‘Poor Things’ by Y. Lanthimos as an involuntary postmodern adaptation of Nikolai Chernyshevsky’s novel ‘What is to be done?’

Abstract

The new retro-futuristic fantasy by Yorgas Lanthimos can be perceived as an involuntary film adaptation of N.G. Chernyshevsky’s novel “What is to be done”. The main images, ideological, emotionally utopian and feminist background of the novel may well be the key to revealing the structures and basic images of the film. Besides single cases of convergence of images and conflicts (technologically oriented society and faith in progress, a woman as the center of a new, just society, rejection of the idea of “lifelong monogamy”, liberation from the irrational limitations of a “polite society”), both artworks show much in common in the teleological organization of the narrative. In the film finale the figure of God (both the name and the allusion towards the Creator) is replaced by humans who create their own kind, along with the “Kingdom of God” on earth. It can be assumed that the construction of a narrative within the framework of a retro utopia with a feminist bias will, to a greater or lesser extent, be based on the framework of the canonical novel “What is to be done?”.