Seduction and consent

Norbert Leber

The idea of consent emerges in that moment when we exclude a subject of the unconscious from the consenting.  Before the premiere of Ulrich Seidl's film Sparta[1], journalists from Der Spiegel accused Seidl of not providing informed consent to the parents and children involved that this was a film about a pedophile.[2] Seidl stated: "Needless to say I never pushed the children [...] to do things on camera that they did not wish to do" and "[...]Rather than pillory them morally, I instead demand that they be viewed as complex and even contradictory human beings."[3] This demand is directed at the spectators to take a position. Seidl utilizes “the voracity of the eye.”[4] He holds shots for a long time on one detail.

An attempt to “tame the gaze,”[5] a gaze which, in the moment of its fixation on a body, becomes its exhibition, thereby at the same moment creating a jouissance for the viewer.

The entire plot structure of the film Sparta serves to tame the gaze, always also a deception of the eye, of the pedophilic voyeurism of the main character, Ewald. The dramaturgy makes use of repetition to show something of that which does not stop writing and something that does not stop not being written, i.e. an allusion to the cause of Ewald's fantasy. Ewald in bed with his demented old Nazi father, Ewald in bed with the 8-year-old Octavian. Ewald, who is not aroused by his girlfriend's attempts at seduction, etc.

The film's title, Sparta, is also the name of a place set in an abandoned, poorly renovated Romanian school where Ewald, as a judo teacher, offers free lessons to a few local boys.

Don't you see?

While Ewald's obvious seduction of the children is to offer himself as a better father, while photo-graphing the children's bodies with his smart phone, in the course of the post-processing and viewing of which he himself seems to become completely gaze, there is also a more subtle form of seduction in the air through Seidls’ seemingly painted images.

The pedophilic jouissance here seems to be exclusively on the level of exhibition and voyeurism. There were no "sex scenes."[6] An exhibition of the body and acts are left "off-screen"?[7]

How to consent?

In one of these scenes, Ewald stands naked in the shower with his penis half erect, his gaze fixed on Octavian, his favorite boy, who stands next to him in his underpants, his eyes averted.

In contrast to the historical model of the Spartans' battle against the Persians, this Spartan troop is dishonorably defeated. The children’s fathers break down the gate and storm the schoolyard in a chaotic scene. Caught, Ewald escapes through the back door. The children remain behind, ashamed and discouraged, exposed to the insults of their fathers. The last scene of the film shows Ewald, this time even more determined, searching for the next abandoned school and hanging up posters for judo lessons.

Two crucial, deeply Lacanian questions are posed to Ewald in the film: the first one by on old woman, maybe the former school caretaker: What are you searching for, and the second by the father of Ewald’s favorite boy, Octavian: What do you want?

References

[1] https://www.ulrichseidl.com/en/ulrich-seidl-filmproduction/films-in-distribution/sparta

[2] https://www.spiegel.de/kultur/ulrich-seidl-film-kinder-offenbar-bei-dreh-ausgenutzt-nur-noch-ein-bisschen-dann-darfst-du-nach-hause-gehen-a-c54533fd-0705-493f-890f-4e3c619ff9f8

[3] https://www.ulrichseidl.com/en/statement-sparta; relating to the main character in the film, Ewald, (authors' remark).

[4] Lacan, J., The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book XI: The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis, ed. J.-A. Miller, trans. A. Sheridan, New York/London: Norton, 1977, p.115.

[5] Ibid., p.111.

[6] cf. FN 3

[7] cf., Miller, J.-A. The Unconscious and the Speaking Body, Presentation of the theme for the 10th Congress of the WAP 2016, https://wapol.org/en/articulos/TemplateImpresion.asp?intPublicacion=13&intEdicion=9&intIdiomaPublicacion=2&intArticulo=2742&intIdiomaArticulo=2