“The love of inflatable dolls“is the most tender film i have seen recently,and also a profound interpretation and interpretation of winnicott’s “transitional object”.
Winnicott believes that babies initially have a sense of omnipotence.when the baby is hungry,the mother appears and feeds it,giving the baby the illusion that his own needs have created the mother .gradually,however,the baby discovers that not every time it needs a mother,the sense of omnipotence is frustrated,and the baby begins to realize that the mother is a physical object different from itself,and that the “I”(self) is distinguished from the “mother”(object)
At this point,the baby begins to feel anxious about its mother’s “uncontrollability”. to counter the anxiety,the baby created a transitional object,the object can be anything,the most common is the baby’s stuffed toy(teddy bear),the object is baby gives the meaning of the mother,when the babies need but in the absence of the mother,mother’s function transition object,baby hold it,feel like in the mother’s function arms of warmth and security;the transitional object is also given its own meaning.the baby talks to it,love it as much as the mother loves herself ,and educates it ,while the baby tries to carry out the mother’s functions on its own,which will gradually internalize into the baby’s personality structure and be digested as part of the baby’s own.
in such a way,the transitional oobject creates a transitional object createsa transitional space between the infant-the inner world (self)and the mother -the outer world (object).this is a space where babies feel safe enough to try to develop mental functions.
the transitional object bears not only the love but also the hate of the baby.the baby bit it,beat it,broke it ,looed pitiless.in this case,the baby’s attack on the transitional object is actually an attack on the mother-bad object (the mother is the bad object because the mother does not meet the baby’s requirements).however it is dangerous to attack the mother,the baby afraid of punishment,or mother abandoned by mother(that’s what lars repeatedly experience),so the baby will this aggressive onto his transitional object,his teddy bear,teddy bear punish him,and don’t have to worry about or abandoned him-transition object provides a safe space again.
in this safe space(transition space),the baby begins to acquire the ability to establish and maintain relationships with the real world.
in love with an inflatable doll,rassi created bianca,he created bianca’s body through online customization(fantasy);he also created the story of bianca’s story,we are not surprised bianca’s story and are very similar,an orphan,his mother died in children shy,stolen baggage(lars will house to guys,his move to the garage,is also a kind of “stolen”,gus deeply guilty),eager to build self through an “adult”sure…Bianca is the transitional object of lasse’s idealized mother(good enough mother),as well as lasse himself.
as a transitional object,then,bianca began to perform her function:to construct a buffer aone between the inner world of lasse and the real world(the town).before bianca appeared(or should i say “created”),rassi was extremely evasive towards people.he evades,rejects,and flees from margalo,a girl who loves him and doesn’t want to go to any party except church.(we also observe that the only person lasse offers to help is the kind Mrs.Graner,perhaps a warm mother to lasse.)now that bianca is here,all that is begainning to change.
lars can start
more freely and Karen, gus to dinner — and, of course, their topics focused on the bianca, this is the very way to bianca function (this way also appears in many real case) – lars clearly in front of a lot of people are no longer so nervous, he even tried to accept the doctor’s treatment, more even accepted the invitation, go to a party, even if he was nervous at the party and is difficult to adapt, but he did.
Connections with others begin to connect with rassi through the transitional space created by bianca. Bianca ACTS as a buffer through which rassi begins to make real connections with the townswomen and his friends — connections that would have been dangerous for him in the past and needed to be avoided. To avoid it is to avoid being abandoned again, and to be abandoned will cause the total collapse of the self.
We see how bianca – the transitional object works its magic on lasse – in fact, slowly, as the people of the town begin to embrace bianca as one of their own, bianca begins to work its magic on the people of the town. People gave bianca haircuts, invited her to events, told stories for children, gave her certificates… This is not just about healing rassi. Bianca has become a mirror in the town, reflecting the kindness and love in people’s hearts. Bianca provides a transitional space filled with the fantasies of the town, and when people begin to see bianca in this way, rather than just as a sex doll, bianca begins to have real meaning for everyone in the town, for the community.
And because bianca means something to the others, what happens next is that rassi feels he no longer has absolute control over bianca. “I don’t need to see my girlfriend’s schedule to see her!” Rassi began to bark, attack, and argue with bianca. Here again, bianca’s function as a transitional object is revealed: she silently takes all rassi’s attacks and does not punish or abandon rassi. In the process, Russ’s sense of security is built up little by little, and just as importantly, in reality, caitlin does not abandon Russ after a big fight; Nor did Mrs. Graner abandon him after her criticism of Russ, who had slowly begun to build up a shaky sense of security and a shaky sense of reality through the repetition of events of the same nature. And these “good enough moms” — bianca, kathrin, graner — play a crucial role.
Then, when these security feelings add up to “enough,” rassi is ready to separate from bianca, his transitional object. Like each of us as transitional objects, bianca’s mission has been accomplished (for rassi, bianca now means something to everyone else), and our teddy bear will be forgotten and abandoned.
Bianca became seriously ill and died soon after. In this part of the film, I am again moved by the warmth, affection and kindness of the town. People brought gifts for bianca, gathered to see Russ through, held funerals for bianca… By this time bianca was clearly no longer an inflatable doll, she had become a clear symbol. As the priest put it: “bianca sat in her wheelchair, reached out her hands and touched everyone’s hearts in ways we never imagined. She’s a teacher… She loves us all…” .
Sitting in church, lars cried like a child, and parting was a difficult decision, especially for lars. He paid great courage and creativity to complete the whole process from a person’s world to the real world. Bianca had accompanied him through the whole process, and now he had given her up and was alone in the real world