Dreams of Green & Old Ghosts: A Short Article on Nostalgia

A thin, twisted tropical pine tree which grows among bushes of peppermint leaves, chrysanthemums, and bougainvilleas, in front of a car porch wide enough to accommodate at least four cars. A cloth-hanger line hangs between a pillar and the fence, suspended in mid-air, with the string almost invisible when seen faraway. I remember my childhood most distinctly here, in my grandparents' house, when me, my younger brother, and a few of my cousins will run around in the flowery garden, picking up leaves here and there to make "herbal potions", digging holes to discover hidden treasures, and shouting whenever we accidentally hit our faces across the "invisible" cloth-hanger. It is here where we splashed packets of glitter-filled water onto our neighbor's car, resulting in an embarrassing situation, where my now-deceased grandfather chased all of us around the house with a pipe hose, determined to get us to apologize to the neighbor.

Almost all of us felt this sensation of nostalgia in our lives, where we retreat from the chaotic real world into the recesses of our memories, where non-existent people and things are still retained, where things never die, and where significant events are still alive, somewhere deep in us. Neuroscientists nowadays define nostalgia as a mental phenomena with a physical basis, in which the amygdala, the seat of emotions in a part of our brain called the limbic system, is activated by external stimuli that evokes a certain aspect of our memory which is normally associated with sentimentality, or a longing for the past.

But all this is just a simplification of one of the most complicated of human emotions. In nostalgia, one does not just relive the past through the transmission of neurotransmitters, or the activation of a brain part. In nostalgia, one longs for a memory, a ghost, a phantom, that cannot and will not exist anymore. As times move on, things and places and people change. Time is the one true destroyer which obliterates everything in its path, as it moves ever forward into the mysterious future, in its self-driven quest for exploration. History is but a collection of everything that is not, a museum of the deceased.

And it is in nostalgia, that one temporarily abandons the future in order to live in the past, to long for the "good old days", in which History is worshiped like a God, where memories regained its significance as the one true witness of what makes us us. Memory - with all its imperfections and all its inaccuracies, where one does not just record the past, but reinvent it - is all we have, for without it, we will loose our foundation of our being. Recall the movie "Memento", where the protagonist is an anterograde amnesiac, which cannot form new long-term memories, and can only remember a few fragments of his past life before his wife is killed. It is precisely because he can't form new memories which lead to his fragmentary existence, where he can't even be sure of who he is, and the correctness of his actions. He is, essentially, a broken man, a man without an identity. Because it is our memory that defines us.

Nostalgia is often misunderstood as something that contradicts with our health, that which is an anathema that must be eradicated as soon as possible. In our progressive society, nostalgia is seen as an obstacle to advancement, an obsession of the senile, the old, the conservative. But it is in truth, more than that, for without nostalgia, life would lose some of its colors, the memories that permeate the living. Imagine a society in which none will look back on the past when everyone based their sole ideals on progression. People will disregard the love for our planet, for our heritage, for life itself. And we can see a glimpse of it nowadays actually: the impulsive spending on fuel consumption, the materialistic production of goods on dwindling resources. Much like what the movie "Wall-E" depicted, if the process of ceaseless manufacturing does not stop and reconsider its priorities, all will be lost. Without nostalgia, we lose our footing.

It is precisely in nostalgia that we cope ourselves with negative feelings, that we feel warmth and serenity through fleeting images from the past. Our memories of the past might be an image where we are surrounded by people who are close to us, as humans are rarely alone, and it is these memories that reminds us of the interconnectedness of beings. We feel better for ourselves, and we find a sense of profound existential meaning in life as we relive the memories that are the most significant for us. Of course, maladaptive nostalgia can be detrimental to our health as we are stuck to the past without a vision of the morrow. But such things, as in everything else, must be taken with caution, and in Buddha's wise advise, everything is best if done in a middle dose, if we follow the middle path.

