The Lobster: Yorgos Lanthimos’ Satirical Dive into Modern Relationships
Asish Moturu delves into The Lobster (2015), an absurdist black comedy about relationships in an imagined dystopia, and examines its critique of modern society.
Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos has established his work as weird/imaginative, offering films that are intriguing, slightly disturbing, and extremely memorable. People are usually divided by Lanthimos's works, and The Lobster is no such exception. The film is, in my opinion, one of his best works; The Lobster presents a weird and satirical take on human relationships and societal obsessions. This is my take on the movie after watching it for the second time almost 8 years later.
The Lobster world is a defamiliarized, weird dystopia. The movie starts off with our main protagonist David (played by Colin Farrell), who checks into this government-mandated hotel where singles are given a 45 day limit to find themselves a mate; if they fail to do so, they are turned into an animal of their own choice and released into the wild to get a second chance at finding a relationship. It follows him through the decisions he makes (many are bad), including his eventual escape from the hotel and falling in love with a woman who shares his trait of short-sightedness (played by Rachel Weisz). When David is asked what animal he would like to be turned into if he doesn't find a partner, he says a lobster because lobsters live for over a hundred years, are blue-blooded like Aristocrats and stay fertile all their lives. The title is derived from this very exchange of words. While the reasons he gives appear valuable — longevity, nobility and fertility — he misses one of the more significant traits of a lobster: the fact that they mate for life. Even as an animal, David seems to desire a partner to share his existence with.
The Lobster is filled with such metaphors. Over the course of the movie, we realise that couples are expected to have something in common to be in a successful relationship. In a subplot of the film, John, the Limping man (Ben Whishaw) pretends to have nose bleeds by hitting himself in secret to be with a woman who suffers from frequent nosebleeds (Jessica Barden). He lies to find himself a partner with shared characteristics. Even David himself pretends to be cruel and sadistic to court the Heartless woman (Angeliki Papoulia), up until he finds that she has killed his brother. This brings into question: how far would we lie or change ourselves to find our perfect match? The Lobster does not just show the complexity and influence of society on relationships, but also, seems to question society's perception of love itself. It presents the pressure placed on people to find their soulmate and pushes individuals to change themselves to do so. The film seems to posit that in the world we live in, society does not care whether or not you are happy in a relationship. It only matters that you are in one.
The music of the film also furthers these ideas: a highlight being the Greek song Apo Mesa Pethamenos (transl: Dead Inside, or Seemingly Alive). This song, with its melancholic mood and accompanied by the film’s sequence is very fitting. It translates to “As if there aren't so many people just like me / seemingly alive but dead in the inside”. The ending credits are accompanied by the Greek song Ti Ein Afto Pou To Lene Agapi (transl: What is Love?), the real icing on the cake, which also questions the meaning of love. These seem to also reflect these criticisms surrounding the concept of love and relationships.
The ending of the film is not so much a resolution but more up for interpretation. The Shortsighted woman is, after a series of events, now blinded, and both her and David escape and leave for the city. As they sit in a diner David gets what seems to be a final look at the woman, and heads to the bathroom with a steak knife, seemingly intending to blind himself too. The final shot rests on her waiting for David’s return, unseeing and unspeaking, capturing the darkness and silence of loneliness. Does David blind himself and return to the woman? Or does he run away? Lanthimos seems to have left this up to us to decide.
Yorgos Lanthimos’ films are also made unforgettable due to the immaculate poster design that is now his signature.
Vasilis Marmatakis, a graphic designer based in Athens, is the man behind these promotional posters. Since Dogtooth in 2005, Marmatakis has designed promotional posters for all of Lanthimos’ movies. On the poster development for The Lobster, Vasilis Marmatakis stated: “This is the one I really love. This is my favourite poster that never came out. If you look at it, you’ll see there’s an extra hand there. It’s the idea of what it means to be a couple. What it means when you’re holding someone’s hand, and if physically they’re not there.”
As absurd as it may sound, I found a lot of parallels between The Lobster’s fictional world and our own society. In this modern era of dating, where swiping left or right on a dating app has become the norm, it’s easy to lose sight of the genuine connections that love can offer. The idea of us having the same traits as our partners is the usual attribute of the algorithms utilised in online dating. But just having similar traits as another person is not going to cut it. We have gotten used to a culture of convenience, where the value of an individual is often reduced to their appearance or their ability to meet our desires. The notion of investing time and effort into building a meaningful and lasting bond seems to be fading; rather, people are desperate to find someone just so they aren’t alone and judged by those around them. The film distances the audience through its magnificent cinematography and weirdly interesting storytelling, but at its core, The Lobster is a critique of modern love, marriage, and societal values forcing the audience to re-examine themselves and their personal views.
By the way, I'd choose to become a cat.
A quote from the movie to leave you with:
“It is more difficult to pretend that you do have feelings when you don't than to pretend you don't have feelings when you do.”