Although most people believe in the supernatural, they struggle with the absurdity of life every day. For example, the life considered real by many could be a dream, while that lived in dreams could be the real one. Absurdism is a conflict that arises when humans try to seek order in a chaotic and meaningless universe. Writers and artists use absurdity as an exploration tool for the world elements that seem to make little or no sense. Realism emphasizes the use of accurate details of contemporary life and nature. It is portrayed in well-explained activities of daily life obtained through observation rather than imagination. The supernatural concept deals with mystical experiences and magical characters. Artists and literature writers have used absurdism, realism, and the supernatural in their writings throughout history.
The absurd, the real, and the supernatural are intertwined into one complex system that defines the experiences of human beings. The absurd creates a conflict, realism offers comfort in certainty, and the supernatural promises a resolution of every other detail a human cannot comprehend. The elements of absurdism include the search for the meaning of life, belief in free will, the feeling of self, the need for love, and an ambition for improvement. These are represented in dark humor, purposeless actions, nontraditional plots, irrational occurrences, and satire. Unlike absurdity, which focuses on nonsensical things, realism emphasizes the actual daily activities of people. In realism, the reality is portrayed comprehensively, the plot is plausible, characters are well developed, social classes are depicted, and realistic settings and events are utilized. The supernatural includes witches, religious figures, gods, ghosts, and spiritual rituals. The supernatural is related to the collective unconscious because most beliefs and practices are inherited from one generation to another without conscious intervention. Therefore, the supernatural is harbored within the unconscious for most people and cultures.
The short story Sealed Off represents elements of absurdity in its setting, characters, and events. The town is sealed off from the rest of the world due to an ongoing war, creating a chaotic environment that contradicts the order humans expect. The tram passengers cannot continue traveling home and are trapped in an unusual situation. For example, the occurrences forced Lu Zhongzhen to decide that he was hungry enough for dinner even though it was barely 5:00 pm (Ailing 527-528). Such a drastic decision depicts the disruption of order contrary to human expectations. “Modernity and Modernism” contains the elements of realism because it discusses the events happening around the world from 1900 to 1945. The first paragraph discusses developments in transportation and technology, including railroads, airplanes, steamships, telegraphs, and the telephone (Modernity and Modernism 4). These magical events in a work of art depict the presence of supernatural elements. Breton’s “Manifestos of Surrealism” represents elements of the supernatural and absurdity (Breton 678). For example, the author details how some authors must identify with their character’s imagination to the extent that it becomes their lives.
A no less noteworthy example of all the above can be considered a film of 2010, winner of the Cannes Film Festival and Oscar nominee, directed by Alejandro Gonzalez called “Biutiful.” This film is regarded as a drama genre benchmark with paranormal activity elements. The film itself unfolds in a rather predictable manner, as the main character is an ordinary man but with an unusual fate that touches the viewer’s heart. His name is Uxbale, and he is diagnosed with cancer in the story. In his last months of life, he puts his affairs in order, which will remain after his death, as Uxbale has many problems in his life. One of the main ones is that he supervises Asian migrants who work for him for paltry wages. Because of his pettiness, all the workers die, and the main character of the piece is to blame (Connolly). There are many more tragic events ahead of him, and like many films in this genre, it all ends in death, which is known from the beginning of the film.
However, there are peculiarities that make this film unique in its genre. First of all, how the director uses paranormal activity in his movie is one of these unique details. It is not vivid but very ordinary, as if paranormal activity exists in the world created by the director in ordinary life, and everyone is already used to it. Thus, it can be said that the creator’s vision of reality not on the other side of the screen but ordinary, familiar to everyone, is vividly shown through the language of film art. For him, the world around him may be inhabited by spirits, and there is nothing unusual about that.
Mysticism surrounds the main character from the first few minutes, but the viewer will not immediately notice the details. The most exciting feature used by the creator of the film is the subtle hints of the ending, which is very difficult to pay attention to but will make those who are watching rewatch the picture to be sure of their presence. It is about the shadows and movements of the main character. They are different from what they would be in real life because of the speed with which the shadows and reflections lag behind the object that casts or projects them (Connolly). With this, the filmmaker wanted to show that Uxbale’s life is slowly passing away and how the mystique can be hidden in the details, and how it resonates with real life. Few people pay attention to this in everyday life, but Alejandro showed that even tiny little things could be evidence of something larger than life.
