Lust

Let's talk about lust. In the film The Obscure Object of Desire directed by Luis Buñuel he introduces a male protagonist by the name of Mathieu who has the ultimate lust for the female protagonist Conchita. Mathieu’s character is a widower who meets Conchita on a whim. Mathieu becomes enamored with Conchita and she becomes his desire. This relates to Freud’s theory Libido=Life Drive. Throughout this film Mathieu is blinded by his desire for Conchita and puts himself through the ringer to obtain his ‘object petit a’. Conchita is a very tricky protagonist to break down because her character’s actions are very unpredictable. Some key terms that will appear throughout this essay derive from theories by Lacan, Freud and Žižek such as:
(Lacan)
i.e. obsessions and compulsions.
These key terms help tie together the elements found in Luis Buñuel’s The Obscure Object of Desire. I will be analyzing the act of perversion created by Conchita and Mathieu’s antinomy in The Obscure Object of Desire using the scene in which Conchita solicits Mathieu to come over for what he assumes is their first sexual encounter but is instead surprised when Conchita sleeps with another man in front of him. This pivotal scene is where Mathieu transitions from having feelings of lust to hatred for Conchita. To give a little more context to the background to the evolving relationship between Mathieu and Conchita throughout the movie; Mathieu has a permanent gaze on Conchita throughout the film which is driven by his inner lust for her. Lacan’s theory on the gaze helps the viewer more easily understand why Mathieu has this inner jouissance when he gazes upon Conchita. Also according to Lacan’s theory on desire as soon as Mathieu puts his emphasis on his desire towards Conchita it makes his view distorted of his ‘Objet petit a’. Freud claims: “We sublimate our libido to create “civilization”. This ties into why Mathieu feels the way he does. Mathieu being a widower has an empty spot left in his heart after his wife had passed and attempts to fill his desire while blindly chasing for Conchita’s love. Žižek puts this into context by saying: “The answer to our problem is clear: the function of the nostalgic object is precisely to conceal the antinomy between eye and gaze, i.e., the traumatic impact of the gaze qua object, by means of its power of