Making Non-places Heimlich
Diasporic Stasis through Narrative Symmetry in Blind Sun, Isle of Dogs and Eighth Continent
Thematically touching upon diaspora, Blind Sun (2015), Eighth Continent (2017) and Isle of Dogs (2018) all feature migration as a prominent goal leading the plot development and unfolding the lm: in the first two live-action films, immigrants such as the protagonist Ashraf are involuntarily contained at their current location in Greece due to administrative issue or death; in the last stop-motion animation, dogs exiled to the Trash Island beside Megasaki City in Japan can only wander on the isle under the hostility of humans. For all these three films, the narratives majorly take place at the location the migrants are entrapped in and often end promising for the characters to embark on their new journey for the “heimlich” that is “familiar”, “tame” and “companionable”, “native” and “homely” or “concealed” from others’ sight (Freud, 2). In a similar logic, before the ending in the narrative, an “unheimlich”aestheticism often alienates the diegeses for audience despite their references to real cities in the world, hints at the plight for the migrant character(s) and perplexes the ethics of viewership, stimulating the spectators to re-evaluate the presented diaspora and relevant social problems.
Noticeably, throughout these three films, the audience all engage in the diegetic world typically as an outsider gazing upon the otherized characters in an exoticised landscape. According to the Orientalism theory by Edward Said, the Orient is constructed as an imaginary that typically defines itself by deviating or being excluded from the realm of Western exercise—the east is defined by its opposition against the west, thus artificially otherized. Similarly, “das unheimliche”, translated as “the uncanny” in English (Freud, 1), is understood and justified through the binary contrast between “das heimliche” and itself. Though the films connect to the real world in its location setting, by deviating from the conventional perspective or experience that the spectators are familiar with, the uncanny aestheticism in the lmic presentations positions the audience distinctively from the migrant characters, externalizing the boundary between them and establishing the diegeses as exotic from the very beginning: Blind Sun deploys a highly saturated orange-teal color palette throughout the lm that the mise-en-scène appears realistic but not naturalistic enough. The teal sky visually resembles water, another recurrent element in the lm, and becomes defamiliarized for the audience that the visual compass feels alienating and otherized. Moreover, the uniform monochrome of orange in the middle ground and background of exterior shots often visually flattens the spatiality the protagonist is situated in. The otherwordliness through such vivid colors and lack of visible depth would likely induce the audience to re-grasp their situatedness and re-orientate themselves (Ingold, T.) while trying to map out the exotic diegetic space. In this sense, such aesthetic strangeness signifies their position as a stranger in the context. Similarly, in Isle of Dogs, English- speaking audience are alienated from the typical human perspective as dogs speak English while all Japanese human characters only communicate in their native language. The animal perspective becomes the most accessible one, whereas the human characters automatically get otherized by the language barrier. Thus, audience that are not native to Japanese culture would be reminded of their inability to decipher any Japanese text from a heimlich perspective and be wary of over-stereotyping the Oriental culture given many iconic tourist attractions such as Fuji Mountain and sakura trees in the background. Such alerting function of the uncanny aesthetics for the audience to more carefully map out the diegesis is most explicitly shown in Eighth Continent, where there is only one real human inhabitant on the island. Compared with the other two films, by barely presenting language or living humans for the audience to identify themselves with, Eighth Continent appears more exotic with a vaguer message. Therefore, the unheimlich perspective or aesthetics in these three films otherizes the audience that they would feel uncertain thus uncanny when attempting to orientate themselves in the exotic diegetic spaces.
