Isolation, Through the Lens of Film
★
If I were to categorize my preference in film, as a viewer and as a writer, I would begin my list with contained films. A contained film primarily exists in one location: a car, a coffin, a convenience store. The enclosed setting allows for plot to be harnessed by character, since external resources are limited. A single location can evoke nauseating sentiments of entrapment, creating a wonderful device for a thriller piece. Since the timeouts of youth, it has been human nature to view isolated space as negative, or even frightening. Loneliness often conjures emotional claustrophobia and without our normal systems of distraction, there is a harrowingly aimless quality to the day. The solution to this lies in creativity and perspective.
Cinema has the marvellous power to introduce perspective, a power that may be the hallmark achievement of the art form. Each of the films below illustrate a different element of isolation, providing four unique insights into our current climate. Analyzing an external product can help reassess situations in life that may feel intangible or overpowering. Not all of these films are explicitly thrillers; many run adjacent to a psychological drama, but I believe they possess a terror akin to our current situation — a fear we can separate, learn from, and transform.
★
High Life
While Robert Egger’s Lighthouse is the perfect cabin fever film, High Life, another Robert Pattison project directed by Claire Denis, focuses more on the anxiety of the unknown. This quieter, cryptic science fiction thriller follows the last survivors of a ship, Monte and his infant daughter, as they voyage further into deep space. There’s no better setting to examine the uncertainty of isolation than against the backdrop of an expansive, uncharted universe. High Life focuses on the tension of “where are we going?” and then, “what happens after?”. This tension supersedes the dramatic. Life in flux is an incredible challenge for a society that values productivity and forward motion; one that seeks to preserve the certainty of action within small mason jars to store in a cabinet of personal success. Humans enjoy to progress and plan, whether they outline their activity on a color-coded calendar or on a greasy napkin corner. As opportunity stretches thin in the face of an uncertain future, we are left asking the same questions as Pattison’s Monte, “where are we going?”, “what happens after?”. If we unravel the allegorical abstractions of High Life, there is peace to be found in embracing the uncertainty to focus on nurturing the organic matter in front of us. This process is crucial in lessening the burden of fear that disruption has placed on our lives. By focusing on the tactile, you can reestablish connection with the present moment.
“As opportunity stretches thin in the face of an uncertain future, we are left asking the same questions as Pattison’s Monte, ‘where are we going?’, ‘what happens after?’.”
★
The Alchemist's Cookbook
Joel Potrykus’s The Alchemist's Cookbook follows a young man named Sean who has chosen to self-isolate in the backwoods of Michigan in order to dedicate all of his time to the pursuit of alchemy, or, to summon a demon that will deliver him gold. Throughout the film, we not only become rapidly aware of the infectious nature of the supernatural, but we also witness the deterioration of Sean’s mental health under the pressure to create.
The knowledge that Shakespeare (allegedly) penned King Lear as a pestilence that temporarily closed the Globe, circulated enough to make any artist sweat. Everyone wants to commodify and capitalize on time, to write their magnum opus, to paint their masterpiece, to transfigure rock into gold. Metabolizing loneliness into art is not always the best for your work or your sanity, as Sean dictates. Our infrastructure for supporting artists at this time is abysmal, and many of us cannot subsist without the creative resources that exist outside our homes. We cannot judge ourselves for that.
This film illustrates the danger of pushing yourself beyond natural inspiration. The notion one must suffer and quantify tragedy to become a good creator is false. Gold is found in nakedness, the open and honest vulnerability of the soul, and in self kindness. The Alchemist’s Cookbook is a warning for those who push themselves to incorporeality.
★
Dogtooth
Yorgos Lanthimos’s Dogtooth is one of my favorite films. The plot follows a mother and father who have never allowed their adult children to leave the home by constructing a labyrinth of lies about the outside world. It’s a brilliant isolationist parable that deals with the anxiety of filtered information. The swiftness of change in our current time has ushered in a complicated political paranoia built on speculation, theory, and personal ideology. This began with hoarding and store rushing, migrated to racist postulation toward the Chinese, followed by 5G conspiracy, then false interpretations of the Stay At Home Order, to the recent agitprop melodrama on whether one should wear a mask in public. Dogtooth perfectly encapsulates what it means to be cut off from others, to be forced to rely on the narratives you are gifted. The tension of the film manifests in a gut feeling that questions the truth, validity, and reason of the children's situation. This gut feeling is not a narrative fabrication — it’s a genuine anchor within all of us that questions and weighs options. It is an understanding that what is comfortable is not always right. Dogtooth encourages a cautious glare to be directed at people in power who may seek to manipulate vulnerable situations.
★
Persona
Ingmar Bergman’s Persona is a film of buried truths, information that requires excavation by both characters and audience. It is a mysterious little piece I feel I may never grasp in its entirety. The basic plot follows two women: Elizabeth, an actress who has gone mute for reasons that evade medical understanding, and her gentle-natured nurse, Alma. At the urging of a psychiatrist, the two abscond to a remote summer home by the beach to aid in Elizabeth’s recovery. Alma’s method for negotiating the silence is to talk endlessly, inevitably revealing her darkest truths, until her emotional balance tips and wobbles into Elizabeth and the women become frighteningly merged.
If you spend enough time within one place, you do inevitably come across a spectre of oneself, an apparition long banished so as not to be constantly haunted by the little hurts, the awkwardness, the injuries and aggravations that would follow us through life. Whenever you stop, it will catch up to you. Many in quarantine still negotiate with their running shoes by becoming proverbial winos or urgently busy. We do not know how long we have to sit in our own company, how long we must navigate our own persona. If we are forced to stew and seep with these unfamiliar selves, I guess the advice to take away, advice for myself, others, and the fictional women within this film, would be to embrace the heat. Think of a summer's day, a bleached sky, and memories like tourists. They’re only visiting the ocean-side home you built. Their revenue is what helps you afford it. You can watch them fondly, albeit with the minor disdain all locals hold for tourists when they invade their towns and complicate traffic. I feel like Elizabeth and Alma would’ve ended the film happier if they had devoted more time to enjoying the beach.
“The fear that thrives in quarantine is a fleeting jolt in the scheme of life. Isolation is such a creeping word, but it’s not innately negative.”
★
To summarize this Cronenberg of film recommendations, social musings, personal neurosis, and possible surplus of figurative language: the media we consume allows us personal and intimate interaction with a life outside our own. Sometimes, we can deftly turn the lens in another direction and use the ideas of a piece to illuminate new sermons. The fear that thrives in quarantine is a fleeting jolt in the scheme of life. Isolation is such a creeping word, but it’s not innately negative. All the time we spend within our own mind, dreaming and planning, is time spent alone. This meditation is essential to our being. Focus on the day to day — don’t be pressured to create in a period of mourning, be wary of loud voices, and maintain a friendly relationship with your pesky memories. Stay inside, if you can. Watch more movies.