I was hoping to start off a discussion exploring Roeg and his works, especially looking at Bad Timing as a consise Freudian influenced, Lacanian based text. I would like to hear what other people think about the film (I watched it for the first time this morning), and what educated evaluations people have come to. I feel that the imagery used throughout is highly Lynch influenced (or vice-versa, did Lynch come after Roeg?), and vital to the themes and ideas Roeg is exploring.
Whilst watching I thought Roeg was exploiting particular Freudian avenues. With the Eros vs Thanatos relationship Alex and Milene have, is Roeg trying to show the ways that every relationship works? Or is he showing us the extreme nature of these two characters through their relationship with each other? In the end, both charcters express Eros and Thantos together, but the more shocking parts of the film come from Roeg's views on Thantos or the death drive - Alex through his perversion and 'Ravishment' and Milene through her suicidal tendencies and attention seeking. However, at the end of all of this, Roeg is highlighting that the heterosexual, masculine dominance of the symbolic code and discourse prevails, as the male Alex is fully intact and unscathed by the end. Milene is another victim to the heterosexual world in which she lives, her repuatation, identity and physical body have been ruined. The main world-dominant masculine force prevails at the end, as the police end the film, with the usual Hollywood resolution. The female body has been used as the tool people percieve it to be. Her outcome is not even told.
Something that confused me was the sense of 'I' throughout the film. What is Roeg trying to get at? He has shown two split subjects ($), and has higlighted the more psychoanalytical aspects of Freudian and Lacanian discourse through the obvious characters of Alex and the detective, but what is Roeg saying about the unconscious and the various aspects of the role of 'I' and 'Other'?
Also, Roeg looks into the mother-child relationship. Is this why we cut from Milene's orgasm to her pain during surgery? This could explain the imagery, as it would represent a childs early perception of sex... In this sense, is Roeg showing the way that a relationship draws you into sharing subjects, like the child-mother relationship? Is he showing the ways that 'self' and 'Other' can transcend into each other during a relationship?
It is an amazing film, but I am stuck on it and cannot figure it out. Any other ideas people have on Roeg and his films? |
