,
the relation of the melancholic to the lost object is characterised by ambivalence, because the
lost object tends to incorporate every love-relation formed by the ego before the loss took
place. From what used to be memories of love, the melancholic experiences an ambivalence
that is characterised by both pleasure and pain, because “countless separate struggles are
carried on over the object, in which hate and love contend with each other” (Freud 255).
In Solaris, Chris clearly feels ambivalent about love and hate. The film opens in his
apartment. His world is viridescent, dark, and isolated. Chris is alone; the rain that beads on
his window isolates him from the wet, uncomfortable world outside. The condensation mists
the glass, not permitting us to look outward; the film cuts off the space of his sober apartment
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from the outside world. An ethereal voice haunts Chris, who is sitting on the edge of his bed,
wakeful, and in distress: “I love you so much, Chris. Don’t you love me anymore?” It is clear
he has lost someone that he loves. However, his memory of her battles his mourning. There is
doubt in the voice of his memory of her; something resists his attempt to come to terms with
his loss, something in him does not want to kill his object of desire. Wide awake in the
middle of the night, he seems unsure if he can let go, although he is obviously pained by this
memory of love. Perhaps he does not know what he has lost in her. Perhaps he is not sure if
he loves her or something in the memory of her, so he remains melancholic, living in
isolation, wakeful and disconnected.
The subdued, monochromatic world of Chris is characterised by his melancholic
condition. An acidic rain beats down on his home, a bleak cabin built from concrete and steel.
Other people are mere shadows, unable to close the void that his loss has carved in his
psyche. As Chris makes his way down a crowded street on his way to work, he seems
indifferent, ignoring all others around him. Only Chris is in focus; other figures are hazy
shapes or are lost in darkness. Steam rises from unseen vents, marking his isolation in a
world of shadows. During his therapy sessions, the camera registers his detachment from his
patients, showing the room from his perspective, his patients distant and hazy, their concerns
far away and faint. In his expansive office space, his back is turned to us, silhouetted by the
light outside, showing how he too is a mere shadow in his world (Figure 2.1). The film
disconnects Chris from life on Earth.
A melancholic desire for other worlds
The research institution receives a distress signal from Gibarian, who is an old friend of
Chris. In his message, he requests Chris to visit a space station orbiting the mysterious planet
Solaris:
I do not know to describe what we are experiencing up here, we cannot even agree
amongst ourselves what is happening, or what to do about it. I suppose the most
obvious solution would be to leave, but none of us want to ... I hope you will come
to Solaris, Chris. I think you need to.
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The broadcast terminates and pauses on a final, distorted frame (Figure 2.2). The camera
closes in on this sinister frame and slowly fades into the ethereal waves of Solaris’ ocean,
implying that Gibarian is part of Solaris, no longer belonging to this world. The film enters a
new space, far away from the bleak Earth, approaching a planet that is stunningly beautiful,
but mysterious and impenetrable.
Embarking on the ship, Chris finds out Gibarian has committed suicide. Another
crewmember has disappeared. Chris finds the two surviving crewmembers, Snow and Doctor
Gordon, both reluctant to tell him what is happening on the ship. Chris sees a young boy, his
friend’s dead son, roaming the corridors of the ship, but neither Snow nor Doctor Gordon can
explain this strange phenomenon. Confused, Chris watches another video message from
Gibarian:
We take off to the cosmos. Ready for anything. Solitude, hardship, exhaustion...
death. We are proud of ourselves. But when you think about it, our enthusiasm is a
sham. We do not want other worlds, we want mirrors.
I believe Gibarian’s enigmatic desire for a mirror is in its essence a melancholic desire. In his
article “Melancholy and the Act”, Slavoj Žižek builds on Freud’s melancholia, but introduces
the Lacanian difference between loss and lack. He draws on the Hegelian notion of
Aufhebung or sublation, in which the dialectical interplay with another object-concept
advances the object-concept in question. For Žižek, the work of mourning has the structure of
sublation, meaning that when losing an object in its immediate reality we retain the notional
essence of the lost object. In melancholy, something resists the lost object’s notional
sublation, but instead of acknowledging that something unknown resists sublation, the
melancholic locates this resistance in a physically existing, but lost, object (Žižek 659). Žižek
connects melancholy to the Lacanian distinction between the object of desire and the objectcause of desire, where the object of desire is simply the desired object, and the object-cause
of desire is “the feature on account of which we desire the desired object” (662). The objectcause of desire, Lacan’s objet petit a, is unattainable, unimaginable, embodied in the void of
lack itself:
the series of objects in reality is structured around (or, rather, involves) a void; if
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this void becomes visible as such, reality disintegrates. So, in order to retain the
consistent edifice of reality, one of the elements has to be displaced onto and
occupy the central void—the Lacanian objet petit a. This object is the sublime
object (of ideology), the object elevated to the dignity of a Thing, and
simultaneously the anamorphic object (in order to perceive its sublime quality, we
have to look at it awry, askew—if looked straight on, it appears as just another
object in a series). (Žižek 662)
Therefore, the melancholic is a subject who still possesses the object, but who has lost its
desire for the object, for the object-cause of desire has withdrawn from this object. This
object is thus, “nothing but the positivation of a void or lack, a purely anamorphic entity
interprets the lack of the object-cause of desire as a loss, as if this desirable object was once
possessed and then lost” (Žižek 660). Paradoxically, given that everything that is lost was
once possessed, the melancholic possesses the object-cause of desire only in its loss.