Though aware of only seeing as the “other”, someone who is not native to the diegeses, the audience would still be able to sense the heimlich information as references to locate themselves in the unheimlich presentation. The original definitions of “heimlich” listed by Freud hint at how and why the uncanny presentations about the diasporic figures in these three films can also feel familiar to the audience at the same time (Freud, 2): (a) with “heimlich” defined as “belonging to the house or the family”, the uncanny orange-teal color palette in Blind Sun is very effective in emphasizing and blending Ashraf’s skin tone into the exterior background, reminiscent of Arab nomads in desert; (b) with “heimlich” defined as “tame” and “companionable to man” for animals, the uncanny English-speaking dog perspective among Japanese people in Isle of Dogs heightens the tension between these two species and ideological independence for the dogs, who resiliently act and fight for their own rights; (c) with “heimlich” defined as “concealed” and “withheld from others”, the pile of life jackets reflecting light projected from elsewhere in Eighth Continent signals the potential presence of others around the bleak Island and suggests the possibility for the refugees to be found. The audience, limited by their lack of experience and knowledge in such exoticized diegeses, do not qualify for a “self” perspective: in the three films, they are disabled to fully know Ashraf’s personal background, understand specific Japanese text, or recognize individual identities of the life jacket owners. However, they are still able to rationalize and feel the similarity with the featured phenomena by drawing connections from similar empirical knowledge they acquired as the “other” before: for example, the stereotypical association of Arabic-looking man with desert, the overall tension between users of two distinct languages due to the impossibility for them to communicate with and really understand each other, the frequent phenomenon of stranded refugees in life jackets desperately waiting for rescue. When the audience, already otherized by the uncanny aesthetics or perspective, try to orientate themselves inside the unheimlich diegeses, they look into their prior knowledge for hallmarks to map their mind out and connections to familiarize themselves with the diegeses. Unable to comprehend the meaning of every detail at the first place, the otherized audience still sense the “unheimlich” of phenomena within the diegeses by generalizing and reapplying the conclusion drawn from previous contexts with similar elements. In doing so, they are empowered to claim control over the general landscape and rewarded when recycling the existing cognitive pattern – familiarizing the defamiliarized through categorization. Thus, meaning is defined and governed by prioritizing overall message than subtle details. When the otherized audience gain and defend their orientation by generalizing inherently different individual identities or details, the initial attempt of understanding becomes hypocritical. In turning the unheimlich into the heimlich, individuality is inevitably sacrificed for generalization in order to be categorized. Similar to the process of colonization in nature, the familiarization of the unfamiliar diegeses by the audience takes place by comparing and grouping individuals. Rather than a reliable means of accurately describing the meaning, the dialectic of unheimlich and heimlich signifies more as heightening the artificial division of meanings towards the “other” or the “self”, the “colonizer” or the “colonized”. Thus, the map orientated by the otherized audience may only reflect imaginary locations of individuals, but does mark the irresoluble boundaries between different cultural territories. As result, the true locations are suspended if a space is acknowledged and locatable from such map; the real identity can be detained if an individual becomes identified and generalizable by turning “heimlich” or “unheimlich” for the “other”.
Conscious of the unreliability of simply dichotomizing meanings and feelings, Blind Sun and Isle of Dogs deliberately incredibilize the narrative through symmetry that switches character positions between the privileged and the precarious one, invalidating such dichotomy by overplaying it. In Blind Sun, color binary is used in a highly symbolic and excessive way along with Ashraf’s transition from the unhomely to homely during his time at the French household: blue is associated with the privilege under protection, such as Ashraf’s car, the luxurious swimming pool in the house and the unreachable sky; yellow is associated with the agitated precarity, such as the outdoor eld and dazzling sun. After mostly staying indoor for the first half of the lm, Ashraf goes outside, while dressing in blue for the rst time, to locations such as water supply line, the church, and Apollo Hotel, where he visually stands out from the yellow background and encounters many others suffering from water shortage, homelessness, incarceration and violence in his vicinity. As the salient color change emphasizes, in contrast to the others struggling for basic life needs, Ashraf becomes the privileged to them. Along with the dramatic switch of his position inside the dichotomy comes the intensification of his identity crisis as he finds his facial features disappearing when looking into the mirror. Involuntarily blinded by the sun at first, he eventually has to avoid seeing and confronting his own over-saturated identity by turning to the sea of excessive water. Jarring as the complementary color palette seems, the sudden positional symmetry places Ashraf on the other side of the self he has aligned with, leading to an implosion of the “other”/“self” and “unheimlich”/“heimlich” dichotomy that Ashraf’s individual identity violently collapses. Such positional symmetry accentuated by formal externalization is more geometric and strictly implemented in Isle of Dogs that two sides of the dichotomy seem to be perfectly interchangeable if folding the story: in the middle of the narrative, during their search for human’s bodyguard dog Spots, the rebellious Atari and the independent stray dog Chief are coincidentally separated from other former pet dogs, after which their positions switch to the other extreme. While Spots resigns his job as Atari’s bodyguard, Chief is tamed to serve Atari, who becomes the next and another Kobayashi mayor after confronting the previous Kobayashi regime. Thus, Chief switches role with his twin brother Spots; the power dynamics of Atari and the previous Kobayashi mayor, his guardian, turns over. Symmetrical as mirror reflections, these pairs of characters ip their identity binaries. With the plot twisted by coincidence and the symmetry so perfect, the narrative seems mechanical and artificial, which in fact is implied as staged: the lm starts and ends symmetrically with the rhythm set up by the same Taiku performers, who show up in the Boy Samurai play performed on stage. Briefly, such sudden subversion of the characters’ position and jarring switch of perspective suspends the audience’s belief in the narrative’s credibility and causes serious dissonance for the characters in locating their own identity within the dichotomous structure. Starkly inconsistent roles are assigned to the characters arbitrarily within the diegeses. Thus, the possibility to build any sincere communication and reliable connection between different character positions is falsified. In Eighth Continent, the forceful clash of positions are manifested through the discontinuous multi-perspective sound. While the vision remains consistently focused on the life jackets, the audio perception often transgresses boundary of the previously alignable perspective: a close- up sound on the truck transporting life jackets is directly cut to an almost muted and more distant observation of the life jacket crater without any perceivable action taking place; a perspective hearing the tinfoil quivering while wind blows suddenly cuts to a closer one, more isolated from the ambient wind noise, that magnifies the subtleties of the foil movement. In the last shot, though the angle and distance for the visual stay the same, the consecutive horn sound feels more dynamic by varying in the perceived angles and distances. Therefore, the sensual experience here is precarious, confronting the audience with the limitation and credibility of every available perspective. In all of the three films, dichotomous perspectives are provocatively interchanged, invalidating former relational connections with the others that the individuals have referred to when locating themselves.
