A Post-Modern Approach to Mind-Game Films

The last week’s screening, Orson Wells’s F for Fake made me realize something that I have been unaware of until that time. After finishing the film, I felt like somewhat disturbed and de-familiarized, which reminded me of the feeling I experience after I read a postmodern book. And that was the point where I came to this big realization! Mind-Game movies such as Run Lola Run, Memento, Bin-Jip, Mulholland Drive, in fact, are visual equivalents of postmodern novels with their fragmented and self-referential narrative styles and open-endedness, active viewer-text interaction and plots in which reality intermingles with imagination or illusion. These features of the films can be considered as the reflection of contemporary age where knowledge is diverse and on-going, reality is unfixed and questionable, urban space is chaotic and fragmented.

Thus, these movies, in a general sense, do not convey classical Hollywood narrative styles (with a beginning, climax and a proper ending) and plays with our conventional sense of perception of cinema. Breaking our conventions and delaying our expectations from narration, these movies actually leave audiences uneasy and confused in a sense, the feelings which might be regarded as akin to characters’ troubled minds or to the context the movie sets in.

Let’s take Bin-Jip for example. The movie is very minimalist in terms of dialogues, (a Kim-Kii Duk’s signature) but becomes so powerful with overwhelming cinematography and directing. Basically, it is a love story. The protagonist falls in love with a married woman who is oppressed by her husband and they run together. (still no dialogue between the two). The protagonist, then, is arrested as result of accusation of the woman’s husband. During the time he is in prison he learns to disguise himself, in other words, he becomes invisible. Using this ability, he starts living with the woman and her husband. However, only the woman is able to realize his presence in the house. That is the point where the movie diverges from the conventional and where reality merges with illusion. The audience is left with unanswered questions. How can he be visible? Is he alive or dead? or Is it just an imagination of the woman? Here, the technique of de-familiarization manifests itself as indistinctness between reality and illusion. From the beginning it is given an impression that there is not anything unreal about characters and plot as in a traditional movie. However, as the story advances, the gap between the real and illusion blurs, which causes the audience to feel puzzled and to question the existence of reality, which is one of the major debates of postmodernism as Baudrillard puts forward “we are not living in a world of reality but imitation of an imitation.”

Orson Wells’s F for Fake, alternatively, has a similar de-familiarization effect on the audience. The movie achieves this with an unusual editing technique, which is very fast-paced and quite fragmented. The movie, with these features, has similarities with Brechtian Theater. Along with the features mentioned above, what is striking about the movie is that we witness how the movie is made and Wells’ direct addressing to the audience. In other words, the movie, by referencing to itself continuously, reminds the audience that it is a movie. It is not real, it is just an illusion, and it is the fake itself, a metafiction effect Brecht aims to achieve in theater. Thus, the feeling on the audience is also unusual like the movie itself. The movie destroys our traditional sense of narration (which is relatively linear), makes us exhausted and detached from our surroundings.

To conclude, mind-game movies aim to play with our effort to make sense of disjointed, discontinuous and complex narratives. In addition, they play with our sense of reality by blending it with fantasy. After watching them, our expectations, created by previous encounters with cinema, are left puzzled and alienated, which, in turn, causes us to question the illusion of cinema itself.

Merve Ersoy

Some different MGFs

After reading Thomas Elsaesser’s the MGF (Mind-Game Film) article and re-thinking the movies that he has mentioned, I consider some other movies that whether they can be included MGF categories such as K-Pax (2001) by Iain Softley, Contact (1997) by Robert Zemeckis and the Double life of Veronique (1991) by Krzysztof Kieslowski. Actually, the main point which makes me think that they can be sub-categories of MGFs is their ending rather than their complex narrative or “productive pathologies”  that Elsaesser’s has mentioned. Their endings can open the new understanding of MGFs in addition to Elsaesser’s points. Moreover, what they’d like to do is to make us believe whatever we want. In other words, the meaning that the movie would like to give is based on spectator’s point of views. For instance, as many of us know the plot of K-Pax (2001), the protagonist, Prot, is a patient in mental hospital and claims that he is coming from the other planet called K-Pax. Also, he is believed that he is mentally-ill person and thus his psychologist decides to treat him and then learns that he has dramatic history related to a man called Robert Porter. As long as he stays in hospital, he always mentions he’ll leave in a few days. In this sense, we see what Elsaesser’s mentioned in the article. We can regard this movie as simply in the category of “productive pathology” since Elsaesser points that “…pathologies are often connected to personal past: mostly traumatic incident that keeps returning or insists on manifesting itself in present…”(p.25) Thus, it can be said that his “deluded mind” makes him “alien” coming from K-Pax. He can be regarded as a deluded person in an isolated place by being isolated from the world and then Foucaultian criticism can be done in the sense of Madness and Civilization. Also, Elsaesser puts it like “Read ‘politically’ in the light of Foucault, the MGFs would show how perceptual or somatic faculties released or manifest by illness are equally ‘socialized’… or illness is made to work, fitting a body (through its mind no longer ‘in control’ around new social tasks and political relations” (p.32) The movie, simply, says that he is mentally ill even he is genius having unearthly knowledge of astronomy. However, I do not think it is not the only classical thing that makes movie one of the instance of MGFs. The different perspective that I’d like to indicate is about its ending: the movie makes the narration to be forked in its ending and it means that each path can go by being based on different narration. Whether he is alien or not is left to spectator’s own perspective. Thus, as a kind of MGF, K-Pax makes spectator to be in purgatory. K-Pax is going on its linear way, namely, in its 120 minutes, however, the ambiguity cannot be solved; it can only be solved in the ending of the movie depending on belief of spectator. Its narration is based on spectator’s mind and also its mind’s ‘game’ categories. Thereby, in addition to rules of the game, ”to leave spectator in ambiguity and then to leave her free to choose whatever way ‘game’ goes on”, should be one of the added motif to the MGF genre (at least I think that) and so K-Pax should be a kind of the MGF depending on its forked ending.