Therefore, it ends up treating an object that is still fully possessed as lost, elevating it into “an
inconsistent composite of a corporeal absolute”, attaching not only to this composite but also
to “the very gesture of loss” (Žižek 660).
In expressing his desire for a mirror, Gibarian is suggesting that the nature of our
subjectivity is narcissistic. We explore other worlds to find our object-cause of desire, so we
can sublimate it. We desire to mourn—to sublimate the loss of the self and the loss of our
reality in another other world—by symbolising and assimilating these worlds in our reality,
turning them into mirrors that reflect our own subjective reality. Instead, we find melancholy
in these worlds, for none of these other worlds can satisfy our desire to sublimate our objectcause of desire. All we encounter in these unknown worlds is the pain of not being able to
comprehend the void that our object-cause of desire embodies. Gibarian killed himself,
because he was not being able to bear the pain that came with his desire to sublimate the loss
of his reality.
The corporeal composite of Chris’ melancholy
Now that Chris is in the proximity of unknown territory, his own melancholic desires soon
confront him. When he goes to sleep, the camera closes in on him. The film cuts in the
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enigmatic planet beneath the ship, marking the planet’s permeation of Chris’ mind. The
electrical patterns in its ocean bear comparison to the neurotransmitters in our brain; it is as if
the planet is changing connections in Chris’ neural circuits. The editing is disruptive,
constantly cutting between shots of the planet’s sentient ocean and the illusory dreams of
Chris. Two radiant currents in the ocean connect while Chris dreams about how he met his
late wife, Rheya. He is talking to Gibarian at a party, who talks to him about Solaris, but all
Chris can see is Rheya, observing her as she walks to the kitchen. She smiles at him. In this
way, the film cleverly conflates Rheya with Solaris as the two objects of desire. When Chris
wakes up, he sees the hazy silhouette of his dead wife sitting by the edge of his bed. I contend
she is the embodiment of his loss, the physical object of his desire.
Even though Rheya seems real, Chris refuses to accept this reality. Instead, he attempts
to mourn over her memory by sending off her apparition in a shuttle pod. He refuses to give
into his melancholic desire of having the unattainable (his dead wife) and attempts to
renounce his loss by accepting that she is gone. Chris attempts to sublimate his loss in his
own reality, instead of giving into the melancholic reality that Solaris presents. However, by
asking Snow if she will come back, Chris resists fully renouncing her loss. He seems to regret
what he did and thus gives in to the melancholy that the physical presence of his dead wife
embodies, showing a desire for her return.
Although Chris fights to stay awake, eventually he cannot resist the urge to fall asleep.
The film blends his sleeping body in with images of Solaris (Figure 2.3). Cutting back and
forth between the two entities, the editing suggests Solaris is again infiltrating Chris’ mind. I
believe this editing style depicts Solaris as a sentient subject exerting influence. Using
another superimposition, the third shot conflates Chris’ dream world with Solaris, and
therefore with his experience on the ship. The superimposition suggests Chris’ memories are
an equal part of this reality and that this space is under the influence of Solaris. Chris wakes
up with his wife by his side again. This time he accepts her presence; he seems relieved to be
with her again. Thus, he gives in to his melancholy, even though she reminds him that she is
not part of his reality.
Rheya is what Žižek calls the inconsistent corporeal composite of Chris’ melancholy.
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She is nothing more than an embodiment of his memory of her. She is the physical object that
Chris elevates into the absolute, into to the undying ideal of his wife. Rheya herself is
uncertain about her being here as she becomes aware of the ethereal planet below them. The
film shows dark memories of their relationship as the memories of Rheya’s corporeal
composite. The sounds of the past blend into the present, while Rheya expresses her concerns
to Chris:
I am not the person you remember. Or, at least I am not sure I am. Well, I do
remember things, but I do not remember being there. I do not remember
experiencing those things.
