Wed, 08 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Just finished watching Obsession (2025), written and directed by Curry Barker. What a twisted little film; loved it. One loose takeaway: it’s partly a productive misreading¹ of the Faust legend, with Nikki suffering ruin in part because she is deprived of her own autonomy and existence — that is, a Gretchen, who was deprived of reputation, family, child, and her own interiority. Of course, it doesn’t totally hold up: Gretchen maintains dignity even in death, while Nikki is deprived of dignity as a severely overdetermined motif throughout the entire film (it is, after all, a horror film).

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