Ideological repetition and time trauma

Abstract

In this analysis, the author analyzes Jindřich Polák’s 1977 sf comedy Tomorrow I’ll Wake Up and Scald Myself with Tea and its implications regarding time travel, ideology, and repetition. In exploring the paradoxes present in time-travel fiction, the article finds there exists a concurrent trauma for the individuals involved, stemming primarily from the splitting-then-reintegrating of the self in the wake of the expedition. The film – centering around a group of former Nazis, whose plan is practically thwarted through a set of comically tragic circumstances regarding the aircraft’s pilot – offers a humorous approach to totalitarian discourse, pointing out the fallibility of said institutions and showing the pitfalls of adherence to Nazi ideology. The author draws on modern instances of fascist ideology and connects them to the comedic situations presented in Polák’s film, putting forth a critical approach to the identification of Nazi modernism as comprised solely of loss and lack.