begins with a scene where a man (Colin Farrell) who has been eliminated from the couple’s ‘formal’ is transported from the city and housed in a building located on the beach.
In this seemingly hotel-like place, men and women who become single have to return to the city in search of a mate within a set period of time or, if they fail to find a mate, undergo surgery to transform them into animals of their choice and live out the rest of their lives. (The animal chosen by Colin Farrell is a lobster).
On their way to find their mates at a hotel, they also hunt down celibate people who reject the life of a couple and run away to live in the woods. And for every single person caught, the deadline of surgery is postponed by one day. This extreme setting sometimes makes us ask essential questions about how relationships between men and women work, what love is, and how strong and weak it is. Additionally, the director’s twisted perspective on the definition and role of ‘relationship’ that society forces on people is very bizarre and original.
The production was unique, with classical background music playing in scenes that looked somewhat cruel and bizarre. In particular, when the hotel people go out hunting, the music that plays contrasts with the situation and creates a strange atmosphere. I think music played such a big part in this movie that I thought it would be half as enjoyable if I watched it with the sound removed.
In the final scene of the movie, the water cup of a blind woman waiting for a man is filled once again by the waiter. Even after this impressive scene that signifies the man’s fear and hesitation to become blind by stabbing himself in the eye with his knife, we do not know what choice the man makes and the film ends. People don’t know anyone’s mind but their own, and they don’t know anything they haven’t actually experienced. So words like lack, coincidence, and not knowing are small windows that allow us to look into this unfamiliar world. Even though the world is made up of countless elaborate forms, we still know nothing.