The Babadook

Film poster

The Babadook (2014) - Jennifer Kent

Both the most modern and most authentically "horror" film examined so far, Kent's The Babadook is an excellent horror film based around a woman's struggles with motherhood, love and death. Atmospheric, highly stylized and psychologically penetrating, the film is deeply unnerving and manages to be scary with minimal gore, no jump scares, and a monster brought to life using intentionally low-budget methods. Much like Eraserhead, The Babadook manages to create a world with a universal sense of strangeness that pervades the entire film universe and further emphasizes the titular monster's inescapability and power over the characters. 

The monstrous ideology

Ideology gives structure to our deepest fears, our emotional insecurities, our latent desires. It sculpts the nebulous and formless into concrete entities. Ideology personifies and projects. It not only structures our reality, but structures the way see reality itself. 

Ideology therefore functions much like a metaphorical "monster under the bed." The parent knows that there is nothing actually under the bed, yet goes along with the child and "clears the area" so the child knows they are safe. This is the primary functioning of ideology today. We know that there is no monster, but it is more distressing to have to admit there isn't anything is under the bed, because then the monster really is just inside your head. Instead of being a comfort, this is angst inducing and absolutely terrifying. 

This is a thematic element frequently experimented with by the film. The physicality of the monster is de-emphasized and minimal compared to the mental havoc wreaked by the being's presence. The Babdook's power as antagonist lies primarily in its ability to manipulate its victims into destroying themselves instead of physically harming them. This is not a wholly unique concept for a horror movie, yet The Babdook makes the story of the family and the monster be extremely personal and specifically relate to the life experiences of the protagonist. 

The monster: real or symbolic?

The proper hermeneutic approach to examining this film rests primarily on what the monster itself is supposed to be. There are two primary perspectives: the monster is something just as real as the boy and his mother, while the other perspective is that the monster is a construction, a manifestation of the mother's own feelings of loss toward her dead husband. I think the second perspective has much more resonance and impact, as the former reduces evil to being necessarily physical, while the second creates a more coherent narrative in relation to the film as a whole. 

The monster can be viewed from a psychoanalytic perspective as the mother's latent id, especially in regards to her feelings toward her son. The feelings of anger about the death of her husband and the built up resentment that resulted from raising her son as a single mother causes the mother to be trapped, static and unable to cope with the issues related to her son's delinquency. She "let's in" the Babadook, which then contorts and twists her, amplifying her anger and making her into the monster she fears. Instead of the Babadook being the greatest threat to her safety, she becomes psychotic and impulsive, wholly driven by suppressed anger boiling over and reaching the surface. This is why it is clear that the Babadook is not just some monster, but something intricately tied to the woman's own life and psyche. Maybe it can be read as a dark, shadowy id gone unchecked or maybe a latent masculinism reacting against motherhood, but regardless the connection is clearly mental in nature. 

Killing the monster and the aftermath of an event

This film culminates with a confrontation between the mother and the Babadook, showing that she is finally being introspective instead of looking at problems as intrinsically intruding into her life. She realizes that reality is a reality on conflict and contradictions, and we carry the weight of contradiction as we struggle through life. The situation with her and her child was not made unstable, but was itself unstable and this instability was only revealed by the event of the Babadook. 

The Babadook is very much an event that creates its own chain of causality. Although it initially seems as if it is a directionless entity geared toward antagonism, it soon becomes clear that its identity is a reaction to the past, but this can only be realized after it came into existence as an event in itself. The Babadook thus cannot be truly slain, but controlled. It clearly has the potential for reemergence, yet for the time being, things are "under control," but never truly perfectly normal. Things really cannot be as they were before and this becomes even more clear, but this realization is one that provides comfort and an even greater sense of normalcy. This "normality emergent from strife" is actually even more normal than life prior to the event, making the Babadook's moral implications even more ambiguous. The labels of pure evilness, destructive neutrality or even obfuscated good fall apart when dealing with something that does not clearly exist in of itself, but exists primarily in relation to others. Therefore, possibly the best approach about whether or not the woman should have "let the Babadook in" may be to deny that it could've happened in any other way: the Babadook is almost a force of nature and to oppose it would be like opposing gravity.

