UCL MA Film Studies · 2024/25
White-collar businessman Dae-su (Choi Min-sik) is abducted by an anonymous man and imprisoned in a room for 15 years. When he is released, he meets young sushi chef Mi-do (Kang Hye-jung), and they fall in love while he searches for his captor. Dae-su discovers his captor is Woo-jin (Yoo Ji-tae), seeking revenge because Dae-su spread gossip in high school about Woo-jin's incestuous relationship with his sister, Soo-ah (Yoon Jin-seo), leading to her suicide. Woo-jin, through hypnosis, orchestrated Dae-su's relationship with Mi-do, who turns out to be his long-lost daughter. Woo-jin, satisfied but still haunted by his trauma, commits suicide after revealing the truth. Dae-su finds the hypnotist to erase his memory. Mi-do finds him in a snowy mountain and confesses her love to him.
South Korean culture is strongly influenced by Confucian principles that emphasise hierarchy and collectivism. Kikutani et al. (2024, p. 3) observe that, in collectivist countries like South Korea (Ko et al., p. 1010), individuals are more motivated by group norms and duties than other factors and are willing to prioritise collective goals over personal ones. The Confucian pillars of Ren (humaneness), Li (rites), Zhong (loyalty) and Xiao (filial piety) centre around education, family and ritual (Kikutani et al., 2024, p. 7), which create conservative interpersonal relationships and a heightened sense of collective identity (Kikutani et al., 2024, p. 10). However, modernisation has not simply westernised this; instead, East Asian conceptions of individual freedom incorporate Confucian values within a unique modernisation process (Kikutani et al., 2024, p. 9). Within this framework, failure to meet role obligations generates intense psychological burden: South Korea's high suicide rate has been linked to Confucian-based collectivism, where failure creates an intense sense of burdensomeness or loss of social belonging and sharpens competition and wealth inequality (Kikutani et al., 2024, p. 11).
This moral order is rooted in a long history of family-centred shame. Zuk-Nae Lee (1999, pp. 185-86) argues that Confucian socialisation transformed the earlier Taoist introverted shame of conscience into external collective shame, which prioritises the group over the individual, reinforcing the action called 'face-saving'. In this cultural context, the most shameful behaviours are the breach of hierarchical orders of sovereign-subject, parent-child, husband-wife and senior-junior, and the child's lack of filial piety and the wife's disobedience to her husband are the most significant deviations out of all (Lee, 1999, pp. 186-87). In this context, sexuality is also inseparable from the family honour, as traditional Korean culture severely repressed sexuality, with sexual scandals involving women destroying entire families, as well as women's virginity being policed as part of family reputation (Yang and Rosenblatt, 2001, pp. 367-68). Yang and Rosenblatt (2001, pp. 361, 364-67) also argue that shame functions as a central mechanism that enforces conformity by blaming those who deviate from norms and continuously raises the question of social belonging in both individual and family life in Korea. As such, shame functions as an individual, familial and social force, particularly around filiality and sexuality.
Oldboy demonstrates the relationship between family, shame and sexuality. In the film, vengeance is strictly personal, with police or institutions being almost non-existent in the narrative. This eliminates the dichotomy between villain and victim to allow both to deviate from the legal system (Kim, K.H., 2009, p. 182). The film constructs an almost 'mythical and transhistorical' (Kim, K.H. 2009, p. 182) universe that resists physical mapping with wide-angle lenses, a lack of natural landscape and postmodern interiors like the room that Dae-su was locked in, televisions, restaurants and Woo-jin's penthouse to set an unrecognisable world that operates above legal realism. Dae-su experiences the alienation of these urban spaces as he gets released after 15 years of imprisonment, during which he has been unaware of the world's developments, except for what he saw on television. He has no family to rely on and cannot seek help from the system, as he is framed as a wife killer who ran away, thoroughly isolating him from the others. The fact that the film is a very loose adaptation of a Japanese manga of the same name amplifies the transnational, postmodern atmosphere of the setting. Although at the same time, it operates within a Korean moral landscape.
Central to the narrative of revenge is the trauma and its forgetting. Joseph Jonghyun Jeon sees Woo-jin's character as enacting a traumatic reenactment as he drags out his revenge plan over the span of more than a decade; planning and acting on his revenge provides him with a temporary remedy, but after vengeance is achieved, the hidden pain eventually returns (2009, p. 721). The elevator flashback sequence towards the end of the film depicts how intensely Woo-jin relives the trauma as it blends the past and present until the moment of his death by suicide (Jeon, 2009, p. 721). Dae-su, on the other hand, finds the hypnotist who hypnotised him to fall in love with his daughter under Woo-jin's orders and begs to forget; he wants to live unburdened by the trauma, which, after the hypnosis, cannot be felt consciously again (Jeon, 2009, pp. 717-18). Forgetting, then, gives him neither the healing from the trauma nor the ability to feel han anymore; it represents the most perversive way to survive within the framework of shame and family, where the revelation of incest would not only destroy his relationship with his daughter/lover but also harm and shame Mi-do.