Rheya’s memories feel artificial to her because she indeed lacks the experience of these
memories. She has not lost them because she has not lived them herself. The embodiment of
Chris’ melancholy fundamentally lacks what constitutes his loss; Rheya lacks the experience
of being Rheya beyond Chris’ memory of her. She is therefore nothing more than his
melancholy, the positivation of a fundamental lack that has no existence beyond his
subjective reality.
Nevertheless, Chris completely gives in to his melancholy by trying to reassure Rheya.
He tries to calm her and talks to her as if she is his wife. He wants to take her back to Earth.
He therefore holds on to his own belief that this physical object is what constitutes his loss,
while she is nothing more than his own memory identifying itself with the lost object. He
tries to protect her, asking Snow not to tell Rheya about her past. His attempt is to no avail,
because soon enough Rheya recalls the moment of her suicide. She remembers ripping out
the first verse of Dylan Thomas’ poem “And Death Shall Have No Dominion”, clutching it in
her hand as her suicide note. Chris’ voice recites it:
And death shall have no dominion.
Dead man naked they shall be one
With the man in the wind and the west moon;
When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone,
They shall have stars at elbow and foot;
Though they go mad they shall be sane,
Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;
Though lovers be lost love shall not;
And death shall have no dominion.
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Rheya indeed overcame her death in the wake of the rising planet beneath them, but she
is not his lover. His love for her persisted, but she is his memory of love, the embodiment of
his pleasure and pain, incorporating all the love-relations before his loss (her death) took
place. She is the embodiment of his inability to cope with losing her, to let her go; she is his
melancholy and she is aware of it. Although Chris refuses to believe that she is not what
constitutes his loss, Rheya knows that the planet conditions their rendezvous, and that there is
no place for them in his reality. I believe the film visually expresses the impossibility of the
couple staying together in a shot in which the Solaris’ light illuminates Rheya’s face, but
Chris remains in the darkness (Figure 2.4). Doctor Gordon tries to persuade Chris to let go,
but Chris yearns for an absolute reality in which death plays no role, and his wife is still
alive. He is intensely melancholic, possessing a physical object that embodies her memory,
while an irrevocable lack structures his true desire.
The question that remains: what is Chris’ true object-cause of desire? One can only hint
at its potential origin, for the object-cause of desire will always be that which is principally
lacking. However, if Rheya is his object of desire, Chris’ object-cause of desire could be
something that he desires in her. Snow insightfully asks whether they could get pregnant. As
we learn from Rheya’s recollection of her death, Chris was furious when she told him she had
an abortion. Here, Chris evidently struggles with a lack; the child is not something he has
loved and thus he can never have lost it. From the moment Chris and Rheya conceived the
child, to the moment Rheya took it away, it remained lacking for Chris. With Rheya’s
suicide, he lost his object of desire, and now perhaps displaces his object-cause of desire, the
lack deriving from his desire for a child, onto the embodiment of his memory, which is a
physical representation of his loss.
As noted, this contradicts Žižek’s theory, for the subject cannot sublimate the true
object-cause of desire; Chris can never be aware of his lack. Instead, he attempts to possess
that what he has lost, although he knows it is already gone. By leaving Rheya alone against
his better judgment, by abandoning her in her weakest moment, he literally kills her before he
loses her. He lets her commit suicide, and then attaches to his loss, to his melancholy, to the
corporeal composite of his memory.
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Aware that she is part of Solaris and not of Chris’ reality on Earth, the corporeal
composite of Rheya commits suicide as well by drinking liquid oxygen. When Chris finds
her, she appears to be dead for a moment, but then her wound slowly closes up and Rheya
comes to life again. This regeneration visually affirms that her body is not human. Rheya’s
stare is detached as she opens her eyes. When she notices Chris, the memory of her attempted
suicide returns to her, suggesting that she is nothing more than a mirror to Chris’ melancholy,
a blank slate that is part of Solaris’ reality, which fills up with Chris’ memories of his lost
wife as soon as she encounters him.
Rheya desires to return to Solaris and wants Doctor Gordon to use a device that will send
her back. However, Chris clings desperately to her, not willing to lose what he thinks he has
lost. He is determined to suffer and punish himself to keep his melancholy alive. However,
by sending herself back to Solaris, Rheya would allow Chris to overcome his melancholy.
She asks him not to call her Rheya, for she is aware that she is the absolute that is beyond
decay. To no avail, she attempts to reason with Chris:
“Can’t you see I came from your memory of her? That is the problem. I am not a
whole person. In your memory, you get to control everything. So, even if you
remember something wrong, I am predetermined to carry it out. I am suicidal
because that is how you remember me. My voice sounds the way it sounds because
that is how you remember it!”
