During the screening today we watched the 2004 film The Machinist directed by Brad Anderson. The film follows the main character through his physiological deteriorating life as he struggles with his true reality which is revealed at the end. His conception of the world around is altered through sleep, depriving himself as a form of physiological punishment from his crime of hit and run. He creates an alter ego driven parallel to reality which is so believable to him its uncovering slowly is determined by his lack of control on his body and accidents start happening. The main attention of the audience is drawn to one man in particular that he believes to be where he isn’t, due to his increasingly distorted and disturbing hallucinations.
The film conveys and explores the unconscious mind and sexual innuendos. The main character has a sense of humour, despite his spilt personalities brought on by his physiological tumour that expresses its self through his aggressive paranoia of a man following him everywhere. Freuds id, ego and super-ego can be applied to the main characters. This is demonstrated in his need for approval from others around him, for the sake of his sanity and for ability to judge situations. The power of the mind is one aspect of the film that stands out to me personally. Sound also hold great importance in this film, creating contrasting layers creating a dramatic suspense to particular scenes.
The focal point in the kitchen which shows the context of psychological terror that is explored through explicit and gory imagery. In particular blood seeping out of the fridge, shows the characters anxiety when he opens the door and rotting fish pours out. The relevance of this scene is shown next as he starts having flashbacks of the fishing trip holding on to the photograph he has become obsessed with. The consequences of his actions haunt him through a series of disturbing scenes which could convey his unconscious becoming conscious, therefore becoming aware of his crime and need for reconciliation.
His job in an industrial factory shows the extent of how his crime has affected his body and state of mentality. While in this harsh and dangerous environment the character’s egotistical nature gets the better of him. The true extent of his distorted perspective on reality is made apparent to his fellow workers, therefore changing his friendships with his work mates created an atmosphere of isolation and confinement. He accidently pressed a power button on a machine, which resulted in one of the workers losing part of his arm. He starts thinking there is some sort of vendetor against him. His machine accident trapped his arm, due to the power button being pressed on, the suspense builds as his arm is slowly pulled in by the machine, resulting in him losing his job after a fight broke out when his paranoia has a strong grip on him reflecting his next actions. There are scenes where his mind and attention wonders almost as if he is looking for an answer which isn’t there. He suffers physiological deteriation is conveyed through the dark and claustrophobic feel to the set space.
The character’s detachment from the external world affects his physical exterior, as he rapidily loses more and more weight. He counts down creating a believable sense of reality that a person can create in their unconscious mind and how it effects the conscious mind, and altered perspective. Kitchen- angle of the camera and music played when he first sees the notes, creating dramatic irony. The notes on the fridge show his true state of disturbed hallucinations and the plot against him. The sharpness in the tone of his voice supports his agitated state, over analytical sense of character he develops through the on-going repetition of events in his false sense of reality he has created. This is conveyed through an on going chance which to relates the significance of the red car that represents his forgotten crime of hit and run. This also convey through the repetitive cycle of his set day routine suggesting to the audience this motif represents the key to him realising he has been living the same lie for the past year.
The scene in the theme park he goes to with the lady that works in the airport diner and her son. His physiological state of detachment is evident on the ride called route 666, due to the strobe lighting that causes her son to have an epileptic reaction which the main character first blames himself for. The flashing images create the sense of terror. This undertone which suggests all is not quite right shows how the mind can blank out situations and replace them due to the characters vivid and complacent imagination.
After a series of revelations the main character results in him handing himself into find sanity by owning up to his crime officially to the police, which then would allow him to forgive himself for it eventually, if that is at all possible. This is made clear to the viewer through a series of flashbacks which finally relates to the red car which continues being a main object of his obsessional mind throughout the film. This film is an interesting and intriguing example of physiological terror related films. I also think the ideas of reality effects our physical world and how much our mental mind changes in order to accommodate a sense of normality within it.
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