One can see the sentimentality and nostalgic reflections embedded upon the major works of literature and philosophy. Friedrich Nietzsche, Soren Kierkegaard, Emil Cioran, Arthur Schopenhauer, Lord Byron, William Blake, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Leo Tolstoy, John Keats, and many more who were involved in the Romantic movement, who revolted against the implications of the Enlightenment, which placed the priority of science on a pedestal. For these Romantic writers and poets long for a past that is purer, where humans lived in relative naivete, without the obsession and delusion of a progression of society and civilization. Even movies nowadays, such as Chaplin's masterful "Modern Times" and "City Lights", "The Godfather" or "Forrest Gump", even the relatively new "Wall-E", all displayed an equal sentimentality for a simpler past.

Nostalgia then is not a simple emotion which can be explained away in a few sentences, or by an explanation that is based on scientific speculation. Like all other emotions, one must experience it in order to understand it. And like all other emotions, words and languages are inadequate to fully verbalize the full extent of its impact on our life. To tell another that "I feel angry" or "I feel nostalgic" means nothing to them, for they do not know what nostalgia means to us. No two person's emotion can be the same, and with that, words are but a universal category for what we experienced, and like all things, it is lost in translation.

But for all it's worth, nostalgia is an emotion that is beautiful in its complexity, in that it involves our entire being in its experience. And it is complex in its beauty, for even we ourselves can't fully comprehend its mechanics. So it is enough that we know that such an emotion exists, and that we can experience it. As the past contains beautiful images, it is all I have in times of destitution. For in the blue skies and the green patch of grass in my grandparents' house, where the aroma of freshly cooked food wafted through the entire compound of the house, with my grandmother's shouts for us to have our lunch, and our running and darting across the nooks and crannies of the estate, at least I know it is beautiful.

[Do look up these other sources on the theme of nostalgia, in which I have based my review upon:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nostalgia
http://www.ejumpcut.org/archive/jc51.2009/WallE/

I love Wikipedia, in case you haven't noticed. Despite its occasional discrepancies and inaccuracies, it is still a very fruitful resource of information. Once again, enjoy:) ]

Movie Review: "올드보이 (Oldboy)"

"Laugh, and the world laughs with you. Weep, and you weep alone."

- Ella Wheeler Wilcox, "The Way of the World" 

(Quoted in the movie "Oldboy")

[Warning: Extreme violence, and contains sexually explicit scenes, not for the faint-hearted.]

The South Korean movie industry is perhaps one of the most misunderstood movie industries in the world. It's somewhat true to an extent that the South Korean media often produce sappy soap dramas, filled with fatalistic romance encounters, forceful tear inducing scenes, repetitive ballads that sing about unrequited love and tragic fates, car accidents, amnesia, the sudden revelation that your lover is actually your sibling (gasp!). Korean dramas are often so cliched to the point that one wonders why everyone even bother to watch it, since every (and I mean every) drama has roughly the same plots, the same character-types, the same setting, even similar songs sung by similar artists......

All sunshine and roses, the melodramatic bubbles of soap

But that's beside the point, what I am about to review here, is simply put, one of the most mind-bending, shocking, tragic, and disturbing films that I have ever had the fortune (or is it misfortune?) to watch. "Oldboy", or pronounced with a Korean accent, "Oldeuboi", is a masterpiece, at least in my opinion, that is. It marks a turning point in the Korean movie industry in that it spawned a series of revenge thrillers, similar in genre, but different in its mechanisms, such as the equally masterful "달콤한 인생 (A Bittersweet Life)", "아저씨 (The Man from Nowhere)", "추격자 (The Chaser)", "황해 (The Yellow Sea)", "악마를 보았다 (I Saw the Devil) [Another favorite of mine]", "똥파리 (Breathless)", and many more.

(Most Korean revenge thrillers are notorious for their sado-masochistic violence, which present their bloodshed and tortures with an unflinching view, so beware, oh those who dare to enter. For once you get past the initial rites of entry, you will not leave unscathed. Come to think of it, such is the desensitization towards violence of contemporary times. Ah, the irony.)

