Meditation on Lovesickness, Loss, and Temporality

Abstract

The film 2046 is used as a screen and a springboard from which to reflect on the compulsive plight of some lovesick individuals. A particular oedipal constellation that generates lovesickness is hypothesized, wherein an unmourned third object preoccupies yet frustrates the primary object. This thwarted longing for another on the part of the original parent figure inflicts a defect in the self-esteem of the subject, who is then compelled to seek out an object that will re-create, while promising to repair, the wound. A trait common to the new object of adoration and the old, retriggering the peculiar paradoxical draw of the parent, sets this process in motion. The chaotic temporality so often associated with both the raptures of new love and with the chronic condition of lovesickness may be related to a traumatic hobbling of the ego’s stimulus barrier in the presence of such a paradoxically exciting object.