Introduction

This study aims to provide a psychoanalytic reading of the subject's predicament in the film Requiem (directed by Amir Naderi, 1978), employing the concepts of psychosis and melancholia metaphorically within Jacques Lacan’s theoretical framework. This film belongs to the early period of Iranian New Wave cinema during the 1960s and 1970s—a movement characterized by its innovative and experimental tendencies, often reflecting contemporary social issues through forms of critical realism. In the film, the main character, after serving eight years in prison, is unable to reintegrate into society or, in Lacanian terms, re-establish his position within the symbolic order as a linguistic structure, undergoing a psychotic rupture from the chain of signification. The aim of this study is to demonstrate how, due to the absence of familial and social bonds, he emerges as a quasi-psychotic subject and represents a melancholic experience as disorientation and wandering through the city.

To illuminate the psychoanalytic dimensions of the central character's predicament in Requiem, a foundational understanding of these disorders is essential, bridging the film's metaphorical layers with Lacanian theory. This theoretical groundwork reveals how structural disruptions underpin the subject's estrangement. Psychosis and melancholia have often been conceptualized as pathological phenomena. Classical psychoanalysis associates psychosis with a fundamental change in the understanding of reality, while Lacanian theory sees it as arising from a disruption in the functioning of language and signification. This disruption leads to a failure of stabilization in the symbolic order, conceived as a dimension of the social order. Drawing on Sigmund Freud’s and Jacques Lacan’s perspectives, melancholia typically occurs within the psychotic structure: Freud associates it with the loss of an object, while Lacan emphasizes its connection to the collapse of the symbolic order and the over-proximity to the objet petit a. It appears that no direct studies on psychosis and melancholia from a Lacanian perspective have been conducted in Iranian cinema. Therefore, the significance of the study lies in addressing the aforementioned psychoanalytic concepts in Iranian cinema and exploring a condition reflecting the human experience of wandering and instability in the world.

Methods

The present study employs a descriptive-analytical method, drawing on data collected through film observation, library, and electronic sources. The study designates the film Requiem (directed by Amir Naderi in 1978) as its case study, with the aim of offering a psychoanalytic reading of the main character's individual and social condition, and in this way, it metaphorically examines his experience of psychosis, rupture from the signifying chain, and melancholia. The theoretical framework is grounded in the approach of Jacques Lacan; in the study's theoretical foundations section, these concepts are explored alongside other fundamental components of Lacanian thought, such as the subject's relation to the primordial signifier or the Name-of-the-Father, language and the three orders, the object petit a, desire, and the Other. The film analysis employs a textual method, examining the narrative structure and arrangement, modes of characterization, and representational forms to elucidate the subject's interaction and conflict with the space depicted in the film.

Findings

The findings of the present study indicate that in Requiem, the main character Nasrollah, on the threshold of his release from prison—which functions as an intermediate space between past and present—strives to return to the city and everyday life. However, bereft of any familial or social support structures, he becomes disoriented and wandering. From a historical and sociological perspective, Iran during this period was subjected to the inconsistent modernization initiatives of the ruling regime, which engendered profound socio-economic dualities that profoundly influenced the fabric of daily life and interpersonal relations among the populace. Consequently, Nasrollah is relegated to the margins within such a context. This phenomenon can be extended to Lacanian concepts from a psychoanalytic vantage point, insofar as his estrangement and alienation from society position him as a subject afflicted with a stutter in language, severed from any linkage to the signifiers of the symbolic order and, by extension, to the Other. In this regard, the absence of the Name-of-the-Father—as the foreclosure of the primordial signifier—or a coherent kinship structure—as a foundational support—serves as a metaphor for a hole or lacuna at the level of the symbolic and signification, rendering the main character incapable of reconstructing his position within this order and thereby consigning him to a psychotic condition.

The confrontation with the death of his mother, the final familial referent, exacerbates this collapse. In her absence, the only familial remnants—his father's mementos, namely a rifle and a target board—manifest as Lacanian objets petit a. The objet a, emblematic of a structural lack, operates as the cause of desire and must ultimately be supplanted by other objects. Yet, in the film, these items constitute Nasrollah's sole anchors for signifying action and economic subsistence, remaining irreplaceable. The rifle and the board fail to stabilize his socio-symbolic position; thus, Nasrollah persists in a state of lack.

This psychic condition is further echoed in the film's formal structure. The filmmaker's camera persistently captures the main character's disorientation amid urban and peripheral mise-en-scène through fragmented shots, thereby depicting an experience that is at once individual and social. This not only underscores the plight of a marginalized subject in Iran's developing society but also, from a psychoanalytic standpoint, reflects the subject's rupture from the signifying chain, situating him at a liminal surface between the imaginary, symbolic, and real orders. Moreover, the film features a character named Looti, who possesses an animal that he regards as his own child. Nasrollah establishes a connection with Looti, who, in a metaphorical sense, functions as a surrogate for the primordial signifier; however, Looti too perishes. Consequently, the main character's futile attempts to reconstitute relational bonds, coupled with his over-proximity to the objet petit a, ensnare him in a cycle of repetition, jouissance, and melancholic experience.

At the end of the film, the subject's melancholic experience intensifies: he sells the rifle and the board, and with the meager sum obtained, he arranges his drunkenness. Nasrollah reemerges in the city, where the streets envelop him in a state of drunkenness and aimless wandering, akin to the Lacanian Real and the impossible.

Conclusion

Amir Naderi’s Requiem (1978), a film belonging to the Iranian New Wave cinema, offers a profound insight into the structural ruptures of its historical moment, which in turn develop the film’s narrative construction. A metaphorical reading of Requiem reveals that the story of Nasrollah, the main character as a recently released prisoner, operates simultaneously on a psychoanalytic plane and carries structural significance. This psychoanalytic dimension appears to manifest through the concepts of psychosis and melancholia. The present study, drawing on Lacanian theory and formulating a conceptual framework for understanding these conditions, interprets the analysis of the main character’s individual–social disjunction as a disruption in the chain of signification and reveals its key components in the film’s text. The findings, through a simultaneous examination of the individual and social dimensions of the subject, reveal that Nasrollah emerges as a fragile subject upon confronting the world outside prison. This becomes initially evident through the experience of the father's absence and the confrontation with the mother's death. Subsequently, the persistent experience of loss intensifies in the absence of connection to the symbolic order, drawing the subject closer to the objet petit a as its structural lack. Consequently, the narrative structure, characterization, and formal strategies—such as the use of urban mise-en-scène—not only reflect the fragmented historical conditions but also trace the trajectory of the character’s wandering and disintegration as a metaphor for psychosis and the progression toward a melancholic experience. Ultimately, this Lacanian perspective illuminates the significance of the film Requiem for examining psychic rupture at the individual level and in relation to transitional societies, paving the way for future analyses of Iranian cinema through psychoanalytic concepts such as psychosis and melancholia.