Yesterday, Kat Rosenfield wrote about the discourse surrounding the film in an article for The Free Press. Like a lot of people, she uses the film to discuss the nature of love. I don't actually think Obsession is about love. I don't call it love when a girl tricks a guy into eating his dead cat. You could argue it's a film about mental illness. But some would say love is a kind of mental illness.
My idea of love has evolved over time. I think there is truth in the old expression, "Love is letting go." I also don't think of love as selfish. Now, you could say that Nikki is selfless in how she degrades and hurts herself but I see self harm, when it isn't intrinsically related to any solution for a problem in a relationship, as an evasion. Instead of discussing her lie about her father's illness, Nikki's reaction is cause a scene, thereby shutting down discussion. Humiliating herself, as she does repeatedly throughout the film, functions as a form of penance. Penance unrelated to the issue isn't so different, to my mind, from buying absolution, like purchasing indulgences. Of course, Nikki can't address the issues underlying her relationship with Bear because the relationship isn't founded on anything real, only the arbitrary magical forces behind the wish.
Bear's wording is crucial, as it always is in good magic wish stories. He wishes Nikki would "love him more than anyone else in the world." One could interpret this as meaning that there must have been someone for whom Nikki felt slightly less intensely. That, in order for the wish to clear that bar, it had to make her feelings especially intense. It may not be the magic object's fault that Nikki chooses to react to her feelings in this way. She doesn't seem like someone with this kind of personality before the wish takes effect, though we learn very little about her, and there are a few hints that there may be turbulent aspects to her personality.
Of course, we do know that she isn't the real Nikki. The film makes it explicitly clear that the wish device basically traps Nikki's true personality in a non-corporeal realm while some kind of demon or spirit takes possession of her body. From this standpoint, Bear could've rightly argued that the object didn't actually fulfill his wish. He wanted Nikki to love him, not some random demon. But that's a fair idea for a story. How often have you bought something that didn't function as advertised? It's a sensible idea. Though, as I said in my initial review, I found the film was more interesting before it settled on a clear explanation of what had happened.
YouTuber Deep Focus Lens likened Bear to Scottie in Vertigo, which I don't really agree with. Deep Focus Lens herself makes the point that Bear really can't be blamed, at least initially, for what happens to Nikki. He makes the wish without any real expectation that it will actually take effect and, when it does, he naturally doesn't really believe it has. There's no flash of sparkling light, no thunder crack. Nikki just comes back to his car and invites him inside. Scottie in Vertigo does compel Judy to dress as Madeleine, though it's crucial that Judy does agree to do this, albeit reluctantly. Both her reluctance and eventual complicity are derived from her sense of guilt over participation in a crime. They are her penance as well as (possibly) manifestations of affection for Scottie. When Scottie realises that Judy is the same woman he met as Madeleine, he rejects her dramatically, dragging her up to the bell tower to get a confession out of her. Bear, meanwhile, when he realises Nikki is not Nikki, doesn't have the moral fortitude to let her go, which, to be fair, would be no small feat, particularly since what happened should, in a rational world, be impossible, and therefore difficult to incorporate into any rational plan of action.
My impression is that the Wish Willow device is actually malevolent, that it deliberately, not accidentally, twists Bear's wish into something horrific. The inhabiting spirit is under no obligation from the wish to feed him his cat, nor does loving him necessitate taping his door shut or following him around constantly. There's extravagant sadism in her behaviour, both in her treatment of Bear and her treatment of the girl she considers a rival for his affections. We don't learn a lot about Nikki before the wish takes effect but one of the few things we see to establish her character is that she gives money to a homeless man, though she takes the money from another character. This suggests she's generous in one sense but unwilling to pay the cost herself. This is different from how the inhabiting spirit behaves. Yet we do know that the real Nikki had the nickname "Freaky Nikki", and that she hated the nickname, though we never learn why she was given it or why she hated it.
I suspect the nature of the possession was to some extent inspired by Twin Peaks due to one line in the film, when Nikki, apparently regaining temporary control of her body, says, "I'm not me." This is Laura Dern's line from Twin Peaks and, just like in Obsession, it's unclear how much of her behaviour is hers or her doppelganger's, much as it was unclear how much of the behaviour exhibited by the subjects of Bob's possessions was reflective of their true personalities or Bob's. The ambiguity makes it more interesting, at least in my opinion. It's the very thing that makes a work of art, like Obsession, alive in discourse. The ambiguities of the story reflect the ambiguities of life itself, which intensifies the compulsion for discourse and analysis.
Sonnet 1995
A cup of teeth was found beneath the bed.
No other sign of dental health was seen.
But stencilled shadows say the woman's dead.
The story told with flick'ring light was clean.
At Picnic Rock, the stones absorb your app.
Your friendly hollow friend retreats to bytes.
A strange array of limbs is held in sap.
No summer storm, no cold of winter bites.
A rusty bus entombed intrepid boys.
The dusty attic staunched effusive girls.
The Tsar's enforcers march, resembling toys.
In heat, the withered psychic dollar curls.
Exhaustive searches find the bodies lost.
The fire and the land condone a cost.
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