“I do not believe we are predetermined to relive our past. I think that we can
choose to do it differently. The day I left and you said you would not make it, I did
not hear you because I was angry. This is my chance to undo that mistake and I
need you to help me.”
“But how am I going to be Rheya?”
“I do not know anymore. All I see is you.”
Blinded by her physical presence, Chris sees no way to let go anymore. The film cuts to
the planet below them. Its colours have changed; it looks bigger and more aggressive.
Perhaps it is impeding Chris from sublimating his loss. It is now clear that the reality of
Solaris is fundamentally different from the Chris’ reality. This becomes evident when he sees
the dead Gibarian sitting by his bed at night. Chris tries to find reason by asking Gibarian
what Solaris wants from them, to which the latter replies: “Why do you think it has to want
something? This is why you have to leave, if you keep thinking there is a solution, you will
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die here.” However, instead of resisting the reality that represents the void, Chris gives in to
the physical appearance of an object that is part of Solaris.
The proximity of the void
I suggest Solaris is the object that is elevated to the Thing: Lacan’s objet petit a. Julia
Kristeva writes about Lacan’s Thing “as the real that does not lend itself to signification, the
center of attraction and repulsion ... an imagined sun, bright and black at the same time” (13).
She imagines the sublime object as a celestial body that incorporates pleasure and pain, love,
and hate, in its essence a void that lies beyond meaning. I see in Solaris the image of
Kristeva’s black sun, the object that occupies our void of reality, resisting signification.
Solaris is the essence of lack. Within this void lies what we can never know without our own
reality disintegrating. Therefore, when one moves in the proximity of Solaris, finding oneself
within its sphere of influence, it confronts its subject with the hidden face of lack, the end of
reality. One can either leave and mourn, understanding that Solaris is that which resists
sublation, or be confronted with a manifestation of one’s melancholy, which displaces the
lack of reality in a physical object that was once lost. In this way, Solaris gives its subjects a
choice: either resist sublation, remain melancholic and ultimately disintegrate in its celestial
body, or leave and mourn, sublimating the lack in one’s own reality. This is why Gibarian
tells Chris that if he stays, he will inevitably die; to mourn is for Chris to accept that he
cannot know Solaris in terms of his reality.
Finally, when Chris falls asleep, Rheya lets Doctor Gordon send her back to Solaris. The
planet reacts and starts to expand, sucking the ship into its gravitational field. Solaris is Chris’
fatal attraction, “a waste with which, in my sadness, I merge ... into the invisible and
unnameable” (Kristeva 15). Facing his choice to either escape Solaris or stay on the ship, the
film depicts a parallel reality in which Chris returns to Earth. The images of his isolation on
Earth mirror the images of his life before his departure, and therefore recall the melancholy
that he experienced on Earth, but this time he does not seem to attach to the loss of Rheya,
but to the loss of his entire reality:
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Earth. Even the word sounded strange to me now. Unfamiliar. How long had I
been gone? How long had I been back? Did it matter? I tried to find the rhythm of
the world where I used to live. I followed the current. I was silent, attentive. I made
a conscious effort to smile, nod, stand, and perform the millions of gestures that
constitute life on Earth.
In experiencing the proximity of the Thing, Chris has lost his desire for all positively
observable objects in his world. He only attaches to the gesture of loss, desiring the absolute:
a happy life with Rheya beyond death and decay. Earth, his reality, can no longer satisfy his
desire. Chris is incarcerated in melancholy, unwilling to return, perhaps secretly hoping that
Rheya’s final words will come true: “I wish that we could just live inside that feeling forever.
Maybe there is a place where we can, but I know it is not on Earth. And it’s not on this ship.”
Chris decides to stay on board, ready to fall into oblivion. He sees the lost child of Gibarian a
second time, which wants to take his hand. With considerable effort, Chris takes it. The film
fades this image into the final scene, where Chris is together with Rheya again. Therefore, by
conflating the connection between Chris and the child and the connection between Chris and
Rheya, the film visually suggests that the child is the sublime object, representing the
impossible desire to start a family with a clinically depressed lover. The child could be the
positivation of Chris’ void, his lack only existing in the non-existence of the aborted child.
However, only beyond his reality, only beyond death, Chris can come to terms with this lack,
and forgive Rheya for what she did.
In the final scene of the film, Rheya stands in Chris’ room on Earth, comforting him by
saying that they do not have to think in terms of life or death anymore. This suggests that, in
the end, Dylan Thomas was wrong, and death has dominion in the face of Solaris, for Chris’
death and therefore his end of meaning are the only way to resolve his melancholy without
renouncing his loss in the symbolic realm. Thus, Solaris grants him death and therefore a
reality where Chris and Rheya can be together without Chris’ melancholy.