The liberation of the psyche thus is not accidental nor is it subject to willpower, but is a honing, refining process. Like the forging of a sword, the Babadook torments and punishes until the authentic self is shaped out of the rough-hewn steel of trauma. 

Eraserhead

Film poster

Eraserhead (1977) - David Lynch

Returning to surrealist cinema, Eraserhead was the debut film of acclaimed director David Lynch. Depicting a world of desolate industrial landscapes, strange people and a constant motif of foreboding doom, the film manages to tell a much more personal and emotional story than surrealist films like Un Chien Andalou or Begotten. The basic plot is as follows: a man named Henry finds out that his girlfriend, Mary, has become pregnant and given birth to a monstrous, alien-like child that the two of them must care for. The film deals with the personal struggles of parenthood and isolation in a cold, uncaring world.

Dreams and reality

The world created in Eraserhead is unabashedly nightmarish, but very subtly created. Visually bleak and desolate because it was filmed in black-and-white, the film is set in decaying buildings and sparsely decorated apartment buildings that represent the alienation experienced by both the characters in the movie and the audience itself. Commenting on various social issues, the film manages to depict the terse, cold and uncaring experience of poverty while simultaneously utilizing bizarre and alien imagery. 

Like a dream, the protagonist seems to have little awareness or interest in the world around him, drifting through everything with little agency or control over what happens. Essentially, the film aims to tell a personal story of someone struggling with the affects of a premature birth, but also the angst and uncertainty the human condition. There is no positivity, but an overwhelmingly oppressive atmosphere of powerlessness, as the events of the film are implied to have been controlled by an outside, godlike force. An existentialist reading of the film may extoll Henry's use of his radical freedom when he kills his monstrous child, yet I believe this misreads the inherent nature of Henry's condition. If this is the case, then his freedom can only be exerted in reaction to events instead of creating events. Henry is still thus condemned to a state of powerlessness, as he cannot create the causalities of his own events, instead struggling against a much more immaterial and simultaneously insurmountable force.

So where's the ideology?

Henry and Mary's "child"

The focus of the project is to examine ideology in cinema, so to create a thematic bridge between Eraserhead and the other films, I think an analysis of the film's cinematography and its relation to the plot may uncover an authentically ideological component. The more personal slant to the plot makes the ideological role more subdued and an examination of the surrealist elements would result in the repetition of the post about Un Chien Andalou, so the uniquely ideological element to Eraserhead can be found in the nature of action and consequence within the film. 

Ideology may not necessarily render someone powerlessness (see Battleship Potemkin or possibly Dogtooth as examples of the power of ideology to inspire action), but the overriding mentality of the film points toward the need for something to be in control. Whether or not this controlling entity is something benevolent or malevolent, the film never positions Henry's condition as something arbitrary or meaningless, but instead contrives a deeply personal connection between Henry and the universe. Desperate for connections in an otherwise meaningless world, the ideological structures manifest as an invisible hand looming over the entirety of the plot. Thus, ideology is the shaper and maker of all aspects of the world, but primarily serves a punitive, disciplinary function. As pointed out by Zygmunt Bauman, "the source of contemporary fear is that no one is in control." 

Thus a dilemma presents itself: is the ideology of the film constructed by its characters, an imposition of the director or a broader reflection and commentary of social conditions? Regardless of the reason, the end result is the same, as the very relationships between the characters and images within the film resonate with this ideological need for some greater control or purpose. There essentially is no escape from this need, as the framing itself of the events makes it so control can only be reacted against, not proactively eliminated by any conscious (or even unconscious) force. 

