Student Film Reviews

Reviewed by Rowen Fields. Viewed at AFT Film Festival 2015.

“The Lobster” Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos, is a dark comedy intended for the exploration of love, loneliness and commitment through unusual means. We view this world through David (Collin Ferrell) as he stumbles through a futuristic world where one must find love wishing 45 days, lest be turned into an animal of their choosing and released in to the wild. This film also explores what it means to be an individual as well as what it takes to conform to the society that surrounds us.

While the premise of this film is humorous, it takes a look at what it is to be alone in society and what type of pressure society puts on to being part of a couple to be able to fit in with what is expected of adults. We see these ‘singles’ engage in dinners, dancing, and loner hunting looking for things that they may have similar with the other singles, grasping for anything they can find. One man, the man with the limp (Ben Whishaw), intentionally bloodies his nose to connect with another woman. It is not until a series of events that David falls in love with a loner(Rachel Weisz), and has to figure out how to deal with this, in limbo between a loner and civilization.

This movie explores modern day expressions of connection, looking for little compatibility as long as it means being part of a relationship. The emotionlessness of each character expresses the connectivity this type of society employees. This acting of these characters is what allows this movie to flourish, allowing the humor, shock, horror and experimentation to speak for themselves. While there are points that this movie drags, the end product is a movie that will stick with the viewer past the end credits, as one realizes the social commentary is less futuristic and much more current than most would like to admit.

The movie “The Lobster 2015” presents a dystopian story. If there is any positive energy in this story, it is that it makes us understand that the unreasonable social system is a tragedy for the individual.

The film chose the marriage system to tell the story because the institution of marriage is the cornerstone of society and can affect every member of society. The quality of the institution of marriage basically determines the degree of civilization of the society. In “lobster” dystopia is a picking society, all people must be in pairs, loners will questioned by the police, who are single, widowed, or the divorcees will be focused to a hotel, the hotel will have some measures to help these people looking for a partner, in a certain period of time can’t find a partner, will be a kind of animal, continue to search for partner in accordance with the animal model. Those who can’t find a partner and don’t want to be an animal can only escape into the jungle and become prey to those who are looking for a partner in a hotel. Clearly, this rule is against humanity. Contrary to human nature, it is not to turn people into “animals”. It is of course an expression of dystopian literature. Because it is “people”, the way he will be in accordance with the people to choose a spouse, such as he will consider the appearance, property and social status, factors such as interest interest, when the way “people” unable to mate, “people” into “animals”, is nothing more than to get rid of, “human nature” of things to make him completely according to the animal instinct to find “the partner”.

Obviously, not all people are willing to become animals, jungle celibacy was proof, because some of the group still want to find a partner, just within the prescribed 45 days unable to complete the task. However, escaping to the jungle is a great pain to endure, so people who don’t want to be animals and don’t want to suffer are choosing to cheat. “Cheating” is also forced by unreasonable institutions. Because the system according to the personal definition of “main character” to find a partner, you define your own are main the feature is crippled, for example, it is up to you to find a lame man, if you often flow nosebleed, you have to find someone who often flow nosebleed. So, when John couldn’t wait for another cripple in the rest of the time, he broke his nose and succeeded in getting a regular nosebleed girl. David, the hero of the film, changes his temper in a way that combines with that cold, ruthless and cruel woman. Of course, we also can say that the so-called “main character” is also a kind of literary expression, it is nothing but want to express, couples should have mutual attraction “connector”, such as the common hobby. However, marriage is a public expression of two people who fall in love with each other. True love can be faced with death, and there is no proof of love. Arrange a trapped in the second half of the film, in fact, the behavior of the utopia to illustrate this point, namely the jungle alone send head with a gun pointed at the hotel manager and her partner, although because they have a nice voice and combination, but under the threat of death, the “love” between them soon tact. Therefore, it is not reasonable to simply use some kind of “joint node”.

The second half of the film seems to be a further critique of the “evil” that irrational social institutions can generate from a human perspective. People’s sociality enables people to adapt to the society actively, which is often the reason for the existence of unreasonable social system; And because of that, an irrational social system is more critical, because it is not just crushing humanity, it’s changing humanity. Although the hero David fled to become a member of celibacy, jungle alone may rule shall not have any form of picking behavior exist, he can no longer matter in accordance with the established social rules, but he is still in accordance with the requirements for the hotel “main character” in finding a mate. Obviously, David’s tragedy is not only that he has broken the rules of the jungle, but that he has not escaped the constraints of social rules. So when his woman was blind from the jungle celibacy, he tried to blind his eyes to match, even if they had already fled back to the city. Although we feel that this behavior is extremely foolish, we feel a chill in the back of our backs when we think that it is the social system. Although we can “mourn its misfortunes and rage against it”, it is inhumane to expect ordinary members of society to confront the abominable social system.

About

Film Review Club: Reviews of current film releases, streaming films, and revivals by student members of the SBCC Film Review Club.

Prof. Nico Maestu: Faculty Advisor ([email protected])

Film Festival Course: FS108: Film Festival Studies: Santa Barbara International Film Festival and AFI Fest: Hollywood (2 or 1.5 units). Field course at film festivals to study U.S. and international fiction, experimental and documentary films.

Contact: Prof. Nico Maestu ([email protected])

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Martin Edward Hutchinson 02.02.16 / 11am

Whatever one may think about the Lobster, its creativity is undeniable. The situations in this film are so incredibly surreal and farcical that they very well may encapsulate contemporary perceptions of relationships. If you take that view, then it certainly is a tour de force in parody and satire.

Amanda Carlson 07.15.16 / 9pm

This film is wonderfully brilliant in the metaphor that it provides for how society views single people and how single people sometimes view themselves. It shows the desperation to connect on any level, even if it is sometimes an embellishment like you mentioned. I thought that Ferrell played the humor in the dark situation very well and his character’s quietness lended to an excellent film to observe and analyze. I love that you brought up the part about him having to deal with balancing his loner life and civilization. I think it came out in the film so beautifully in showing how Ferrell’c character dealt with this change in his life and being pushed past his comfort zone.

Madisson Gouveia 10.14.16 / 9pm

When choosing to watch this movie, I was skeptical to say the least but decided to give it a try! I thought that it was a lot more realistic than I expected and the character development was admirable. I agree that the concept behind it deals with a very real expectation that adults should be in a relationship. The one aspect of the movie that I found most peculiar was that the characters were required to have something in common with each other in order to connect. Overall, I found this movie to be very strange but, like you said, it definitely stuck with me.

Rujie Wang 11.15.17 / 12am

The Lobster (Yorgos Lanthimos, 2015): Ireland | UK | Greece | France | Netherlands | USA

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