Obsession

​Laura Mulvey famously wrote in Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema: "Woman then stands in patriarchal culture as signifier for the male other, bound by a symbolic order in which man can live out his phantasies and obsessions through linguistic command by im- posing them on the silent image of woman still tied to her place as bearer of meaning, not maker of meaning." ​This dynamic forms the dark, beating heart of Curry Barker's Obsession. ​This raises the ultimate question: if you could make only one wish, any wish, what would it be? You might ask for endless wealth, admission into your dream college, or maybe, just maybe, to finally be with the person you love.​​ Bear gets the chance to do exactly that, wishing for his unrequited love to become real. However, he never anticipated the horror of a devotion so complete that Nikki becomes physically unable to leave his side without self-harming. This poses a terrifying psychological dilemma: is it the curse's obsession driving her behavior, or is it Bear’s infatuation with the manicured image he shaped of her that sustains the nightmare? Herein lies the true horror; making that wish reduces Nikki to exactly what Mulvey describes, a "bearer of meaning." For Bear, her meaning is purely utilitarian; she is a vessel for the comfort he so desperately craves, reduced to a medium through which he can live out his own dangerous obsessions. ​Ultimately, Obsession subverts standard horror tropes to deliver a possession film where the human architect of the curse is far scarier than the entity itself. On a technical level, the filmmaking brilliantly mirrors this violation of autonomy. The cinematography routinely casts Nikki into heavy shadow, frequently obscuring her face to remind us that her true consciousness has been reduced to no more than a passenger. By framing her as a lurking background fixture, the camera literally reduces her to the "silent image" haunting Bear's periphery. ​Backed by a phenomenal, deeply unsettling sound design, the film achieves visceral dread, but personally it is the performances that cement its impact. While Michael Johnston does a fantastic job anchoring Bear’s quiet, entitled descent, Inde Navarrette deserves the highest praise. Her ability to portray the agonizing duality of her character, the constant, violent struggle between the forced wish and her trapped reality, is nothing short of a performance for the ages​. What we end up with is what I think is the best film of the year. A masterfully executed psychological nightmare that absolutely deserves every bit of praise it has received.