Battleship Potemkin

Battleship Potemkin

Film Poster

Battleship Potemkin (1925) - Sergei Eisenstein

So far, the discussion of ideology has been primarily focused on ideology in general instead specific ideologies. What better film to introduce a more direct approach than the 1925 classic, Battleship Potemkin. A classic film that emerged in the early Soviet Union, it pioneered a variety of film techniques, most notably the montage. It is widely considered one of the best films of all time and is often described as a masterwork of Bolshevik propaganda.

Positive ideology

Unlike the other films examined so far, ideology serves a much different function in Battleship Potemkin. Instead of existing as a tool of dominance and control, ideology possesses a much more neutral nature. For the rebellious soldiers, ideology channels their dissidence into a meaningful movement instead of impotent rage. On the other hand, those opposed to the revolution seem blinded by their own ideological constraints, unable to see the authentic nature of the struggle (this is most clearly seen with the anti-Semitic citizen and the Cossacks on the Odessa steps). 

In a sense, this positions Battleship Potemkin as being deeply idealist in its political position, but I believe that to be a misreading of the nature of the rebellion in the film. For the sailors, ideology shapes their response, but does not create it. There is no concrete, singular catalyst for revolutionary action, but an organic outgrowth that emerges from the material conditions that are present in society. This reaction is essentially inevitable and possibly non-threatening without ideology, but it is clear that ideology is rooted within material conditions instead of transcending them. Ideology, therefore, is much less all-encompassing and totalizing, instead being a more secondary phenomenon.  

Tension and class struggle

One interesting aspect of the film is that the antagonisms and conflicts are not based around people as singular, autonomous entities, but instead parts of larger social groups that act against ambiguous, faceless opponents. Instead of the stoic, empowered individual breaking down the ideological structures that dominate society, ideology shifts and changes as various classes vie for power. 

This can be most clearly seen in the famous Odessa steps sequence, which is one of the most enduring images from the film. It depicts a massacre of innocents by czarist troops, with additional focus placed on the baby carriage rolling around corpses as it careens down the steps. While this may seem like an easy tool for emotional manipulation (showing a baby surrounded by death and destruction), it has a deeper meaning in regards to the ideological significance of the scene. The Cossacks demonstrate how ideology operates in the modern world; ideology does not discriminate, it targets men, women and children as it attempts to discipline and control all dissident thought. The willingness to kill innocents is a sign of the cold, impersonal nature of ideology, showing how it exists not in service of humanity, but to control it. 

Odessa steps

Additionally, class struggle plays a central role in the film (for reasons that should be obvious when considering the sociopolitical landscape of the Soviet Union less than a decade after the October Revolution). The czarist troops are unequivocally opposed to protesters of all sorts, violent and peaceful. The sides are clearly organized along class lines: the officers versus the ordinary sailors, the Cossacks versus the civilian population. This positions ideology as being essentially dialectical in nature and emerging succinctly along class lines. Each class is governed by its own ideological structure and thus conflict inevitable. 

Revolutionary spontaneity

In Battleship Potemkin, the unifying geist of the revolution is that of an unrestrained optimism filtered through the lens of ideology. Despite harsh opposition, the forward-looking attitude perseveres and signifies an underlying idealization of the proletarian condition. The revolutionary spirit flows throughout the characters and pervades their entire being. Instead of resulting in a sort of leveling or homogenizing of the characters, this actually serves to accentuate the spontaneous, organic nature of the rebellion. Rebellions and change occur with the only warning being visible in hindsight; therefore, the catalyst is less meaningful, as the event itself creates its own precursors. 

Conclusion

Is this the state of ideology today? Certainly not in regards to the spirit of optimism, which, as the death of the Soviet Union still looms strongly overhead, cannot exist in the same orgiastic manner as it did in the film. The need for optimism, despite the gloom and pessimism of the current conditions following the housing crisis, presents us with an interesting dilemma that is not so easily resolved. The solution ultimately lies in a dialectical synthesis: preserving the entirety of the proletarian condition in the spirit of popular upheaval while still looking unflinchingly toward the future. 