As regards to Contact (1997), based on Carl Sagan’s book, in reality, the main story tries to indicate difference between theology and science and their understanding of the universe. As for some aspects or interpretations, the movie criticizes understanding of dominant scientific community. However, what regards us is the ambiguity – about humanity which will be only defeated by the spectator. When, the protagonist, Ellie, who listens the signals coming from extraterrestrial intelligence, travels to investigate outer space by the machine constructed by them (people who work with Ellie in Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence), the camera placed inside of the machine already records the time.  When the connection between machine and NASA was broken, the face to face communication with Ellie couldn’t be made but the camera continued to record the time. It means that the time passes wherever she “goes”. Although she is known to be in the machine, at the same time, she travels and meets her dead father in her dream or her “heaven”. I think that, in the sub-narration, the movie mentions parallel universe and aliens. Moreover, Ellie seems that she does not mistake about her imagination and reality. However, what creates ambiguity and then what defeats it is Ellie’s “adventure” in another universe. It is made just by showing recorded time of tape. To believe or not believe “she” is in there, her body in there or “she” is in her own “adventure”, namely, her “heaven” depends  on spectator’s outlook (also, other dynamics of world such as politics do not let her cause a Gestalt-Switch so politicians and some NASA guys do not believe her and do not let her make people believe w/o evidence). Thus, the spectator is the one who interprets the movie by whatever s/he has in its mind.

Actually, I expected that the writer also expands the some main concepts used in the MGF such as parallel universe, ontology, and epistemology. For instance, if I consider the Double life of Veronique (1991) regarding writer’s comments, I can easily say that yes, it can be a MGF since it indicates parallel universe and its protagonist does not know she has twin in other universe until a puppeteer makes her recognize some photos. Then, she realizes and understands why she sometimes feels different like she is not alone in this world in the way of searching the truth. In fact, since Elsaesser has mentioned Kieslowski, Polish excellent director graduated from Lodz Film Academy in 1969, and his Blind Chance (1987), I don’t understand why he does not mention the Double Life of Veronique (1991). If anyone has watched it, please s/he re-thinks this movie whether it is a MGF or not, too.  I think that the Double life of Veronique (1991) does not have hierarchical or complex narrative or there is no mistaken cognitive or perceptual promise and also it does not seem that it fits “A list of Common Motifs” then what is it? Is it just European art film with its mysticism?

As to Caché (2005), one of Michael Haneke’s really fabulous job, yes it doesn’t seem like Memento, The Sixt Sense, etc. but is it a MGF since its protagonist is played and he has traumatic childhood memories that makes his present delusional in some respects?

Let me ask my last question:  Can it be really possible to think a movie as MGF genre by searching for some motifs that Elsaesser has mentioned? I asked it since I think that there are other movies cannot be placed under his common motifs about MGFs. Thus, I think that the movies I mentioned above having different kind of ambiguity can be regarded as kind of  MGFs in addition to Elsaesser’s sayings.

Sinem Aydınlı

“Where Is My Mind?”

