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First, we learn that the heady concept of “metempsychosis” (i.e., the passing of the soul after death into a new physical body, whether human or animal) is not as infrequent a cinematic subject as one might presume. Since the term “metempsychosis” sounds like a mess I’ve made in the kitchen, I’ll adopt the usage of “the transmigration of souls” which has a directionality to it that strikes me as eminently more serviceable.
Apparently, there are hundreds of films that have tackled the theme of the transmigration of souls albeit through broad interpretations necessarily associated with specific genres. The Unknown fits comfortably into the supernatural or metaphysical thriller subgenre; but, we need to consider that this is the transmigration of one soul; a particularly malevolent entity that has found it can project itself into a new body through orgasmic sex. After all, the Greek roots of “metempsychosis” derive from "change" (meta) and "to put a soul into" (empsychoun). I can’t think of a better euphemism for ejaculation at the moment. Notwithstanding, this swapping of souls through seeding leans not only into the horror genre but actually provides L’Inconnue with some of its most laugh outloud, even if uncomfortably so, moments.
Secondly, we learn that this malevolent entity—which remains unknown throughout the film and drifts away after we focus on a few of its victims—is still out there switching bodies through sex, but for what reason other than malevolence, again, is unknown. It’s not always switching to a younger body or a prettier body or a more athletic body, none of that. It simply insists upon switching with all the rationale of a virus or any STD that any of us might be, unfortunately, familiar with. So L’Inconnue is arguably a cautionary tale to all those polyamorous, philanderous or simply promiscuous players out there. You could be next and God knows where you might end up or in who you might end up after you’ve ended up being in them.
Let me back up to provide a little narrative context, cribbing from the NYFF program capsule: “One night, in a deserted backroom of a costume party, Parisian photographer David (Niels Schneider) impulsively hooks up with a stranger named Eva (Léa Seydoux); after their intense sexual encounter, David wakes up alone to find that he has somehow swapped bodies with the woman. This wild metaphysical gambit is treated with the utmost sincerity and unsettling realism…. [The Unknown] takes the viewer on a series of leaps and turns as narratively absorbing as the scenario is metaphorically rich. Refusing to be read in any single or simple way, The Unknown pushes a pulpy supernatural premise into the realm of the genuinely uncanny, its tricky play with subjectivity and identification reinforced by the brilliantly embodied performances of its two leads.”
It’s those embodied performances that director Harari expanded upon in the Q&A session after the film. After deciding that Léa Seydoux should play Eva / David, Seydoux’s pregnancy stalled the project until a few months after delivery. Yet retaining a hefty physicality from her pregnancy worked with masculinizing her movements. By contrast, Niels Schneider’s bony thinness emphasized a frailty one could interpret as feminine because—as this twisting, if twisted plot reveals—by the time Eva / David understands what has happened to him, his original body has been switched with that of a younger woman, thus increasing the chances that no one is ever going to really catch up to themselves.
So, thirdly, let’s talk about what I found brilliant about the film, if not difficult to discuss, and that is the political hot potato of gender dysphoria, the psychological distress a person feels when their internal gender identity does not match the sex they were assigned at birth; though, in this instance, at rebirth. Notions of birth and death are upended in this film. The transmigration of souls is often a result of death, though in this instance it’s more the little death ("la petit mort") that counts. As skinny David discovers he is trapped within a voluptuous woman’s body, and as young Malia (Lilith Grasburg) discovers she is trapped in David’s skinny body, their horror and discomfort is palpable and disorienting, trending towards self-harm. I have no idea if Harari intended to create one of the most sympathetic portrayals of the transgender experience or not, but it certainly comes across as one of the most visceral representations this viewer has seen on screen in some time. Then again, I’ve suffered from identity issues and gender confusion for most of my life so I’m not sure whether my insights into this film are symptomatic or experiential.
Suffice it to say that the head scratching engendered by The Unknown is satisfying for being so unexpected and, admittedly, complicated to track. By film’s end, a break in the chain of transmigration induces some of the film’s most challenging questions about the nature of identity. Most transmigration tales involve reincarnation, but I’ve always thought that reincarnation was a silly and vain idea: as if the ego—the identity yoked to the soul—would actually carry over from body to body. That doesn’t make any sense to me. Any good Tibetan worth his salt will profess that the ego shards apart at death. There’s no evidence that it would group back together into a new soul in a new body. The Unknown suggests the possibility of a soul transferred into another body disconnected from its original ego. That is true food for thought, if ultimately unknowable.
For those who haven’t been put off by this subject, the New York Film Festival offers one of the Q&A sessions with director Arthur Harari and lead actor Niels Schneider. At The Daily, David Hudson rounds up the reviews.