Un Chien Andalou (An Andalusian Dog)

Film poster

Un Chien Andalou (1929) - Luis Buñuel

A landmark of early cinema, An Andalusian Dog was a surrealist film directed by Luis Bunuel with involvement from Salvador Dali. Although it was only about 15 minutes long, many images from the film still have cultural relevance today and are immediately recognizable. Combining elements of Freudian psychoanalysis and bizarre imagery, the film is an abstract exploration of the director's subconscious. There is no clear plot or message to the film, as it instead focuses on creating a purely visual experience. 

Signs without ideology?

On the surface, the various images in the film seem to be totally meaningless and nonsensical, grouped together at random. However, within the film itself there is a consistent internal logic that governs the events within. While physical space and material reality can bend and be altered without much effort, the internal logic cannot be opposed as easily. Essentially, the only eternal and unifying aspect of the film is that it is pure ideology: the product of the subconscious mind itself. 

The film's opening scene is that of a man sharpening a razor, then cutting open the eye of a sitting woman. This scene thus sets the tone for the rest of the film by demonstrating the truly visceral power of ideology. Ideology can render violence and destruction completely meaningless by simply refusing to acknowledge that it even occurred, as the woman shows no signs of the incident later on in the film and no other references are made to the opening scene. This physicality is reflected throughout the film in the overarching tone of death and decay. 

This foreboding atmosphere is the consistent ideology throughout the film. It mediates the various social relations between all characters: they can only communicate through violence, lust or fear, but nothing more emotionally complex. Like many other films, ideology has an infantilizing effect on its subjects, forcing them to be animalistic and rudimentary in their modes of interaction. The film ends on an ever more somber note, as the only hope for freedom is crushed with the last image of the two lovers buried in sand and frozen like statues. Life itself is thus secondary to the ideological apparatus. Instead of emerging from the material conditions around it, ideology in An Andalusian Dog is truly idealist in nature: it transcends all time and space, godlike in its power over mankind. 

Semiotic entanglement

Semiotics, the philosophical study of signs and symbols, can explain why An Andalusian Dog is so strange for the viewer. When signs become entangled and interlaced in ways foreign to our understanding of them, they thus take on new meanings and we have to cope with the juxtaposition of the two separate and distinct meanings to the same sign. This can be seen with the man in the nun's outfit, as the contextual meaning of the signifier is radically different than the viewer's understanding of it. This is a constant throughout the entirety of the film, demonstrating two possibilities. The first is that all ideologies are internally consistent in their semiotic relationships, but from the outside they are incomprehensible to any other ideology. The second possibility is much more sinister: ideology is essentially parasitic, transforming existing material conditions into semiotic relations that bear no connection to the original and subjugating society to its simulacra.

Conclusion

While the film may be unorthodox in many respects, it is a wholly unique experience that has deeply resonant commentary (intended or not) on the nature of reality, symbols and society. Its dreamlike nature is the result of its surrealist origin and the means by which it challenges the audience is something to be lauded. When viewed as an exploration of a parallel ideology with its own internal logic, the film's meaning becomes much more clear. The ultimate result of the film is an intended confusion, one that forcibly makes the viewer question his or her understanding of the authenticity of their own experiences in the ideology they are immersed in. 

They Live & The Matrix

Film posters for They Live (left) and The Matrix (right)

Comparing and contrasting They Live and The Matrix - What does it mean to "see" ideology?

Our reality is not always what it appears to be, but is structured by the ideology that surrounds us. Both films explore this concept in similar ways and thus are excellent examples for the power ideology holds over us. They Live (1988) and The Matrix (1999), despite being released over a decade apart, tell the same story: a man is taught about the true nature of reality and is thus forced to struggle against the overwhelming power of ideology with the hope of possibly liberating his fellow subjects. Simultaneously, the differences between the two are significant, especially in how they handle the role of the revolutionary subject and the nature of overcoming the control of ideology.