In Blind Sun and Isle of Dogs, the plot develops by folding back. Introduced from the immigrant Ashraf driving on his way to a rich French household he will serve, Blind Sun closes on him burning the house and getting on the road again. Same as his debut but in wider shots, Ashraf appears in white outfit and wanders in the desert-like yellow eld again near the end of the lm. Wearing the shirt on his head like an Emirati and walking barefoot after his car breakdown, the protagonist returns to where he comes from in the diegesis, with the visual setting regressing in modernity and the individual appearing less significant. In Isle of Dogs, the story ends in the same way as how the early legend in the prologue is described: Atari, as another Boy Samurai, goes to the Isle of Dogs for his dog Spots and brings back the exiled former pet dogs from Trash Island by domesticating them again for humans to make the two species compatible. Though the story seems progressing with the characters earning freedom in the change of their locations, the narrative has not allowed the featured diasporic figures to go anywhere else but back in time as the claimed “near-future” keeps re-enacting history. Such symmetry in the status change of the diasporic group unfolds in Eighth Continent too: in the colorful opening scene, an empty orange life jacket is found and picked up by inhabitants onto the boat; in the almost black-and-white end, piles of empty life jackets on the island get illuminated by the reflection of lights from their vicinity, which implies the presence of more living humans around them. However, under the ostensible joy of going to be discovered, the ending embeds a feeling of too-lateness for such discovery, which resembles the beginning: the action of discovery and signal for rescue always occur on the verge of losing their effectiveness – after there is no more life left or when the faint signal is about to fade in the darkness. Therefore, in these three films, the featured diasporic group, after all, returns to or remains where they are at the beginning: in the end, Ashraf escapes from his paranoid by distancing himself from the household, dogs earn stability in life by becoming pets for humans again, refugees cannot be discovered in time. Nothing has changed in the end for the precarious to arrive at a physically safe and mentally relieving place except their individuality being portrayed less significant. Though set in a near-future tense, these three films twist the temporal linearity by a narrative symmetry – in the lm diegesis, what happens when moving forward is already indicated if looking backward. With the power of the present weakened, the diegetic spaces are situated in “a time unmarked by events happening in the present” (Ponzanesi, 677), thus lacking the potential to forge its own history by not temporally going anywhere else; accordingly, the spaces in these three films are non-historical.
Therefore, by aesthetically otherizing the audience and narratively symmetrizing the diasporic figures’ conditions, Blind Sun, Isle of Dogs, and Eighth Continent consciously externalize and exaggerate the absurd dichotomy endangering individuality: the way to be more discernible and powerful is to become a “self” more accessible and meaningful to the “other”. By simply letting the “other” become the “self” or vice versa, the narrative pinpoints the hypocrisy and unreliability of direct inclusion by the “other”. In conforming to the symmetrical binary of stereotypes, individuals detain their inherent otherness and stay anonymous in a non-place “which cannot be defined as relational, historical, or concerned with identity” (Ponzanesi, 677). Besieged by the dichotomy that tends to validate meaning through generalizing or simplifying, the individuals have no way out but going back to the very beginning of their victimization – before they are identified and become heimlich to the “other”- only to retrieve their real identity. The films, starting with the focus on a single diasporic individual, eventually land back on their status immobility while zooming out through the narrative to include more individuals suffering from similar problems in the landscape, thus suggesting the diasporic stasis of bigger magnitude. In a less ambitious but much more effective manner, the films allude to the far more complex reality and ambivalent identities of the individual migrants.
Works Cited
Freud, S. (1919) The “Uncanny”. p. 1-21. Translated by Alix Strachey. First published in Imago, Bd. V., reprinted in Sammlung, Fünfte Folge.
Ingold, T. (2000) The Perception of the Environment: Essays in Livelihood, Dwelling and Skill, London and New York: Routledge.
Ponzanesi, S. (2012) The Non-Places of Migrant Cinema in Europe. Third Text, Vol. 26, Issue 6, November. p. 675-690. Routledge. Taylor&Francis Group.
Said, E. (1979) II. Imaginative Geography and Its Representations: Orientalizing the Oriental. Orientalism. p. 32-49. New York: Vintage Books.
Blind Sun. (2015) Film. Directed by Joyce A. Nashawati. [Video Streaming] Canada: Shudder.
Isle of Dogs. (2018) Stop-motion Animated Film. Directed by Wes Anderson. [VHS] US: Fox Searchlight Pictures.
Eighth Continent. (2017) Film. Directed by Yorgos Zois. [Video Streaming] Greece: Squared Square Films.