The confrontation with the absolute
I suggested in my analysis of Solaris that the notion of the unthinkable structures the concept
of melancholy. According to Žižek’s reading of Lacan, in order for our reality to function, the
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object-cause of desire must be lacking; the object embodying the unimaginable must be
unattainable. Because melancholy refuses to completely integrate in our systems of
knowledge and understanding, Žižek gives it conceptual primacy. Melancholy is capable of
transgressing the symbolic and the thinkable, leaving a remainder grounded in the
unthinkable. This implies melancholy can structure a visible space, but will always remain
rooted in the unknown.
The implications of a confrontation with the unknown are visualised in Lars von Trier’s
Melancholia. This film visualises the unimaginable, by depicting the definite end of our
reality and connecting it to the concept of melancholy. From outer space, the film shows how
our small planet collides and falls apart in the great body of a mysterious, blue planet named
Melancholia. Naming the celestial body that is capable of destroying our symbolic order
Melancholia is no coincidence. This planet is the physical embodiment of the lacking objectcause of desire, the positivation of the void. In this respect, Melancholia is similar to Solaris,
but one fundamental difference sets these planets apart. Whereas Solaris offers Chris the
choice of either sublimating his object of desire or disintegrating in its void, Melancholia
conflates the object of desire and the object-cause of desire, by introducing in the symbolic
order a sublime object that is capable of disintegrating the order of our reality completely.
Lars von Trier’s version of the end of things is brutal in its simplicity: there is no remainder
that can give Earth’s destruction meaning, for meaning (as we know it) is conditioned by its
existence. Therefore, after exhibiting an absolute cataclysm, the film moves back in time and
follows Justine, Claire, and John, who face the reality of the end in the last weeks before the
collision. Justine is a woman in her thirties who is severely depressed. Her sister, Claire, and
her husband, John, take her in. The couple owns a large estate, cut off from the outside world.
Claire is rightfully frightened of the planet, but John is convinced Melancholia will not hit
Earth.
Although one can see the planet as the physical manifestation of the object-cause of
desire, I suggest that the planet also functions as Justine’s physical object of desire, which has
long been lost and now has returned. The film shows how the existence of the mysterious
planet is the only thing captivating Justine. During the reception of her own marriage, she
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disappears and drives a golf cart to the border of the estate, to witness the planet approaching.
Her obsession with the planet reaches new heights when the film shows her bathing naked in
the planet’s blue light. Justine is intensely despondent, but eerily calm about seeing the face
of death nearing her world; she is perfectly at ease knowing the world is coming to its
definitive end. Being disappointed in all other aspects of life, she only desires that which she
has arguably lost or found lacking—and now returns as the true object-cause of desire
capable of filling her gap of desire. Although the planet Melancholia has always been the
unattainable object petit a capable of destroying the symbolic order, only now has it come
into her existence; only now is it known and integrated into the symbolic order; and only now
does it acquire the paradoxical role of the displaced physical object of Justine’s melancholy.
Against this argument, I could also argue that, in their dance of death, Earth, and
Melancholia switch parts. That, in the wake of its destruction, Earth becomes the lost object
of melancholy that Justine can only possess in its loss. This would validate her
disappointment over life on Earth, for in her melancholy no physical object can satisfy her
desire, knowing the object is already lost. Moreover, even though Melancholia has entered
the symbolic realm as a physical object capable of disintegrating reality, its identification as
the true objet petit a is suspended until the actual moment of collision, until the object-cause
of desire violates Justine’s reality and disintegrates its conditions. Melancholia functions as a
physical manifestation of the unimaginable approaching. After the moment of collision, there
is nothing left to imagine and Melancholia has attained the status of the unimaginable.
The dance of death between Earth and Melancholia, resulting in the two planets
colliding, bears the same mark of an absolute limit as described by Jacques Derrida. Derrida
writes about the unimaginable in relation to the nuclear arms race, for the nuclear age “allows
us to confront our predicament starting from the limit constituted by the absolute acceleration
in which the uniqueness of an ultimate event, of a final collision or collusion, the
temporalities called subjective and objective, phenomenological and intraworldly ... would
end up being merged into one another” (21). The planetary collision that Melancholia depicts
is tantamount to a nuclear war; it has no precedent, it has not occurred, it is a non-event.
Derrida argues that this limit can only be the signified referent of a discourse; it can never be
53
the real referent, at least until the very occurrence of the (non-) event (23). Therefore, until
the moment of collision, Melancholia can only exist in the symbolic realm; its capacity to end
all things remains a fable, an invention.