The revolutionary proletarian subject - They Live and the struggle against ideology

The plot of They Live is essentially a proto-Matrix that reflects both the director's political leftism and the social climate of the late 80's. The protagonist is John Nada (played by Roddy Piper) is a homeless drifter forced to travel from city to city in search of work. For the first act of the film, the only known characters are of a distinctly impoverished status. This sets the stage for the resulting elements of class struggle, in which the proletarian Nada struggles against the powers that secretly control society. 

This is the first aspect of differentiation between the two films. While The Matrix positions its protagonist as a sort of middle-class office worker, They Live is unequivocal in its political convictions. The police, instead of being just another means of suppression, are the primary means of disciplining the working class, as they demolish the shantytown and attack those who speak out against the controlling ideology. 

Essentially, the struggle against ideology is not something that is happened upon, as it is portrayed in The Matrix, but instead is the necessary result of the proletarian condition itself. Although a "spark" is needed to ignite the flame of revolution, the ultimate instrument of change comes from within the margins of the system, not from the "enlightened outsider" that is emphasized in The Matrix. 

The sublime nature of ideology

One of the most enduring scenes from the film is its portrayal of reality "sans ideology." For a film like The Matrix, there is essentially nothing to see when ideology is removed, as everything is illusory, but for They Live, ideology is wholly entwined with daily life.

The impact of ideology, therefore, is almost entirely subliminal and operates below the surface of our conscious understanding. We are lulled into a state of passivity because all aspects of our society encourage a set of values that promote docility: obedience, consumerism and conformity. The subject of ideology thus is unaware of his or her position within the ideological structure itself, as behavior is conditioned and reinforced consistently, with the only disruptions coming from rebellious factions and being physically painful to experience. The moment of severance from ideology, like in The Matrix, is not pleasant, but instead violent and completely alien to one's normal experiences. 

Both films are also similar in their portrayal of the oppressive force behind the ideological shift as being alien (either literally or more figuratively) and having interests completely counter to that of the human race as a whole. For They Live, the oppositional force are aliens that have come to exploit the people and resources of Earth, an allusion to the predatory behaviors of multinational corporations in their dealings with the third world. As is discovered by Nada, the aliens themselves are the masters of the world, but not fully removed from, instead walking among us as the physical enforcers of the illusory ideological apparatus.

The chosen one - individual and collective struggle against ideology

While both films essentially center around one single person whose actions bring down the ideological apparatus that governs society, the differences in character between them make the various perspectives on ideology all the more apparent. For The Matrix, the ability to resist ideology is something that is almost solipsistic on Neo's part: he is enlightened and knows the truth, thus can bend the world to his will. For Nada, there is no real power to his newfound knowledge, in fact, it alienates him from his former friends and forces him to become a criminal, but his resistance comes from a general spirit of necessity: things cannot keep going as they are now. 

 

The Matrix's hero is positioned as the subject of a grand, historically inevitable narrative: as the chosen one, Neo will bring down the reign of the machines and destroy the matrix, but yet in the film his mortality and agency are emphasized more than ever. On the other hand, there is no grand destiny in store for Nada, yet he is stronger and more invincible than interstellar imperialism. This dissonance can only be resolved through a synthesis of both perspectives, in which the inevitable collapse of ideology is the result of contradictions within ideology itself, yet still the result of the historically necessary subject's own free will. 

The conclusion of both films places Nada's actions as ultimately in contrast to Neo's. Nada dies with his (and the viewer's) faith that change will occur with the collapse of the ideological apparatus into its constituent contradictions, but Neo's position at the end of The Matrix is one of almost ironic acceptance of ideology. On one hand, Neo continues to struggle against the current ideology, but not ideology itself, as he has essentially mastered it and is using it as a tool. This is a far cry from the early Neo who had neither the knowledge to fight the matrix or the skills to use it to his advantage. In many ways, Neo has adopted the ideas of the machines, believing that he himself is the chosen one and that the ordinary person has no real capacity for understanding the broad ideological underpinnings of society. 

