Lars and the Real Girl proved to be a slow, but captivating movie. We begin with seeing Lars standing behind his door, refusing his sister-in-law’s breakfast invitation motivated by her concern for his spending so much time alone. We then find out that Lars has purchased a sex doll and in delusion believes that she is a new human girlfriend named Bianca. By the end of the film, what is made clear is that Lars used the doll in order to protect himself and project all of the issues stemming from his childhood and the death of his parents. It seems like this event created a fear of intimacy in Lars to the degree that he doesn’t allow himself to even speak to his coworker that has been making romantic advances. With the first reaction of disgust from his brother, to the gradual accepting of Lars’ intimacy with the doll towards the end of the film, it is clear that this movie has an agenda. It begs us to question why we think this is so weird, this being a man’s infatuation with a doll. I won’t be talking about this message here though; I will instead be talking about examples of embodiment within the film.
The first, and most obvious example is the doll itself. Lars gives this inanimate object an embodiment of himself and his psychological traumas, putting his fear of intimacy and sense of alienation into the doll. This also makes Bianca the physical embodiment of a typically female social role, relying upon Lars for everything so that he can feel a sense of confidence and masculine authority. Authority over her.
I’m not sure if this gives the film a positive or sinister message concerning the role of women to men. It suggests that they are there to nurture them and allow them to superior, serving them, in a way. Lars’ sister in law plays a similar role, being the person most concerned about him from the movies outset, and also coincidentally a pregnant maternal figure. Lars feels sentimental toward his mother and compares the doll to her at one point. Lars depends on women in order to feel at ease. Does this mean that Lars becomes the embodiment of masculine authority through his interaction with this doll that is the embodiment of feminine servility? He becomes angered when various members of the community take the doll to do activities without him. Eventually he is only able to overcome his traumas by distancing himself and the doll’s death. Perhaps the film is suggesting that men must be rid of their need to feel masculine superiority in order to truly be comforted in one’s self.
I think your observation that Lars "projects all of the issues stemming from his childhood and the death of his parents" onto the doll is a valid one. It also seems reasonable to assert that distancing himself from these traumas by killing the doll is a therapeutic act, as it does signal the end of a delusional state. After reading about melancholia,it seems possible Lars' creation of Bianca is a strange inversion of the internalization of grief, or a displacement of melancholy onto another body. Your observation that he draws a parallel between his mother and Bianca, something I did not catch in the movie, seems to support this possibility. If Lars' is projecting his internalized "lost loves," a part of his own psyche, onto Bianca, what does this say about his gender identity or relation to women? Does he choose a feminine object due to his own femininity or an impulse to control? Under this framework the fact that he is technically killing a part of himself must be considered, and it seems viable the whole act could be viewed as a belated and external acting out of the heterosexual taboo response.
ReplyDelete(Michelle's comment, posted by Dr. R due to tech difficulties)
ReplyDeleteZiev,
I agree with Tracy and you and agree that that Lars projected a lot of his issues onto Bianca. I also agree with your questioning the role women in this film and the significance of Bianca being a female instead of a male, but I am not sure the movie is as harsh as you make it out to be. Yes, Lars uses Bianca to dump his feelings on, but so do other townspeople. For example that old neighborly lady who takes Bianca away to a banquet uses Bianca to project her feelings about her husband. She even says "Big Baby! (To Bianca)He is just like my husband. She'll be home by 11."
Also, while Bianca is a female doll, essentially the epitome of woman as an image, it is interesting that she becomes more than just an image through her relationship to Lars. Generally females in films are stripped of their minds and become an image, but here the opposite is happening. Lars is giving Bianca a personality which is quite significant in my book.
All in all this film definitely does question gender roles and politics and I feel like you brought up a lot of interesting points.
Michelle