Although "Oldboy", once considered the most violent and the most sexually explicit Korean film there is, is now superseded in its content by many Korean films, such as "I Saw the Devil", where its ultra-violent content has far surpassed that of "Oldboy", it is still considered controversial because of its highly tragic content, which I will not reveal here for fear of spoiling the enjoyment of viewing this film in its entirety. It contains one of the best endings I have ever seen, and the execution of this is admirable, and not in the least bit disappointing , despite its awful revelation. In my humble opinion, the ending ranks up there along the likes of "The Shawshank Redemption" or "The Prestige", albeit the two plottwists are entirely different, one tragic, the other euphoric. Other endings nowadays, such as from the films "The Usual Suspects", "Now You See Me", or even "Insidious", are entirely unsatisfactory when compared to "Oldboy", because these lack the crucial motivation of the characters (even if they have it, it is as shallow as it comes), ingenuity, and are entirely forceful while being unnecessary to the viewing experience, while the plot in "Oldboy" flows naturally, and the ending, necessary, and vital.

"Oldboy", a 2003 South Korean film, directed by Park Chan Wook, tells a horrifying story of a man, seemingly innocent, being kidnapped and confined in the same hotel room for 15 years without knowing the reasons of his confinement. And so he trained himself in the room, preparing for the day when he is released in order to seek vengeance upon his unknown captors. As if his imprisonment isn't mysterious enough, he is also mysteriously released and is told by his captor that he has five days to find the captor, and to search for the reason of his imprisonment. This is made all the more complicated as after his release, he falls for an attractive sushi chef. Thus begins his bewildering and bizarre journey of self-exploration.

Oh Dae-Su, the protagonist of the film, portrayed brilliantly and intensely by Choi Min Sik (who also portrayed the serial killer in "I Saw the Devil"; I call him the Eastern Marlon Brando), is not a person who you will define as a hero. In fact, he is an anti-hero, a despicable human being, an alcoholic who skipped his daughter's birthday in order to drink soju, who winded up in a police station for his drunk behaviors, displaying there his wild antics, before being kidnapped mysteriously. But for all his misbehavior and his totally rugged personality, we come to relate to him, for he is like one of us: imperfect, occasionally unruly, flawed. And when Oh is plunged into a web of conspiracy, where everything takes on a mysterious mask, where nothing is as it first seemed, we are confused along with him, and we can but watch helplessly while he walks the path of self-destruction, towards the ultimate tragedy: revenge.

Vengeance, one of the most satisfying of all human notions, is at once a despicable act, shunned by Buddhists, Christians, and most religions as well as ascetic philosophers alike for its harmful effects not only upon others, but upon oneself. But it is not without its cathartic effects; that we cannot deny. In fact, we feel a sense of justice as being served as we witness the downfall of another corrupted person. The proverbs, "revenge is a dish best served cold", or "an eye for an eye," which came from unknown ancient sources, paints revenge as a satisfactory act. But then again, another proverb, which states that, "Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves," is equally true, for one does not simply avenge oneself without the forethought of a possible death of oneself. You see, in an act of revenge, you gain satisfaction after the enactment of vengeance, of violently pushing the other towards his downfall, or his death, but what does that make you afterwards? Won't you become the same as the now-fallen person? And then, what next? Retribution does not simply end here, for the person's heirs or friends will avenge the fallen person with similar wrath. Revenge is at once the most intimate act, an act of destruction in close-range, where one taps into unconscious reservoirs of primal instincts. But it is simultaneously an act of decay, the decadence of morals, of one's self. For once the deed is done, the cycle continues, until one party completely collapses.

Perhaps it is as Machiavelli once said in "The Prince": “People should either be caressed or crushed. If you do them minor damage they will get their revenge; but if you cripple them there is nothing they can do. If you need to injure someone, do it in such a way that you do not have to fear their vengeance.” But the world is seldom so perfect, and people often didn't get their own say on how tomorrow will turn out to be. The world is indifferent towards our goals, our motivations, or our notions of good and evil. Unlike what Leibniz once said, that "this is the best of all possible worlds", the world is a cruel place, and harsh towards the innocent. And Oh Dae-Su, at once the most oblivious person, may embrace this fact with vigor.