This ultimately leads logically to examine the famous "red pill / blue pill" scene in which Neo is forced to choose between reality and illusion. Neo's choice of the red pill shows the result of a complete loss of ideology, especially when ideology itself structures the reality one is used to experiencing. Without ideology, Neo is reduced to an infantile state in which everything he knew must be discarded and reconstructed from the ground up. This is the power of ideology.

Conclusion

The greatest source of unity between the two films is an underlying and pervasive sense of hope. Hope in the power of knowledge, hope in the power of resistance, hope of revolution in the face of immense power. For the disenfranchised subject, the metaphorical red pill or sunglasses is only the first step, the second being action. Knowledge of the problem is not enough the bring about change, but the raw, physical pain of being disassociated from the reality one knows -- and being thrust into a new, post-ideological state -- is enough to make anything but resistance impossible, as one cannot hope to return to their original state of ignorance. The death of ideology in both films is thus a new rebirth, but a chaotic rebirth. Instead of the security and certainty provided by the ideological structure, both protagonists must simultaneously struggle against the now revealed ideological apparatus while also adapting to a new reality that is free from the ideological considerations that made life prior comfortable and familiar. 

Dogtooth

Film poster

Dogtooth (2009) - Yorgos Lanthimos

Dogtooth is an award-winning Greek film that explores themes of the arbitrariness of language, the power of parental figures, and the totalizing effect of ideology on current society. It mostly takes place in an isolated home in rural Greece in which a husband and wife keep their three children isolated from the rest of society, allowing only minimal contact with the outside world. They often go to great lengths to maintain control over their children, who, despite being biologically adults, still act immaturely and naively. 

The film itself offers many scathing critiques of both contemporary society and those who wish to change it. One of the most crucial points posed is on the nature of rebellion itself: are we forever doomed to be constrained in our actions by the current ideological apparatus in society? Can we ever penetrate the vale that ideology constructs around us? 

Language as a tool of oppression

The film opens with a tape recorder teaching the kids the meanings of words like "sea," "carbine" and "motor-way." These ordinary, mundane words are given meanings that initially seem bizarre; a sea is a leather chair, a carbine is a bird, a motor-way is a strong wind. However, the meaning of this lesson soon becomes clear, as the parents redefine and reincorporate words that are objects or phenomena that exist outside the compound so the words instead describe things that exist within the house or garden. 

In this way, language itself is not something neutral or free from ideological consideration. The way issues are framed, discussed and conceived of operates completely within the current logic of the ideological power apparatus, so for the children, it is impossible for them to express themselves in a way separate from their imprisonment. For them, their prison is not just something physical, but it's something linguistic and universal experientially. They are so totally trapped that they not only know nothing but their prison, they could not even express their desire to be free if they wanted to. 

The implicit acceptance of the children in regards to their father's lessons is indicative of how much they view everything around them as normal. Reflecting a somewhat Lockean tabula rasa, they all accept the internal logic of the ideology that surrounds them: they are obedient to their parents, trusting their every word because they know no one else to look to as a teacher. Facts, laws of nature and even reality itself seems to be constructed around maintaining their prison, which can be seen in how their parents make them think that airplanes are just small toys because it would otherwise imply a world outside the fence or how they are taught that it is physically impossible to leave the premises unless they are in a car.

 Power and the father

Much like a stereotypical Stalinist dictator, the father of the household censors and revises everything the children are exposed to in order for him to remain in his position of absolute authority. As seen earlier with the manipulation of language, all aspects of house life are structured and regimented in a way in order to encourage obedience. For example, the children are often bored and forced to invent their own games because they are rarely given toys and never allowed to leave. This is done to make them more obedient, as they are rewarded for "performing well" and especially loyal kids get special privileges. 

Disobedient children, on the other hand, are violently beaten.

Additionally, for the first half of the film there is a "fourth child" who "lives outside the fence." This sibling does not actually exist, but instead serves as a way for the children to vent their frustrations or feel some sort of comfort, as they talk to their "brother" like he's just as real as anyone else, even though they cannot see him or know he is there. His existence is ended with the arrival of a stray cat, which, despite being harmless and ordinary, poses a massive threat to the ideological constructs created by the father, as it is something wholly alien and foreign to the inhabitants of the compound. 

