The Lobster (2016), directed by Yorgos Lathimos, is set in a dystopian society in which being single, will result in the eventual transformation into an animal of your choice. David, who has recently been dumped by his cheating wife, is sent to a hotel, his final opportunity to find a new partner. Everyone has a set time period to find a partner, after which they will be turned into their chosen animal, and they can extend this period by hunting people in the forest for an extra day.

Life at the hotel is weird. You cannot be bisexual, only gay or straight. You cannot have a size forty-five-point-five, only a forty-five or a forty-six. You cannot masturbate, but sexual stimulation by the made is mandatory. In the same vein, your new partner must have something in common, or they are not applicable.

David finds a woman who has hunted more people than anyone else, and who is notoriously cold. A women who earlier threatened to throw herself out of a window if she failed to find a partner fails to find a partner and throws herself out a window, and David pretends to enjoy her pain in order to gain her attention. She then feigns choking to test him, and when he makes no effort to help, she agrees that they are compatible.

She then kicks his (canine) brother to death, and when he cries, she ends the engagement and exposes his lies.

The punishment for lying should be transformation into his chosen animal, but David escapes into the woods, where he joins the loners. Contrary to the hotel, the loners are forbidden from any romance, sans for when they pretend that they are in relationships in order to sneak into the city and get supplies.

In fact, the loners are largely against any way of living at the hotel, and they raid it, holding the manager at gunpoint and forcing him to chose – his life or his wife’s. He opts to shoot his wife, but the gun isn’t loaded – they then leave the couple to talk.

David then starts a relationship with another woman, whom is also shortsighted.

They plan on leaving the camp and eloping, but another member of the group finds out, and outs them to the leader of the group. The leader then takes the woman and blinds her.

David is adamant that they will find something else to make them similar, and they escape anyway. Then, in a diner, he goes into the bathroom with a knife and holds it to his eyes.

His decision remains unshown.

 

The Lobster is a dystopia that spoofs off the social perception that everyone needs to be in a relationship, or that marriage – whether hetro or homosexual, as the film allows gay couples – and it is the only way to be successful in society. Of course, the film looks a lot deeper than just that, looking at what society thinks everyone needs on a psychological level. The film’s quirky oddities, which include narration and an dry humour, make it extremely alien, and create an uncomfortable environment, much like the setting of the film.

It’s absurd. It attacks the social norms by taking them to such extremes that they are uncomfortable. The characters are all caricatures – they all have one defining feature, and that is all they are known by. The camera hangs at the back, much giving the audience that they are observing only, and are not in on the action.

And for the first half of the film, the style has an immeasurable effect. It establishes the world, and we watch David battle with the situation he has been thrown into. It feels as though he is totally socially inept, and is merely following a script in order to appear attractive to the oppisite sex – which is similar to the dating scene. We all conceal ourselves and try to fit a certain mold – gay or straight, size 45 or 46 – in order to find love, but how honest are we really being? How much of our true selves comes out, and how much is us conforming to the perception of what we think the partner wants?

And that’s the case with David trying to court the heartless woman – she is clearly different to him, but in his desperation to appear similar and attract her, he totally jeopardizes his sense of self. And in that moment, the film is fantastic. Though it is brought to an extreme – and is almost a pantomime – the insinuation that we are too desperate for love is there.

But after David is exposed and he joins the loners, the film starts to lose it’s impact. The bland humour and deadpan acting starts to dry off.

David’s determination drops, and so does the pace. It morphs from focusing on someone stuck in the society to someone who is wanting to bring down/compromise it’s way of thinking – and I think that this is where the issue lies. The uncomfortable-ness still prevails, but they are no longer in the society… and therefore shouldn’t be uncomfortable in the same sense. The alien-ness starts to make it difficult to relate too, and slowly, the determination for David to succeed tapers out.

However, the ending – where David essentially must make the decision to blind himself and therefore conform or to loose the relationship he genuinely desires – is masterful, because it brings the film back to it’s dramatic question – how far are we willing to go for love?

One of the things that I did learn from the film, was the structure of a dystopian drama. Having the transition from someone living in the society to fighting it needs to be handled delicately, because it does introduce a shift in the narrative and dramatic question. If someone is willing to conform, and then must have enough of a motivation to change and instead want to fight the system – they cannot be as impassive as David.

Additionally, the positioning of the camera – being so distant from the action – creates an interesting sensation of positioning the audience as a spectator and only a spectator. I think that this alienation can be used appropriately in the right places, though for screen project two it definitely isn’t the right thing, as I want the audience putting themselves in the situation.

Finally, the awkwardness in the dialogue also succeeds in alienating the audience – it is so irregular, that it makes them feel strange. Similar to the camera, it can be used in the right places.