And this is not only a film about a person's journey of self-destructive vengeance, it is also a tale of the consequences of our actions. Similar to what chaos theory proposes, that the smallest differences in initial conditions may yield a wide range of different outcomes (often unexpected and unpredictable), so too are our actions. I recall a news that happened several years ago (I forgot where), that an adolescent was forced to bleed him/herself to death after rumors started spreading that he/she was homosexual (which is in fact true, but this doesn't make the deed all the less horrifying). Such are the consequences of our behaviors, that the most insignificant act, can lead to disastrous catastrophes. And by the end of the movie, one may question whether Oh is as innocent as it first seemed, or whether the faults are piled upon him by others, forcefully.

But perhaps the one theme that I liked the most is Oh Dae-Su's obsession towards death. People who seek vengeance, who have nothing else to lose, have an obsession with death. They are enthralled by it, moved by it, revolted by it, yet helplessly lead by it. They proceed towards the destructive act with a tunnel vision, seeing nothing else but the notion of retribution, the death of others above all else, without regarding their personal well-being. Death for them is paradoxically both a rapturous ideal, and a rupture in their being. And this is the case with Oh, for after 15 years of imprisonment, he is anything but "alive". Though he is breathing, moving around, he "lives" like an automaton, or to use his own words, "a monster", a monster created not only by his captors, but molded too by himself; a monster with only one goal in his life, to see the annihilation of his captors.

Consider one scene where Oh Dae-Su was fighting a whole alley of people (a one-shot scene, a remarkable cinematic achievement). Never for once did he waver, the planks hit him, the knives stabbed him, the punches landed, and he fight, on and on and on. It's as if he is possessed, a monster clothed in human skin. The obsession for revenge is so palpable that one can see it, even smell it, in his punches and between his breath. He has a tunnel vision, a vision for revenge, and not even a stab in his back can stop this. He breathes vengeance, it fills him. But one wonders what will become of him once his appetite for vengeance is satiated.

One particular scene especially moved me, for after his release, when he walked into the sushi restaurant, before his fateful encounter with Mido, the aforementioned attractive sushi chef, he ordered live octopus (which is a delicacy in Asian countries, termed in Korea "sanakji"). What he then did is horrifying, yet saddening. Oh devoured the octopus in an unusual way, for he grabbed the octopus, tore with it with his teeth, consuming it while the living octopus is still living, grabbing Oh's hands and his mouth with its tentacles. And Oh briefly suffocates due to the blockage of the throat by the octopus. What he did here was not a simple act of eating, he consumes the octopus for he craves life. But his craving for life is not genuine, for it is artificial, just like a drowning sailor who gasped for air before the water sets into his lungs. He yearns for it, after 15 years of complete isolation, where he lived not like a human being, but rather like a dog, an animal encased in a hotel room like a prehistoric mosquito in amber.

Just like what Rust, the character in "True Detective" said, "My life's been a circle of violence and degradation long as I can remember." The same can be said of Oh Dae-Su, for he doesn't live, he prowls, he survives the violence and degradation, in order to create more of it. His life is nothing but a Shakespearean tragedy, as he moves along the lines of fate predicated by Destiny, by the Deus ex Machina. The film explodes in all directions, all equally miserable, as Oh Dae-Su plunges into the abyss, the darkness that is within him, while the film lays bear everything his mind and heart has to offer, and strips him until all there is left is his insanity.

And for that, we pity him, for he weeps alone, and laughs alone.

(Don't watch the 2013 remake, or if you really want to, watch the original Korean version first. Because the American remake is incomparable with the original, and loses its obsession, its atmosphere; it is essentially Americanized. Now don't get me wrong, I have no issues with remakes and have watched countless superb remakes, but this remake in particular is not good. Unless you are watching Elizabeth Olsen, then go ahead.  :D)

I have found my Goddess!

