Contesting Subjectivity Through Voice-Over and Material Signs: A Comparative Analysis of Three Psychoanalytic Films

Abstract

This paper analyzes three films—Chungking Express (1994), Fight Club (1999), and Her (2013)—to examine how voice-over and recurring material objects mediate the process of subjectivity construction, particularly by framing the dialectical relationship between the Self and the Other. Specifically, the use of voice-over and the cinematic representation of recurring material objects become integral to the process where characters perceive their own subjectivity and build therelationship with an Other which allows them to reflect on the Self. Drawing on Lacanian psychoanalysis approach, I argue that cinematic language and narrative techniques used by these three films, including voice-over as a reflexive interface and objects as affective anchors, strive to reveal the instability of identity and self-awareness when the Other asserts agency or departs from its presumed imagery. With a focus on the common cinematic techniques of the three films, this paper demonstrates how subjectivity in contemporary urban setting is constructed through the material mediation of the interpersonal relationship between the Self and the Other, or the protagonist and their counterpart. The analysis also shows how urban, cultural, and technological contexts shape how the instability of subjectivity is represented in contemporary film.