In the 1960s European films Peeping Tom (Powell, 1960) and 8 ½ (Fellini, 1963), the viewer is asked to sympathize with characters that are fundamentally sociopathic (a personality lacking moral responsibility or social conscience¹), yet the evocation of this sympathy by the viewer is expressed in different stages of the films’ narratives.

Peeping Tom immediately introduces the viewer to a character that is questionable and asocial. The opening scene of the film displays the main character Mark filming his trickery and murder of a prostitute. An audience in 1960 England would without a doubt react to this with a feeling of hatred and scorn. However, throughout the movie, Mark is re-humanized by unveiling his psychology and motives. Towards the end of the film, Mark discusses Scopophilia with a psychiatrist, which is the pleasure of looking and objectifying. Tangentially, it is slowly revealed through his friendship with the character Helen that his father, who used fear to study his psychology, emotionally abused him from a young age. Perhaps this abuse induced the need to both repress his desires to visualize fear in becoming anti-social, as well as to project his fear onto others through inducing and filming their fear. Mark is therefore humanized through the use of familiar psychology, which requires the viewer to feel sympathy for this man who is characterized by the most psycho- and sociopathic behavior, and causes varying degrees of discomfort.

A similar discomfort comes in the viewer’s decision to sympathize or not in the Italian film 8 ½. Although the viewer’s perspective on Guido (8 ½’s main character) is very different than on Mark of Peeping Tom, Guido’s sociopathic behavior of narcissism makes him difficult to sympathize with. However, the difference between the films comes in the fact that the viewer is not initially as starkly judgmental of Guido and is introduced to his psychological situation from the start of the film (by starting with his dream of being trapped and suffocated). The viewer feels sympathy during his various flashbacks and dreams that employ the theories of the symbolic, where the child learns to repress desire from symbology, such as the by the church in 8 ½. Similarly, Guido attempts to balance his Id and Superego, psychoanalytical idioms for subconscious desires and the internalization of moral codes, respectively. Guido seems to increasingly lack a strong ego, which mediates the two above, in his allowance of the id to dominate over the superego. Throughout the film, his sociopathic view towards, treatment of, and relationships with others make it increasingly hard to sympathize with his character.

Both films were on the forefront of introducing film viewers to the psychology of characters, rather than just their entertainment value, which was a valuable introduction to the art of film in the mid twentieth century. The two films, Peeping Tom and 8 ½, create a sense of discomfort in the viewers because of the poignant ability the respective films have to evoke sympathy in the dark-minded, sociopathic leading men.

1. sociopathy. Dictionary.com. Collins English Dictionary – Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition. HarperCollins Publishers. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/sociopathy (accessed: May 09, 2014).

In the film Perfumed Nightmare, the director Kidlat Tahimik shows the impact of post colonization in a third world on one man’s quest for his identity. Postcolonial countries struggle with fragmentation of the country’s history and identity crisis of the populations, Kidlat shows in this film the impact of colonialism on the indigenous people and how Western culture influences them in their postcolonial period. The film shows the main character Kidlat, who has hopes of leaving his village to go to America and become an astronaut so he could become rich. Kidlat becomes over indulged by the American dream through the Voice of America, but throughout the film he struggles between his nation’s pride while still admiring the America dream of progress and change.

At the beginning of the film, there is an establishment that the bridge at the edge of the town is a metaphorical site of contest between native and imperialist culture, as everyone one has to travel across it. Kidlat narrates how the bridge serves as the crucial link between his small Philippine village and the rest of the world, as it serves as the only way in and out of his hometown. The director portrays Kidlat crossing on the bridge in a succession of three scenes, which narrate his struggle to find his identity on this site of cultural conflict. By using the jeepney, a re-built vehicle left by World  War II vehicles, as a symbol of the historical passage from the past to the present. Kidlat not only in his village but as well as in Europe these vehicles show the impact of American military technology has on his nationality.

When Kidlat gain the opportunity to leave his village to visit America with a foreigner, Kidlat was more than content to leave his village, as he even dreamed the whole village paraded and gave him a ceremony for his achievement to leave. But as he was leaving he promises the village that once he becomes rich he will give money to the village so they can have a traffic light stop for the bridge. Even though Kidlat was enthusiastic to leave, he still felt an obligation to his town. When he arrives in Paris the first he notices was 26 bridges and compares it his village by saying “Why can’t we have progress like this?” Kidlat compares everything he sees to his village’s progress, even though he was happy to be in Europe he still felt extremely attached his village making him confused of his own identity.

As much as Kidlat wanted progressiveness in his life, he expected to see the same progress in his own village. After Kidlat encounters the human cost of progress through his experiences in Europe, does he begin to question his own interest with progress and western culture. By the end of the film, he starts feeling small so infuriated with the modern world he gets on the incinerator and flies away to leave Europe, the director metaphorically shows Kidlat putting one culture above another is hard, thus he decides to start identifying himself as both cultures to find the bridge between them.