Book Review: "The Conquest of Happiness"

Consider the gibberish below, the kind of writing one encounters when one boards a spaceship from Mars during a night's wildest dreams. It is so obscure that it made Rome decline. It is so abstract that Picasso tore up his paintings when he witnessed this behemoth. It is so... (Ok, I should stop.)

Just.... just.... WHAT THE F!

This is the kind of writing which one will only encounter in the dusty rooms of an advanced mathematics class, or in a philosophical tome on logic and mathematics. It is written by one of the most famous English philosophers in the 20th century, and while this proposition essentially "proven" the most practical thing in the universe (namely, that "1+1=2"), it is essentially irrelevant to how we determine the attitude in which we face our daily lives.
(Actually, the goals of the book in which the proposition is extracted is ultimately disproved by "Godel's incompleteness theorem". As in mathematics, any attempt made to encapsulate it through axioms and inferences, must ultimately imply that the system is either A. inconsistent; or B. there must be some truths of mathematics which cannot be deduced through it. But this just over the head, so just... forget about it.)

It makes my head pain to think that we need a proposition, to prove another proposition: WHAT IS THIS TRAGEDY CALLED MATHS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

But then again, look at the quotations below, which I would extract a few from a very timely book which I have recently read:

"In adolescence, I hated life and was continually on the verge of suicide, from which, however, I was restrained by the desire to know more mathematics. Now, on the contrary, I enjoy life; I might almost say that with every year that passes I enjoy it more."

"If one lived for ever the joys of life would inevitably in the end lose their savor. As it is, they remain perennially fresh."

It might come as surprise to you that both the fantastically, wondrously, deliciously head spinning mathematical proposition that I listed above, and the down-to-earth, practical, and pragmatic advice listed below are both written by the same authors, namely, by Bertrand Russell, the aforementioned philosopher. (But maybe it is no surprise to you, since I asked it in such an obvious way, right?) The book above is named "Principia Mathematica" (which I guess NO ONE ever wanted to read, unless you pride yourself in masochism), and the book which I am today reviewing is called "The Conquest of Happiness".

The monster has shown his face! The monster of maths! The anathema to all my pains, Bertrand Russell!

Bertrand Russell, one of the most eminent logicians and mathematicians, also one of the founders of the now popular "analytic philosophy" in Anglo-Saxon countries, is also a very prolific writers on topics like education, society, politics, ethics, marriage, sex, and in this case, happiness, which is actually a field most commonly associated with psychology. He is also a historian, a social critic, a political activist, and a pacifist, which advocated against the Vietnam Wars etc. Before this, Russell believed that philosophy as a subject should be strictly technical, and highly restricted: philosophy as an academic subject. In the later half of his life, he turned towards popular philosophy, the kind of philosophy that most laymen are familiar with: the philosophy of life. He is a maverick, and an iconoclast of his time, and in this case in regards to this book, I consider him a psychologist, and one of the highest order at that.

Run you fools!

In an age where self-help books become one heck of a redundant genre, "Conquest" remains ever-relevant. Written 84 years ago, where the self-help books as a genre is nonexistent, the message in it is timeless, it doesn't age; it grows ever present. Our age is an age of unhappiness, where people fret over every failure, refusing to see those few moments where they truly shine. As Kierkegaard said, "ours is an age of reflection, not of passion." Everyone is obsessed with their own shortcomings, making themselves suffer for every mistake they made. We not only judge others, we judge ourselves, and in judging ourselves, the vicious cycle continues.

The book first diagnosed our current condition, our contemporary psyche, what makes us unhappy. Russell mentioned several issues, such as envy, boredom, persecution mania, the sense of committing a sin, etc. Now, what is surprising is that Russell didn't stoop so low as to become dogmatic. His style is carefree, and when he spoke, he spoke with a tone of wisdom, not of authority. And we will gladly listen to his "common sense", which is anything but that, since common sense is so rare nowadays. There is a common theme that links together all these "Russellian" factors of unhappiness, namely, that of the refusal to see reality as it is, a thwarted and distorted outlook of life. Take for example, if I am a megalomania, perceiving myself as important, and my work crucial to the advancement of society, then whenever I encounter an obstacle, I will be more likely to blame others for my own failures, and I will also be envious of those that are more successful than me, ad infinitum. Perhaps, the sense of sin is one of the most crucial factor of unhappiness, because if I constantly feel myself as guilty, as wronging somebody else, would I ever be happy? And wouldn't constantly perceiving myself as a sinful person also be a form of megalomania? An attention seeker?

