Reading Eric and Elise Through the Symbolic Order of Seduction/Challenge/Surprise and Destiny

Rob Pattinson as Eric Packer and  Sarah Gadon as Elise Shifrin in Cosmopolis

Destiny is stalking Eric and Elise. Destiny does not leave it to chance but repeats to make sure. Destiny is of the Symbolic Order of Seduction always paired with challenge, the duel and surprise. In each encounter with Destiny the self divides into a before and after. As time passes the two selves bifurcate and diverge away from each other, farther and farther away. They occupy parallel universes. As Eric and Elise meet and separate all day, each changes as a modified  and different self emerges from the previous encounter with each other. Elise is an apparition as she surprisingly appears and disappears. Apparition is always coupled with disappearance.

Following through (free download) Gradiva-Elise here and here. (earlier posts here)

Continuing through Baudrillard:

He took off his sunglasses , for effect. She gazed into his face. She looked steadily with fixed attention.
Your eyes are blue, she said.

Switching to Nietzsche On the Genealogy of Morals: He lifted her hand and held it to his face, smelling and licking. The Sikh at the wheel was missing a finger. Eric regarded the stub, impressive, a serious thing, a body ruin that carried history and pain.

Eat breakfast yet?

No, she said.

.... You never told me you were blue-eyed.

That face. Even in ten years time, I shall not know the colour of its eyes. But I see it in the street, in my dreams and just beneath the surface of a great number of other faces which suddenly start to resemble it. Baudrillard (Cool Memories, 1980-85b p. 54) :