“Postmodernism as mourning work” by Thomas Elsaesser introduced me with illuminating concepts in the trauma theory. His approach to representation of memory and his way to connect it with psychoanalysis plays with the limits of a correlation between history and memory. His ideas impressively illustrated in or rather can be adapted to Tarsem’s spectacular film The Fall. For four years, Tarsem has been in 28 different countries to make this unique story blossom with/within another fictional history. The Fall is made of an interaction between Roy (a silent movie stunt man) and Alexandria (little girl), who met in the hospital that they have to stay in for a while. Roy, with a broken back and heart, tells a story to Alexandria, which is nourished by his personal wounds, traumas and history in general. But, this narration part is just one aspect of the story that proceeds throughout the film by getting mixed with actual time of the film. Apart from the verbal story, which is shaped by Roy, there is a visual story, which is filtered through Alexandria’s childish imagination. So, the limits of representing Roy’s memory are Alexandria’s memory.
Narration within The Fall addresses the concepts within the trauma theory as; integration (to tell one's story where the narrator is fully present to him in the act of telling) and assimilation (shift of perception and meaning). (p.196) In Roy’s story, his personal memories, experience of events, knowledge on historical tasks (the story involves Alexander the Great and Charles Darwin) and Alexandria’s family history, autobiography and perception of her environment, so in this respect the film fits into the work of Elsaesser. Further, Roy’s memories intersect with both linear and non-linear chronological time; in other words, at the present moment the story is linear with respect to the present time whereas, it is non-linear in terms of the past. Roy’s traumatic experience is interrelated with Freud’s term Nachträglichkeit; it is non-linear, deferred and belated also it proceeds depending on another place and another time (in Roy’s fantastic epic), or it is happening “neither inside nor outside, neither one place nor one time” (p.198). Trauma Theory points out the disparity between memory time and historical time and this incompatibility is highlighted in Roy’s story within the story of The Fall. Elsaesser claimed that the sense of memory time and historical time, as concepts, which he suspended, is related with the perceived sense of self, self-awareness and subjectivity of media experience. This idea can be adapted to the film by changing the term ‘media’ into the Roy’s and Alexandria’s ways of communicating with events around them and more importantly, how they really perceive and process their observations.
In addition to observation of those events, the visual and somatic impact of an event or the image on a person would also change the post-traumatic experience. In Roy’s condition, his love trauma, has a strong somatic aspect because he is bed-ridden and this worsen his sense of identity and the way he questioned his choices about his job, his relationship changes with respect to his actual physical condition. For what he lived he blames himself as in real time and reflects this sense of victimhood to the story he tells. He punishes himself by in the story and at the end, through this story, Roy relieves from this feeling of victimhood. Trauma Theory evaluated this concept under the name of politics of blame and The Fall is an example for the power of fantasy (l’imagination au pouvoir) and it’s impact on psychological relief. In The Fall ‘facts-fantasies-and-fictions’ are intertwined, that’s why we can say whole story refers to Elsaesser’s concept of trauma theory, which emphasizes memory and history. Moreover, Trauma Theory questions the separation of body and voice within the notion of trauma and The Fall gives this sense of separation in the transitions between the actual time and the story within the story. While Roy tries to finish story telling, her voice from the actual time composed with the fictional appearance in his fictional story, which may problematize the confluence of his character in the story and in the hospital. This case indicates that “he fantasized history in the form of his trauma” (p.198) His history recreated in a form of an “impossible history” which is full of irrationalities about narration, linearity of time or causal relationship and this history story can be called as a trauma.(p.200) Through the story within Roy’s history, he represents the non-representable trauma by filling the gaps in his memory and at the end he sooths his “anxiety about memory” (p.195). Roy and Alexandria build up an enchanted, imaginary world and with its beautiful sights The Fall makes turn this story into such a unique watching experience.