A phenomenology of freedom through film : liberty, mobility, and solicitude in The quiet girl and All of us strangers

Abstract

Through a comparative analysis of the films The Quiet Girl (2022) and All of Us Strangers (2023), this dissertation seeks to understand the phenomenological properties of freedom in order to construct its ontology. As a keystone value of neoliberalism, freedom has become an oppressive ideal characterised by self-exploitation and predicated on the ‘common-sense’ belief in mankind’s inherent selfishness. By taking a phenomenological approach to the problem of freedom, we can bring it from the abstract realm of ideals, fraught with prejudiced reasoning, into the concrete world of lived experience. The phenomenology of negative freedom provided by Uriah Kriegel will provide a basis to start with, however, as will be shown by a critique of his analysis of Frederick Douglass’ biography, Kriegel’s phenomenology takes for granted the importance of other people through which to find freedom with. By building on this through the phenomenological teachings of Heidegger, Loht, Stein, and Ahmed and applying the findings to the chosen films, we will see how freedom needs to be understood temporally with liberty, mobility and solicitude representing respectively the past, future, and present of the lived experience of freedom. Whilst in The Quiet Girl, Cáit finds freedom by orienting herself towards a future with others through their mutual solicitude, Adam in All of Us Strangers lives in a world peopled only by ghosts, his loneliness precluding any possibility of freedom. In this way, Adam’s story also provides a metaphorical warning of the consequences of neoliberalism’s illusory ideal of freedom.