Compared to the diagnosis of the causes of unhappiness, the factors of happiness are relatively simple, which is to commit oneself to a project, a job, to be enthusiastic about it, to seek to build constructive and close impersonal relationships, and to regain that zest of life. It all sounds so simple, and it is. These things that Russell raised are so common-sensical that I am baffled at first that a philosopher of such a high order should write a book as simple as this. But Russell never claimed otherwise; he never professed to have found a profound way of living, of founding a new theory of happiness. He merely said what he had experienced, what he had observed through his life. And it is precisely that these are such common notions, that we become oblivious to them; we perceive ourselves as always having them, and since they are so easy to obtain, we no longer raise ourselves up in order to make an effort and make ourselves happy, it doesn't matter that much to us anymore.

To conquer happiness, to make ourselves a "happy man" (or a "happy person" if you want a non-sexist term), that is what Russell encouraged us to do. Russell's happy man is one who is passionate, filled with the zest of life, have close relationships with others, work with enthusiasm, who rationally dissects his own distorted worldview of depression and unhappiness, objective, and most importantly, never self-centered, purged of the obsession of the ego, of the self. It requires some effort, although happiness can also arrive in the form of contentment, of enjoying the view as it is, and even when we experienced resignation in the face of the insurmountable (trust me, nothing more enjoyable than this).

This is a book that is somewhat outdated (since it was written 84 YEARS AGO!). It is somewhat biased towards extroverts, as there is a certain description of introverts as constantly neurotic, which is quite simply untrue. And then there are the sexist linguistic usages, "the happy man", never woman, or people (although Russell, in his days, is radically feminist). But then again, the message is so useful and so practical, that it is a detriment to not read it. Its messages conform with what psychologists nowadays find. It is filled with the prudence and the non-common-sensical wisdom of Bertrand Russell, one of the most eloquent writers of the 20th century. In short, it is how popular self-help and philosophy books should be written.

I remember what Viktor Frankl once said in "Man's Search for Meaning", that the acquiring of meaning must ensue some form of pursuit, and cannot be obtained when meaning is the direct goal of the pursuit. What this means is that we cannot make what we seek as a direct goal, because to do this, we would not only fail to obtain the goal, but also make ourselves more and more miserable as we perceive our failures. And this, I think, is the same with happiness, that happiness must always ensue a project, a relationship, or a work, and instead of viewing happiness as a goal to pursue, an end to be achieved, it should be viewed as an ingredient to life --- a happy life.

Movie Review: "The Fly

There will always be that one book, that one DVD or that one piece of artistry in which you won't have the courage or motivation to open and confront it face to face. For me, that one film is the one that I will discuss today, and that film is David Cronenberg's "The Fly".

Ok.... I admit it, I am scared to open it, given that I have viewed countless gruesome images of the film, and am particularly afraid of the notion of watching a man slowly and painfully transform into...... something else.

See what I mean...

I had downloaded the film for about a year and a half (yes, I am a pirate!), and it sat in my hard disk, and was left forgotten. Or at least I thought so, because there are moments when my unconscious self started to seep through my well barricaded self, and I am driven mad by an impulse to just forget my own considerations, and to satisfy my insatiable curiosity. Yet, that plan never sufficed.

It was not until last month when I finished Franz Kafka's nightmarish "Die Verwandlung (The Metamorphosis)" that I can even put aside my irrational fear of gruesome metamorphoses, and finally plant myself in front of the laptop, and sit through the whole horrifying 96 minutes of the movie.

What a breathtaking movie it is (albeit simultaneously horrifying and absolutely heartbreaking)! It not only signifies a very dramatic cinematic achievement in costume designing and make-up techniques, but also, its very humanistic elements is what established this movie as one of the landmarks in storytelling. It manages to subside the very threat that many sci-fi movies had succumbed into, which is to make this film into a "freak show".

