Objet a

Objet a deals with our relationship to objects and our projection of meanings into them, vis-a-vis our detachment from nature. The protagonists lives in an indistinct city near a forest, and the forest gradually closes in on their home, bodies and objects. The story does not deal with the eco crises directly and the characters are not necessarily aware of it, they are rather soaked in the topic organically. Donna Haraway speaks of “biosociality”, in which a strict separation of humans from other living things is arbitrary and artificial, since human cells carry the genetic material of bacteria, fungi and so on. We are connected to all other living beings, and when we recognize other species as «companions», all ideas of binary gender and normative sexuality automatically collapse into irrelevance. Like so I observe and intertwine the characters in the film, human, fauna and flora. Melanie is an eco-sexual, which represents an important contemporary movement, who sees the earth not as a mother, rather as a lover, exploring its sensuality, acknowledging that the world around us is part of our sexual identities and experience. It’s also a form of eco activism and so I found it very important to include it in the story.