The structure of melancholy in outer space
Even though Melancholia cannot consciously attain the status of the unattainable objectcause of desire, neither Freud or Žižek, nor Derrida are able to account for the unconscious,
for the unconscious is inherently unknown. This is where I wish to return to Agamben’s study
of melancholy, which aptly acknowledges this issue:
Freud does not conceal his embarrassment before the undeniable proof that,
although mourning follows a loss that has really occurred, in melancholia not only
is it unclear what object has been lost, it is uncertain that one can speak of a loss at
all. “It must be admitted,” Freud writes, with a certain discomfort, “that a loss has
indeed occurred, without it being known what has been lost.” Shortly thereafter, in
the attempt to gloss over the contradiction posed by a loss without a lost object,
Freud speaks of an “unknown loss” or of an “object-loss that escapes
consciousness”. (Agamben 20)
Hence, lack structures the unconscious, not loss, and the (traumatising) object-cause of
desire thus touches the unconscious in the same manner as outer space structures the void.
This means that the actual object-cause of desire lies in the unconscious, where it is
unattainable, but desired by the melancholic, which then turns the lack into a loss. If the
planet is the object Justine has always lacked, if the planet is the object-cause of desire that
lives in her unconscious, she has displaced her melancholy in the mourning of the loss of
other, physical objects that are still around her. Justine’s mother tells her newlywed daughter
to enjoy their marriage while it lasts, triggering Justine to mourn the loss of her marriage
even before the ceremony is completed. As long as her husband is still with her, she engages
in destructive behaviour, knowing she will destroy her feeble marriage; she takes a bath while
everyone is waiting for her to cut the cake; she is unwilling to throw the bouquet; and, on her
wedding night, she is intimate with a guest on the golf course. If Melancholia is the (lacking)
object of her desire, it explains why she is the only one who does not seem to mourn over the
54
prospect of life on Earth ending. Subjects, who are not melancholic, will perceive the planet
as a threat, but Justine seems infatuated by the existence of the planet and welcomes it in her
life. Thus, previously hidden deeply in her unconscious, the positivation of the void rises up
to her conscious and approaches the symbolic realm.
Lacan confirms what Freud assumes: as opposed to that of mourning, the true lost object
of melancholy is rooted in that which cannot be signified, in that which cannot be traced. Any
attempt to trace this object, to bring this object into the symbolic realm, leads to a process of
deference where another physical object embodies the lack. For Derrida, the only referent
that is absolutely real is the dimension of a total catastrophe that would irreversibly destroy
all symbolic capacity, without the revelation of its own truth, without absolute knowledge,
without the reality of death being ‘softened’ in the realm of the symbolic by the work of
mourning (27-8). The absolute referent is thus the only referent that is ineffaceable; it is the
trace that is entirely other. For Derrida, absolute nuclear catastrophe is the absolute referent.
In Justine’s reality, I believe the planet Melancholia embodies this absolute referent.
Given that the melancholic suffers from the loss of that which is and must always be
lacking in order for the symbolic realm to exist, I suggest the concept of melancholy is
partially rooted in the unattainable, the absolute truth beyond meaning. The sublime object
will always resist signification, for if it does not, the unthinkable will violate our reality, as is
the case when the true object-cause of desire of Justine’s melancholy enters the realm of our
reality. Hence, melancholy offers no chance of revelation or the unveiling of an absolute
truth. Paradoxically, the structure of melancholy in outer space is what comes closest to the
void, although the space that constitutes our reality ceases to exist in the absolute unknown.
In the closing section of the first chapter, I have insinuated that the intrinsic qualities of
the foreign city space can incarcerate its subject in melancholy. An encounter with a space
that is proximate to something that a subject cannot know will most likely instil melancholy
in it. The subject can either escape the pull of the void and sublimate the unknown into its
own reality, accepting that desire is structured around a fundamental lack and that no loss
took place, or linger and disintegrate in melancholy, tracing its lack in desirable physical
objects that were once lost and that are now structured around the void. Therefore, the largely
55
unknown qualities of outer space make it a compelling arena for melancholy to take shape.
Outer space literally isolates the subject from all that it knows, bringing it closer to the
unimaginable. Both films I have analysed show that this void of the unimaginable draws in
the deviant melancholic. In Solaris, Chris seeks forgiveness for his mistakes on Earth by
overcoming his object-cause of desire. Disintegration in the void itself is therefore the only
outcome of his melancholy; he welcomes the pull of Solaris and allows himself to
disintegrate in its body. In Melancholia, Justine might not have a choice whether she allows
Melancholia to pull her in, but having found the source of her melancholy in the blue planet,
she is aware that her reality is already disintegrating, and that there is no reason to mourn
over it. Instead, she welcomes the inevitable arrival of the unimaginable.