Adapted from a short story written in the 1950s, this movie takes the already horrifying notion of unwilling transformation to greater heights. There are many parables to this masterful film, with Kafka's haunting novella "The Metamorphosis". Both of their main characters (Gregor Samsa from "Metamorphosis", and Seth Brundle from "The Fly") confronts an absurd situation in which they are transformed (or transforming) into an insect, and this catastrophic phenomenon not only change their lives, but rather calls to question of what it means to be a human.

Does the new body signifies the death of the old mind? Does the acquisition of new "insectile" instincts nullify our human cognition? But these questions would not seem proper, as in both "Samsabeetle" and "Brundlefly" we can still retrieve traces of our human thinking and of their compassion and dignity that signals an all too human emotional state. What then, does the transformation signifies? Does it signify their spiritual impoverishment? Or does the transformations act as a metaphor for their aging bodies? Or is the more famous interpretation of it serving as a metaphor for AIDS correct? All these questions will only sprout further questions, but I think one of the central questions is the meaning, or should I say requirements, for us to be human.

What does it mean to be human? Is it the ability to perform maths? Is it the ability to perform miraculous acts through the name of science? Or is it the ability to feel compassion and empathy towards another? What if we suddenly acquired a super human ability through the fusion of our human cells with that of another species (for example say a spider)? Does that make us all the more human, or does it make our human qualities dormant as our new animal/insect instincts arise and take over our body?

All these questions lay to rest when we just simply put aside our constantly spinning mind and just sit there and witness the pain and morbidness of Brundle's transformation into a fly through an experiment gone wrong. Yes, we feel pain for him, as we observe his losing capabilities to chew and absorb normal food, as his human physical traits slowly deteriorates and decay while his "fly traits" gradually emerged. We feel hurt for seeing him turn from a promising genius into a creature who takes pleasure just by spitting out his acidic fly enzyme or by crawling around on his bedroom ceiling. We feel heartbroken as we watch his lover, slowly exposed to the horrific truth that her lover will never return, and that Brundle will no longer be human, nor fly, but an altogether new being that cannot (and will not) be classified.

From this...

To this.

But does Brundle feel pain? It is not evident in his behaviors and expressions that he felt pain at all. In fact, he seemed quite amused by the prospect that he can hung upside down from his ceiling, and even collected his decaying and fallen human body parts, displaying them on a shelf and calling it the "Brundle Museum of Natural History". Does this mean that Brundle is not afraid of his impending fate?

I cannot give the answer, but perhaps consider the following scene I will describe and interpret it as you will. In this chilling and climactic scene, Brundle tell his lover of his current state, and he described it by saying, "I'm an insect who dreamt he was a man and loved it. But now the dream is over... and the insect is awake. I'm saying... I'll hurt you if you stay."

In just a few sentences, the movie manages to transcend itself as being just a typical sci-fi or love movie, and instead it addresses the human condition with all its bluntness and fatality. The phrase is all the more heartbreaking because we too realize that we are facing similarly metaphorical situations in our lives. Everything is a dream, and one day, sooner or later, we will have to wake up, what then do we do? Hide in despair? Or transcend it, by becoming an "Übermensch" as Nietzsche envisioned? Perhaps there are no answers to these questions, and I am just here trying to confuse myself to death.

But what a great film this is, in that it provoked so many questions in me! That the possibility that I will never acquire answers to these questions never bothered me in the slightest, and I am grateful that I am still able to see such thought provoking movies in my lifetime. These pleasant feelings is equally mixed by my guilt for not being able to bring myself to watch this film much earlier on.

Perhaps we should be grateful for the fact that this might not ever happen in real life (or is it?). For one, Brundle has already clearly stated it in such direct fashion, "Have you ever heard of insect politics? Neither have I. Insects... don't have politics. They're very... brutal. No compassion, no compromise. We can't trust the insect..."

And neither will we.