The use of visual imagery, which can frighten the viewer with its strangeness, should be noted. It is about the spirits that fill the film towards the end. Their design has no unique features or details that would frighten the viewer (Connolly). Their peculiarity lies elsewhere, namely in their presence. The film is designed in such a way as to show it as lively and similar to the real world as possible. Therefore, the presence of otherworldly forces in the film is shown as a phenomenon that exists in reality, which can scare or at least make one belief in paranormal powers. This is what is most frightening, not the visual images themselves, but their presence in a picture that is as close to reality as possible.
It is also worth noting other aspects that emphasize the whole spectrum of fear that comes from this film. One essential detail that also affects the narrative is the presence of despair throughout the timeline. In addition to otherworldly spirits, Alejandro creates a project that can frighten not only such things but even ordinary life, which is sometimes very unfair (Azcona). The director, among other things, emphasizes that the migrants for whom the main character was responsible are considered spirits but in a different sense of the word (Connolly). Usually, spirits are deemed otherworldly souls who cannot find peace and are forced to seek it in this world eternally.
On the other hand, Alejandro shows that the problem of migrants is just as similar to the one troubling the otherworldly forces. They are the same beings who are in a place where they are forced to be unwilling, how they can be just as lonely, and how difficult it is to live where one is not welcome (Azcona). The apotheosis of the unfolding of this idea can be seen in the mass death of all the people who worked on Uxbal and their reunion with their otherworldly images. What is most frightening about this film is that it is too much like real life. “Biutiful” can be called not just a horror movie but one that affects the human psyche and works in such a way that the brain builds connections with the otherworld and sees some patterns between them.
The general atmosphere of the presence of otherworldly forces is supported not only by the visuals but also by the audio accompaniment. All the sounds used by Alejandro in his film have an essential purpose (Connolly). Notably, each movement is voiced with meticulous care and attention to detail. Therefore, it is necessary to evaluate the film in terms of the image and how the entire picture is affected by the voiceover. An example would be the sounds a door makes when it opens at an agitated moment in the film (Azcona). This is given tremendous attention, unlike the everyday life of any of the viewers. Every moment the camera points at the door, the spectator hears clicking, ticking, and howling sounds. Suppose one also considers the already mentioned facts about spirits and their influence on the plot and the life of the one who watches this film. In that case, it becomes evident that Alejandro wanted to show how close the afterlife is together with the real world, the one in which the viewer now lives.
To sum up, the whole analysis of the film and its impact on the horror industry not only as a genre but also as a life aspect, it is worth saying that although the events described are fictional, they are constructed in such a way that one can notice a certain similarity. The most important decision that the director made can be considered the creation of a realistic picture in conjunction with the otherworld and its inhabitants. Such a move realizes the main feature of the picture, namely the belief in spirits (Connolly). No matter how skeptical the viewer may be, it is difficult to deny that this structure allows us to understand, even if only briefly, the atmosphere of despair and the presence of unusual phenomena in everyone’s life.
In conclusion, the absurd, the real, the supernatural, and the unconscious are related. Even though humans inhabit them, they represent different experiences by people. Artists and writers have depicted these elements through stories, poems, dramas, drawings, and other works. Absurdity shows a conflict between human expectation and actual events, realism focuses on reality, and the supernatural is the powerful external force that ties everything together to create harmony in the universe. The unconscious facilitates the inheritance of culture and supernatural beliefs through the generations.
Works Cited
“Modernity and Modernism, 1900-1945.” The Norton Anthology of World Literature, edited by Puchner, Martin, et al., WW Norton, 2018, pp. 4-13.
Ailing, Zhang. “Sealed Off.” Love in a Fallen City, edited by Ailing, Zhang, Wenji, 1994, pp. 524-533.
Azcona, María Del Mar. “‘We Are All Uxbal’: Narrative Complexity in the Urban Borderlands in Biutiful.” Journal of Film and Video, vol. 67, no. 1, 2015, p. 3.
Breton, André. “Manifestos of surrealism.” (1969).
Connolly, Kathleen Honora. “Spirits and Those Living in the Shadows: Migrants and a New National Family in Biutiful.” Revista Canadiense de Estudios Hispánicos, vol. 39, no. 3, 2015, pp. 545–63.