Therefore, these films show that the space surrounding the sublime object may already
pull its subject in, conditioning melancholic loss by displacing the subject’s fundamental lack
in a visible lost object. Any attempt to attain the full visibility of the object-cause of desire
can only result in the inevitable disintegration of reality. This unsettling truth likely leaves the
audience of Solaris and Melancholia feeling melancholic themselves. Watching Solaris and
Melancholia, I am left with a hollow feeling, perhaps because I am confronted with the limits
of my own reality, knowing that I will never be able to fully comprehend the unimaginable.
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Conclusion
My fascination for the relationship between melancholy and space originates in the
melancholy I experienced myself in New York City. I desired to understand how this city
conditioned my melancholy, for when I left, the hollow feeling quickly disappeared.
However, it was difficult to fully comprehend and utilise the scope of the study of
melancholy in one argument, because writers used the concept to label a vast amount of
different feelings, emotions, and conditions. Therefore, in my attempt to investigate the
relationship between melancholy and two kinds of unfamiliar spaces—the foreign city space
and (the proximity of) outer space—I have made heuristic use of theory written about
melancholy. I focussed primarily on the contemporary notion of melancholy as a (passing)
mood state, and purposefully left the archaic notion of melancholy as a pathological disorder
out of consideration. I have analysed three contemporary films to investigate to what extent
the melancholic qualities of unfamiliar and isolated spaces can evoke or intensify melancholy
in a subject, given that this subject is already susceptible to experiencing melancholy. I have
chosen to conduct my investigation using film analyses, because I believe film is a medium
that can aptly visualise how spaces give shape to the experience of the subjects. The films I
have analysed expose visual manifestations of the subject’s melancholy in its shadows and
reflections, and distort spaces to mirror the inauthenticity of the subject’s melancholic
experience. As I have shown, the protagonists resonate with the melancholic qualities of the
spaces they inhabit, which deepen and intensify their melancholy and, consequently, the
melancholic conditions of the protagonists shape the audience’s perception of these spaces.
In this thesis, I have shown that a space that is unfamiliar to a subject can function as an
arena where it can feel melancholy arising out of the instability of place, which is fed by the
57
subject’s cultural isolation, and the instability of purpose, which is fed by the subject’s spatial
disorientation. I have also argued that a vast and isolated space can evoke melancholy in a
subject, or, when this space approximates the unimaginable, may even incarcerate the subject
in its melancholy, given that the subject is already susceptible to experiencing melancholy.
In the first chapter, I have analysed how Lost in Translation relates Bob and Charlotte’s
melancholic condition to their experience of the foreign city spaces of Tokyo. I have argued
that as long as the spaces of a foreign city are unfamiliar to a subject that is already
experiencing a personal crisis, Tokyo functions as an arena evoking or intensifying
melancholy. The city conditions the subject’s melancholy by destabilising its place and
purpose, because its spaces constantly remind the subject that it does not belong here.
Moreover, the film constantly depicts Bob and Charlotte as being lost, which pushes them
deeper into their despondency. Presented through the eyes of the protagonists, Tokyo is a
lonely, dark place that pushes the protagonists deeper into their melancholic condition.
However, I have shown how humour, and specifically the mocking smile, can expose the
inauthentic melancholy image of the melancholic subject. By ridiculing their melancholy,
Bob and Charlotte manage to temporarily relieve themselves from its grasp. Finally, I have
shown how the vast and isolated qualities of a foreign space are likely to incarcerate the
subject in its melancholy.
In the second chapter, I have analysed how Solaris and Melancholia relates the
melancholic condition of its protagonists to outer space. I have argued how the vast and
isolated qualities of outer space can intensify feelings of isolation, which increases the
likelihood that melancholy will incarcerate the subject. My analysis of Solaris has shown
that, close to the margins of the subject’s reality in outer space, the subject desperately seeks
something to understand and uses already lost objects to substitute the lack of understanding,
instead of accepting that the fundamental lack that cannot be sublimated in its reality. I have
shown that these films present this sublation as impossible, in accordance with Žižek’s
theory, which argues that the melancholic subject interprets the lack of the object-cause of
desire as a loss. Solaris shows that a visible, lost object cannot displace the subject’s
melancholy, without the eventual disintegration of the subject’s reality. This will incarcerate
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the subject in its melancholy and draw it to the film’s inevitable arrival of the unimaginable.
My analysis of Melancholia further established this argument, showing how an approaching
object capable of disintegrating the subject’s reality cannot be sublimated in the subject’s
own reality. By making the unimaginable visible, the melancholic subject is further isolated
from its own reality, which Solaris depicts by confining its diegetic world to the deserted
spaceship, and Melancholia depicts by confining its diegetic world to the borders of the
isolated estate.