The title comes from the legendary Pixies song which plays at the end of David Fincher’s Fight Club (1999) . With lyrics such as  ”With your feet in the air and your head on the ground /Try this trick and spin it /Your head will collapse /If there’s nothing in it /And you’ll ask yourself /Where is my mind?” and its chaotic, eerie notes, the song seems to be to be a perfect fit for our theme this week, the mind-game films. I thought you might want to listen to it once again while reading my scribbles on the genre. Be aware because there might be possible spoilers.
I turned this weekend into a mini mind-game weekend for myself. As I was reading Thomas Elsaesser’s very explanatory article, “The Mind-Game Film”, I noticed how many important puzzling films I had missed to see. So I watched Dark City (1998) and Lost Highway (1997).
I first watched Dark City. I was already curious about this film because in my “Cinema and Space” course that I was taking last year, it was screened, however I was not able to attend the screening. Upon watching it tonight, I understood why it was part of a course that focused on the relation of cinema with architecture and urban condition. I have poor concentration skills, that is, when I’m watching something on my laptop, I have to pause it for a few times even if it’s a very easy sitcom. And – I did not pause this sci-fi/fantasy film at all. It was that strong and interesting for me. Dark City begins as if it is going to deal with the protagonist’s pathological situation -unexplainable amnesia-. The “dark city” is a nameless town which resembles both film-noir sets with its tragically beautiful women, sad men in trenchcoats and 40’s style cars and night clubs and futuristic metropolitans (think of the skyline from Metropolis and the heavy dark weather from Blade Runner). In fact, the city is a pastiche of elements from many decades, so the real time period is uncertain. What’s certain is there is never daylight in this city. The protagonist, who has lost his memory, is accused of being a serial murderer and he’s of course unable to defend himself. But later, it turns out to be a collective problem: the people of the city are put to sleep every night for a few minutes while members of a certain species erase their memories and replace them with new ones. They are experimenting to see whether the essence of the human changes with the deletion and installation of memories, or whether there is an essence. The protagonist, while escaping from these aliens and the police, finds about his powers similar to theirs and fights them to rescue the city.
The source of the “puzzle” in Dark City works on a good/evil trajectory and other binary oppositions, such as dark and light. But it also asks ontological questions via the protagonist: How do we know who we are, how do we know who we are related to, how much reliable are our memories and how much logical is it to depend on them?
Dark City, despite the complex web it weaves at the beginning, fills all the gaps by the end. This is not to say that it’s a bad film – on the contrary, it is very good. But the viewer is left with few questions and doubts… when it’s compared to Lost Highway, one of the greatest epitomes of the genre. It is the story of successful saxaphone player Fred, whose life is tumbled down when he hears through the intercom of his house the sentence “Dick Laurent is dead” (which must have become a cult line). The film’s main “puzzle” is Fred’s metamorphosis into other people which he practices once in the middle, and once again at the end. And then, there are the somehow scary video effects of the 1990s, combined with Lynch’s quirky characters and dialogues which all create the mind-game of the plot. The film even reminds you of cult sci-fi TV series such as X-Films and The Outer Limits both with its effects and its strange suburban/paranormal mood.
Everyone knows about David Lynch nowadays, don’t they? Even people who haven’t seen his films recognize his name. He is famous/notorious for making films “with no sense”. Has Lost Highway no sense? I don’t know, and I think why it was made is more important than how it ends.
I watched Lynch’s Eraserhead (1977) at quite a young age and I don’t remember much of it. Then I watched Blue Velvet (1986), the certain scenes of which don’t really leave my mind! He knows how to make use of shock value, and employs similar characters and motifs. I will not try and analyze Lost Highway, because this is extensively done in many sources. Instead, I’d like to make another point in general about mind-game films.
Modernism, I think, is key in the making and interpretation of mind-game films. By modernism, I don’t mean “the condition of being modern”, but I’m pointing at a certain time period. From the beginning of 20th century until the 1960’s (maybe before or later), it’s the “modern times”. This was an immense period of change in everything from clothing to architecture, from literature to manners. On a very rough, superficial note, modernism can be claimed to be characterized by urbanisation, electricity, growing populations, the developments in technology and communication, world wars (and threats of world wars), even more extensive usage of machinery (after the Industrial Revolution) on the one hand; and alienation, pessimism, nihilism, darkness, lonely people who were stuck between political doctrines, fastly changing ways of life, economic and national crises on the other. The alienation and pessimism were maybe reactions to the first characteristics anyways.
In mind-game films, I find traces of the modernist take.  Although we live in “postmodern” times, the dark mood of the modern times is still here.  Works such as Lost Highway, Dark City, Fight Club, Donnie Darko, Vanilla Sky, Memento, The Matrix, Being John Malkovich, and every other film that is within the genre, offer symptoms of a world in crisis, be that on a personal or collective level. Fed up with sounds, images, words of all sorts, today’s individual is maybe lonelier than ever and he is always under a threat. Sometimes this threat comes from the outside in the form of the end of the world or  evil conformism of middle class life, and at other times, the threat comes from inside the individual, and the protagonist tries to survive in this setting which is our own setting from a different point of view. This is the one thing that all mind-game films have in common. By portraying dreams, delusions, nightmares, lies, peculiar mental conditions, the denial, reversal and deletion of identities, memories and realities, they display the many aspects of a  metaphorical parallel universe, which is maybe an evil twin to our world.
I’m aware that this has been a very unorganized note, but I wanted to share my thoughts right after watching the films and I wrote it on one sitting, so forgive the lack of planning and feel free to disagree with me.
Before I conclude, I’d like to recommend a great new example to the mind-game genre. It’s called Franklyn (Gerald McMorrow, 2008). It was screened at this year’s !f Independent Films Festival. It follows four story archs in present day London and fictional, timeless “Meanwhile City”. I have a copy and would be happy to bring it to whoever needs it And lastly, here is the beautiful David Bowie song “I’m Deranged” which plays at the beginning and ending of Lost Highway. Enjoy!

P.S. There is a fun article here on the similarities between Dark City and The Matrix (1999). Apparently, the latter has “borrowed” a lot from the former.

P.P.S. This week’s recommended article “Making Sense of Lost Highway” is not included in the package, but can be found here through Google Books.

Damla Okay