The Story of Freud & Tati

Psychoanalysis from Freud to Tati / Location: Vienna, Austria

It's midnight in Vienna, 1932.

Jacques Tati has come a long way.

He hands Sigmund Freud his 17th cigar of the day.

Soon Freud will psychoanalyze Tati.

Tati lies down on the couch and closes his eyes.

He begins to speak.

T/ Some come and go. And some pass by. They all inevitably pause while passing.

When they pause, they realize they're starting over.

In their pause, they find new directions with their instincts.

Their identities determine their orientation.

F/ Not their identities, but their subconscious determines. Their identities are merely the visible part of the iceberg.

The insides of the places they pass through are visible, but what lies beyond is not.

The subconscious is like the submerged part of the iceberg beneath the water.

T/ It's a cycle, and the cycle is a whole. I can't distinguish whether it's my consciousness or subconsciousness,

whatever it is. I observe.

F/ The cycle is a whole, but each part is greater than the sum of the total.

Each part is a trace from the subconscious, and every passerby leaves a mark in their life. You can't perceive it, my friend.

You dream.

Dreams are moments of the most liberated time. You are the focus.

T/ No, I am an attitude that tries to reveal the world's humor.

I am one of many figures entering and exiting the stage.

F/ Most people don't truly want freedom. Because freedom requires responsibility, and people fear that.

You must free your mind. All the figures are you.

Let's look at your dreams.

T/ This is a piece of land. There is only me.

It's the same sky, but a different atmosphere.

I'm moving forward in the desert, holding on to the rocks.

There's a steep passage ahead.

I see it every night. I want to reach it.

Every time I get close, I start over.

It's all sand everywhere.

I hear voices. It’s coming from behind the rocks.

I get excited. I've been alone here for a long time.

I don't know where I came from.

I see stranger footprints for the first time.

I realize I've been stuck in the same places all this time.

Maybe there are others.

I move towards the footprints. I walk. I keep walking without stopping.

Then I hesitate.

I think about going back. About never leaving. But I don't go back.

I move forward. Clouds stir. Everything brightens.

Footprints and sounds intensify.

Suddenly, a lake appears in front of me. I enter the lake.

I keep swimming without stopping.

The more I swim, the more I find myself in that passage I never reached.

I always thought it was sand.

It turns out the passage is water. That's why I kept starting over.

Just as I'm about to pass, the owners of the footprints approach me.

I quickly get out of the lake and turn back, running forward.

I'm a little scared. I've reached the final point.

I step on the edge of this piece of land.

It turns upside down at that moment.

But I don't fall, I jump from there.

My feet are still on the ground.

The place I jumped from is another layer of life that casts its shadow on the place I thought was a lake.

The strangers behind me have also arrived there by falling upside down, it turns out.

I wake up at that moment, always from the dream.

F/ Those strangers are also you.

Your fears, desires, worries, hesitations, and suppressed desires are chasing after you.

You haven't met them yet. You think they are strangers.

The sand is your ego, what you think is your identity but actually, you are stuck in between; the rocks are your super-ego, your socially imposed conscience; the lake is your id, the desires you've suppressed inside.

The realest place is your dreams.

T/ So, what was beyond the passage?

T/ There are two men there, strangers to you.

They keep devouring each other.

One is very irritable, and very arrogant.

He says everything is lacking. He lives in a dump.

He wants a lot. The dump grows as he desires more.

The other man is very indifferent and very careless.

He calls the other over. The arrogant one says there's nothing there, he passed through a long time ago.

The indifferent one looks at infinity by the lake.

You're wrong, I was already there.

Undoubtedly, nothingness is infinite simplicity, he says.

They constantly argue with each other.

F/ The indifferent man by the lake is your id.

Like the lake you entered. The most primitive instincts, desires.

The arrogant man is your super-ego.

Social conscience, norms, and prohibitions.

You can't pass through the passage because you know you're there too.

You're always caught in the middle of this struggle.

T/ Actually, I observe people.

I guess I'm staying in between on their behalf.

I study their habits.

I look at how people in this modern world are being fooled.

They have forgotten how to think.

They're all in a terrible state.

F/ People want to be happy. That's why they are in a terrible state.

T/ Children used to pass by whistling on bicycles.

Now they ride motorcycles.

You can't hear their whistles over the sound of the engines.

Art is the transfer of childhood experiences to adulthood.

There are always children in my dreams.

Lost children in the modern world scare me always.

F/ Where do you live, by the way?

T/ You would notice my home immediately.

There's a street passing through it.

Blended with green.

I enter my home by passing through the doors of many neighbors.

There's another new place I go to. It's above the lake.

I go there to think.

T/ The sounds in the city, the sounds in objects, everything is gray.

Garbage covers the greens.

The modern world is full of uniform people working in boxes without knowing what purpose they are doing.

This mechanical order is a cycle that always returns to the beginning. This is my real fear.

Man is a world that has lost its warmth.

I fight against these.

F/ The universe's show begins the moment you discover your mind.

I can't help but believe that, except for a few exceptions,

people who have adapted to the order you mentioned are worthless beings.

T/ No streets.

Especially no squares.

In the same houses,

with the same uniforms,

eating the same meals,

going to the same places,

having the same conversations,

they compete with each other.

A huge crowd.

They have forgotten how to think.

No one knows themselves.

Neither clear where they came from,

nor where they are going.

No one knows what they want.

They know neither the sky,

nor the ground.

None of them is real.

F/ The herds that pierce the sky.

Bourgeois diseases.

T/ If a person whistles under the herds trying to pierce the sky,

They can all collapse.

I'm still whistling with my bicycle.

I saw a crane above me.

I stopped.

I sat down.

I stayed.

I make fun of their weaknesses.

T/ I want streets.

I want squares.

Inward, closed off,

streets extending along,

I want to demolish the walls.

Those are the walls woven into minds.

Let the walls crumble.

Open up streets and squares.

Let people speak.

Pass through passages.

I want action. Conscious action.

Let the roads pause.

Open their curtains.

Ascend the stairs.

Let's ride bicycles.

Let's talk with trams.

P10

F/ Where is that?

T/ It's very complicated.

I don't know which way to go.

Everywhere intersects with each other.

I enter a place.

I climb up.

To get out, I have to enter from the beginning and pass through all of them.

Above us is only an open canopy.

F/ Where is it then?

T/ Ah, this is my home.