"Your brother is dead"

The cat's arrival sends everyone into a panic and results in the father having to scramble to fit the event into the narrative he created for his offspring. He describes cats as dangerous monsters that are extremely deadly; in fact, their brother outside the fence was killed by the same cat they encountered. To protect themselves against cats, their father makes them bark on all fours like dogs, paralleling an earlier scene in which the father visits a dog-trainer in order to get a guard dog. The trainer gives a quote that accurately reflects much of the film itself: "Every dog is waiting for us to show it how to behave." This quote is so crucial because as the children become more and more obedient toward their father, they become more and more doglike. Conversely, freedom is only achieved by smashing one's dogtooth (canine). The motif of dog embodies the father's need for obedience and loyalty, but also comments on the nature of power; the slave-master is human while the slave is little more than an animal. 

Rebellion - Can one ever truly escape ideology?

One of the most terrifying aspects of Dogtooth is its political implications: if one cannot even think outside the ideological boundaries set in place by those in power, how can there even be any means of fighting against it? The answer is somewhat ambiguous. 

For the film, the first inklings of freedom come not from within, but from outside. Initially, the father brings in a woman named Christina to have sex with his son to satisfy his urges. The sex itself is awkward, stiff and filmed in a way to convey the overall level of discomfort experienced when intimacy is reduced to little more than a scheduled dictate. Regardless, Christina gives the eldest daughter two VHS tapes (one is Rocky IV and the other is Jaws), which she watches and gets her first real exposure to the outside world. This both shocks and inspires her, as she constantly quotes from the movies and wants everyone to call her "Bruce," signaling an intention to forge her own identity that is distinct from the one forced upon her by her parents. 

As a result of viewing this strictly forbidden and corrupting material, both the daughter and Christina are violently beaten by the father, who recognizes the danger of allowing his daughter to see the films. Despite this, she continues to quote from the films and says that she feels as if her "dogtooth is loosening" (the context for this is that the father teaches the children that for a person to be able to leave the compound, they need to loose their dogtooth). This coincides with her parents' wedding anniversary dinner, in which the children are supposed to perform a song and dance for their parents.

She dances normally, but soon her rebellious spirit takes over and she dances a frantic, albeit stiff, rendition of "Flashdance" until she exhausts herself. She then goes into the bathroom and smashes her dogtooth out, bleeding profusely and grimacing from the pain. She then walks though the garden and climbs into the trunk of her father's car, hiding there. This act is her violent, concrete rebellion against ideology, yet she still is fully confined within the rules and constraints of the ideology itself. Even though she is trying to leave the compound, she knows that she cannot leave without the car, almost as if it was a law of nature or a simple fact of reality to obvious to be questioned. 

This is how the movie fully relates to our own experience. We cannot hope to experience any sort of post-ideological revolution, but we can hope to break free of ideology and fight against it, even if we are still operating within our current modes of thought. Yes, our perspectives are limited by our own society's ideology, but by successfully fighting against it we can cause it to collapse in upon itself. 

Conclusion

The ultimate ideological perspective of the film reflects a sort of Foucauldian, post-structuralist conception of ideology as something that we are wholly immersed in and can only be challenged within its own internal logic. In a sense, we are all prisoners in our own compounds, some of which have the same authoritarian father as Dogtooth, yet for others the oppression has taken on a much more immaterial character. Regardless, the film seems to accurately reflect the contemporary climate from which it was born; Greece was (and still is) in a time of economic uncertainty and collapse, a period of turmoil and uncertainty. It seems as if the film is asking us a final, very ideological question: will we bark like a dog or will we smash the dogtooth?

Mentor

For this project, I chose Mr. Shea to be my mentor. I reached out to him because of his knowledge of cinema and literary criticism that will be useful in analyzing the various films I will watch.
Essentially, his role will be that of a consultant and advisor in both the selection of films and in their analysis.

