Anima is a film about modernist angst with a twist

By Tom Clegg, Second Year, English

Thom Yorke and director Paul Thomas Anderson unite for an evocative meditation on collective contemporary angst, bringing together philosophy, music and spectacular choreography.

In June 2019, an advert appeared on the London Underground for ‘Anima Technologies’. The company promised to revivify dreams which have ‘gone, like a puff of smoke in the breeze’. If you called the number you were told that ‘Anima technologies has been ordered by the authorities to cease and desist from undertaking its advertised business’. The advert featured all over the world and sparked some excitement, but with a lack of information about its true meaning it was forgotten rather quickly.

After some time Thom Yorke and director Paul Thomas Anderson’s film Anima - along with Yorke’s album of the same name - which provides the soundtrack to the film and six other songs - was more lucidly advertised and the mystery was solved, however the lapse in time had given the original advertisement a hint of its own reality.

This whole advertising scheme sums up the message in this combined work perfectly. Anima aims to portray a feeling of deep anxiety about the current state of our society, begging us to ‘wake the fuck up’. The film’s strategy is to pull us into a dream world rife with angst, and so to blur the lines of reality. Hence the quasi-realistic advert for a very magical device, only to  have it shut down by the nondescript ‘authorities’, providing the social anxiety.

In the film, we begin in a scene that Yorke actually dreamed. ‘Everybody was travelling to work but their bodies were telling them that they wouldn’t do it anymore’. The film starts in a train, with Yorke and the other passengers making the same choreographed actions of weariness. The music is mechanical, fast and stressful, with the movements of the people following the beat, trapped. We hear Yorke sing, ‘Who are these people, stuck in treacle?’

The film’s strategy is to pull us into a dream world rife with angst, and so to blur the lines of reality

There is, however, a very brief lapse in Yorke’s movements and another passenger - Yorke’s partner, Dajana Roncione - which allows for a sliver of human interaction; a catching of eye contact. This will prove to be the unwinding of this dystopian society.

As everyone departs the train, Roncione’s character leaves a briefcase. Yorke grabs it and attempts to return it, but is halted at every turn by both people in the way and machines (the barrier at the tube doesn’t let him through). One person even steals the briefcase. He is only able to get through by leaping over the barrier as if he were flying. This throws him into a world in limbo, as he searches for the woman.

We are then led to the starkest image of society attempting to silence this potential relationship - a white square and a line of nondescript people in a line the width of the square approaching Yorke menacingly. Even gravity is against him as on this plain he leans back unnaturally to balance whereas the others are leaning forward.

We are told to ‘submit, submerge’ as Yorke loses this battle, until finally he loses his temper just as the song hits the line ‘but you’re free, show me’. Because of this, both the limbo world and the square are in turmoil, rubbish and people flying everywhere. Yorke is finally able to sit and relax, only to be thrown out himself.

We are then led to the starkest image of society attempting to silence this potential relationship

‘Dawn Chorus’ then fades in, a song about not regretting the past and appreciating what we have, with the lyrics being played over a simple tune, forcing us to consider if we’d ‘do it all again’. Here is when love wins. It starts slowly, Yorke and Roncione circles around each other faster and faster until they are dancing.

And then all is in ecstasy - the dancers are coupled up, running through a nondescript city as they return to the train. The final image we see is Yorke falling asleep on the train to a chorus of birds. The system has changed; it is time for a new day.

In just one word the title has opened up complex questions at the core of our psyche

The title for this piece is concise and revealing. According to one of the pioneers of analytical psychology, Carl Jung, each person has an ‘Anima’ or ‘Animus’, depending on your gender. Essentially it is the part of your character that represents the image of the other sex, and so through societal norms and restrictions it is repressed into your subconscious in order to pander to the archetypal image of your sex.

Jung wrote that the only time you will see your Anima/Animus is in your dreams. So this image is only conjured up in a dreamstate, but is, in theory, a very real product of societal repression.

The existence of the Anima/Animus isn’t necessarily a bad thing. By acknowledging its existence we can become conscious of parts of us that have been repressed, and build them into our established character. This is in line with the film in terms of the optimistic ending.

It was Yorke’s desire to break down society, his choice to do so. It is each individual’s choice to ignore or try and work with their Anima/Animus. In just one word the title has opened up complex questions at the core of our psyche.

Anima is exactly what the public needs to see. It is a cry to realise the state we are in, and change it. To continue as we are will end badly.

Featured: Netflix / Darius Khondji

Did Anima have you questioning the world you live in?