I contend that, in these films, the unfamiliarity of the foreign city space, and the
proximity of the void in outer space, determines the subject’s experience of melancholy. As I
have argued, an encounter with an unfamiliar space will push a melancholic subject deeper
into its melancholy. Moreover, I suggest that the degree of unfamiliarity of a space
determines the intensity of the experienced melancholy. In Lost in Translation, Bob and
Charlotte are confronted with reflections of their melancholy in the foreign city’s spaces, but
are still able to relieve themselves temporarily from their melancholy by getting romantically
involved, by reflecting on their situation using self-mockery, and by ultimately parting ways,
accepting that their melancholic desire for each other is ungrounded. However, in Solaris and
Melancholia, the manifestations of Chris and Justine’s melancholy are so intrusive that both
subjects give in to their melancholy completely, and ultimately welcome the unthinkable to
disintegrate their reality. Therefore, I suggest that an unfamiliar and isolated space brings the
subject closer to that what it cannot know. This will intensify the subject’s experience of
melancholy, up to the point where it can no longer resist the pull of what Žižek calls the
object-cause of desire. As a result, the subject will ultimately give in to its melancholy
completely.
This conclusion opens the possibility for other unfamiliar and isolated spaces to confront
a subject with its melancholy in similar ways. For example, I believe this notion is also
present in John Curran’s film Tracks, in which a young woman goes on a 2,000-mile trek
across the vast deserts of West Australia. This recent film depicts an intensely melancholic
character looking for the cause of her despondency in a space that brings her closer to her
object-cause of desire. The isolation the protagonist experiences in her journey detaches her
59
further from her own reality. However, when she realises that she cannot find what she is
looking for in the face of the unknown, she escapes the grasp of the desert and manages to
reach her destination.13 The characters of films as Tracks engage their audiences in the
characters’ melancholic struggles, perhaps because the appeal of isolation and solitude is
growing stronger in a world that is populating rapidly, or perhaps because audiences seek
answers themselves and hope to see the roots of melancholy exposed.
In my introduction, I have suggested that any attempt to capture melancholy is in itself
melancholic, because, according to Heidegger, a (melancholic) mood assails before cognition
and will colour all attempts to relate it to other concepts. After my analysis of Melancholia, I
concluded that it is likely for the audience to experience melancholy, for this film ends with
the complete destruction of meaning. The film leaves its audience empty-handed, knowing
that there is no meaning in the unimaginable. I experienced a similar feeling writing this
thesis. The unknown cause of melancholy defines its condition. Therefore, I will never be
able to fully comprehend the relationship between melancholy and space. Strictly speaking,
my perplexity defines my thesis as a melancholic attempt to find reason in a concept which
only functions when it is rooted in the unimaginable. However, this does not mean my
attempt was pointless, for I believe my analyses have shown that the relationship between
melancholy and space is above all characterised by isolation and unfamiliarity.
Moreover, unravelling this relationship between melancholy and space has helped me to
understand why I experienced melancholy living in New York City. I now understand that I
felt dislocated and isolated in this unfamiliar city, unsure where to go or what to do next. The
city’s unfamiliar spaces amplified my melancholy. The city only disclosed that I could not
find my stability of place or purpose in its streets. I realise that isolating myself in my desire
to find the roots of my melancholy is counterproductive, because this isolation will only
13
Two other films come to mind: Alfonso Cuarón’s Gravity, in which a medical engineer is
left adrift in outer space after a catastrophe destroys her shuttle, and Mike Cahill’s Another
Earth, in which a traumatised young student deals with the discovery of a parallel universe of
a duplicate Earth. I believe both films feature melancholic protagonists. Therefore, an
analysis of these films would most likely further establish the relationship between
melancholy and unfamiliar, isolated spaces.
60
intensify the melancholy I experience. A better strategy is to accept that one cannot expose
the roots of melancholy. As I have shown, mocking the inauthentic image that one’s
melancholy casts over the self, and accepting that one cannot find the source of melancholy
elsewhere (or anywhere, for that matter), usually helps to disintegrate melancholy
temporarily. This strategy of acceptance allows me to comfortably let go of the desire to truly
understand the melancholic condition, at least for now.
61
Figures
Figure 1.1
Figure 1.2
Figure 1.3
62
Figure 1.4
Figure 1.5
Figure 1.6
Figure 1.7
63
Figure 1.8
Figure 1.9
Figure 1.10
Figure 1.11
64
Figure 1.12
Figure 1.13
Figure 1.14
Figure 1.15
65
Figure 2.1
Figure 2.2
Figure 2.3
Figure 2.4
66
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Lost in Translation. Dir. Sofia Coppola. Focus Features, 2003. Film.
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