Introduction: formal proposal

1. Introduction

     The basic idea behind my scholar's project is to synthesize two of my main interests: film and philosophy. Inspired by thinkers like Debord, Althusser and Žižek, I plan to explore and examine how various films explore the concept of ideology. This does not necessarily mean ideologies in particular, but rather I am utilizing a more Althusserian conception of ideology as something present in all societies that arises both from the human consciousness and material conditions. This does not mean the various films cannot advocate for a specific ideology, as I plan to utilize films like Battleship Potemkin for my project, but I will also use films that explore ideology in a more metaphorical or symbolic sense. The end result of the project will be a detailed analysis written in essay form with various subsections on each particular film and the presentation will use various film clips and segments to underscore arguments from the essay and to demonstrate exceptionally clear examples of ideology in film.
     This whole project interests me because it combines two interests I have pursued outside of my academic life (continental philosophy and cinema), and the idea of both watching and formally analyzing films is certainly appealing to me. Coming into this project, I have already been exposed to a decent amount of both philosophy and film, as I have explored both of these topics in my spare time, but I am hardly an expert in either and I know that I will learn a lot over the course of this project. By the time I have finished this project, I will have watched dozens of films (many of which I will have never seen before) and analyzed them both individually and as a group.

2. Work and goals

     To accomplish this project, I plan to watch and analyze approximately one to three movies per week (this will obviously depend on my work load, but there will be weekly updates no matter what), with blog updates on a set day of the week. The project will not necessarily be split into certain stages or segment, but at a certain point near the due date I will stop watching movies and compile all my analyses into a final product. Each film viewing will probably be one or two hours long, but some movies may go longer. The analyses will vary in length depending on the movie, but will probably only take a couple hours per analysis. Overall, this will be a lot of work, but because it is split into many small, manageable segments it becomes a very doable workload. This means that my time frame for the project is very flexible, as the number of films to watch is not set in stone and can be adjusted depending on my schedule. Assuming no significant problems arise, the project will span approximately six months in order to avoid last-minute cramming.
     Most of the work I plan on doing will be located out of my home, but I may go to film festivals or various theaters to see newer movies. Materially, this will require me to purchase many movies on DVD or digitally, but other than that do not foresee requiring anything else. In terms of finding a mentor for my project, I have not yet found anyone and I am unsure of where to look for one. Because of this, my biggest initial goal for the project will be to find a suitable mentor, preferably someone academically involved with either film or philosophy (or both).

3. Managing challenges

     I do not see any major obstacles or issues that could arise during this project. In case of some technical malfunction, I have multiple devices that can play DVDs or stream movies, and I have many different ways of storing the written analyses. The biggest problem that could present itself with this project would simply be laziness on my part instead of something material. Because the project is spread across many months, my workload is not very dense and can be more easily managed, which would help me avoid procrastination. This also means that I can easily judge my progress throughout the project, as I can quantify the number of movies and analyses I have completed. Once the project is finished, I can determine the quality of my work based on both the number of films I have seen, as well as the depth in which I go into them and the quality of my overall analysis. Like any other essay, the quality of the arguments and the strength of my writing will determine how much I have or have not succeeded with the project.

4. Conclusion

      Since film is such a visual medium, I can use various clips from the films I analyzed to make my presentation interesting and engaging for an audience that may not otherwise be interested in the material I am presenting. The clips would help supplement the verbal and textual aspects of my presentation, which would probably be me speaking about a PowerPoint presentation that summarizes the final essay. The clips would be interspersed throughout the presentation, but because PowerPoint allows for users to imbed movie clips, I do not think I would need anything other than a laptop or iPad and a projector to share my presentation. Ultimately, I would hope that people would learn from my project that film is an excellent medium for cultural commentary because all its elements, from the cinematography to set design to dialog, convey a certain message to the audience. While some may not notice a film's message immediately, I hope to show how various elements of a film can be interpreted and analyzed to form a cohesive message that often comments on some aspect of the human condition.