Oldboy's perversion of filial and sexual piety is situated within the Korean Confucian shame. In a culture where sexual violations outside norms create family-wide and society-wide shame (Lee, p. 186-90), the film constructs an impossible moral dead end: remembering creates shame and guilt for all parties and forgetting requires living in a lie, especially for the protagonist. The director does not offer any middle ground but instead a formalisation through the shocking mise-en-scène and narrative that question social boundaries and taboos for the viewer. As Dae-su forgets his trauma so that it will never be consciously felt (Jeon, 2009, p. 718), the viewer is left with the moral dilemma that Dae-su should have lived with. The film, then, presents han as a pressure, pushing the feeling of resentment, grief and shame into images turned outward to the viewer, while the absence of law and the weight of familial, patriarchal ties and shame fuel vengeance for both Dae-su and Woo-jin.
The socio-cultural framework and han's only potential resolution being forgetting, either through death or hypnosis, is the background for Oldboy's formal construction. Park presents han in a cinematic experience by deviating from a linear narrative progression, employing spaces that undermine morality and through traumatic repetition that resists resolution. The film's compressed time traps characters in a cycle of revenge; the flat and artificial spaces, along with the motifs of incest, reinforce moral ambiguity. Together, these formal choices transform han from a thematic concern into an embodied affect, making the viewer feel its persistent weight even after the film's end. The following section examines how Park's aesthetic techniques express han, from the physical and psychological imprisonment and subsequent moral decay experienced by both Dae-su and Woo-jin to the film's ending of irresolution.
The film's representation of Dae-su's 15-year imprisonment works as a temporal device that builds han through compressed repetition. The imprisonment sequence, spanning from 0:05:46 to 0:15:55, consists of limited shots of television screens, Dae-su's suicide attempts and close-ups of his face, with the only feature changing being his hair between long and short. This compression of time creates a feeling of claustrophobia in which years are blended into visual motifs that deviate from the linear progression of time. The repetition of similar framings and actions reflects the psychological paralysis of imprisonment, formally depicting han's accumulation. The portrait of a man on the wall serves as a visual anchor for this temporal suspension, as it remains unchanged while Dae-su himself ages significantly over the years and under stress. It marks both the passage of time and its arrest within this space.
This temporal suspension similarly affects Woo-jin, as his han accumulates in a form of obsession. For 15 years or longer, dating back to his sister Soo-ah's death, Woo-jin is haunted by the past trauma that dictates his whole existence. He is suspended in time of Soo-ah's death. The internet cafe sequence in which Woo-jin's reaction to hearing Dae-su's friend Joo-hwan (Ji Dae-han) speak derogatorily about Soo-ah to Dae-su on a phone call reveals how past trauma remains suspended in the present. The sequence's spatial design reinforces this: the dark room, lit only by computer screens, creates chiaroscuro as the camera tracks left to reveal Woo-jin sitting directly opposite of Joo-hwan, obscured by the computers. As Woo-jin, who has been smiling while eavesdropping on the conversation, becomes extremely angry, he pulls out the recording disc used to spy on Dae-su and moves out of the frame to the right. The camera follows him, and as he beats and murders Joo-hwan, it stays stagnantly. The darkness of the place creates the illusion of a seamless cut between locations, but the revelation that it was the same cafe all along complicates the spatial and temporal distance between Woo-jin and Dae-su. Woo-jin crosses from observer to participant, from past to present, as the two seemingly unmeetable worlds come together. The blending of these two parallel worlds of Dae-su's temporal and physical imprisonment and Woo-jin's extended obsession establishes revenge not as a singular event but as a condition, a perpetual present haunted by an unresolved past.
The film's spatial construction employs what K.H. Kim terms 'flat' mise-en-scène — spaces deliberately emptied of geographical and temporal specificity that operate as morally void spaces rather than physical locations (2009, p. 182). This flatness becomes most evident in the corridor fight sequence, which takes place on the seventh or eighth floor of the building that Dae-su was imprisoned in. The absence of windows, combined with dim, hospital-like lighting and a narrow corridor, creates a space that appears subliminal: concrete, abstract, industrial and timeless. The horizontal tracking shot that follows the entire choreographed action sequence without cuts reinforces this spatial flattening. The camera maintains a long shot that precisely portions the frame between ceiling and floor, eliminating any margin and accentuating the space's claustrophobic environment. Unlike outdoor one-take sequences that can expand and move freely, this compact framing traps both characters and the viewer within the corridor's horizontal space, depicting the tedious back-and-forth of violence and, consequently, the futility of revenge.
The space, then, also correlates with Dae-su's moral crisis. Before the violent fight begins, Dae-su shows mercy and asks if anyone has blood type AB to send those who raise their hands away with the dying boss for transfusion. This moment of compassion by Dae-su exemplifies the film's refusal of clear moral boundaries. The fight itself reinforces this ambiguity: accompanied by Western-style extra-diegetic music and the actors' gasping and shouting, the sequence depicts violence as neither glorious nor heroic. Dae-su hesitates and pulls back repeatedly, as do his opponents. The unedited long take of pushing, hitting, lunging, brief rests, breaking wooden bats and bodies falling and rising depicts the act of violence as a labour rather than a spectacle. This realistic fighting scene also shows that Dae-su is neither a perfect hero nor an antihero, but rather a middle-aged man who might as well exist somewhere.
The sequence ends with everyone on the floor, seemingly no one dead but tired, as Dae-su turns away. The subsequent close-up of his face is particularly revealing of the nature of his revenge: his expression shows neither satisfaction nor regret, only emptiness, as he smiles with only his mouth. The shot, then, cuts to the elevator opening, and it shows that there are more men ready to kill Dae-su. In the next shot, even though the inside of the elevator is not shown, it becomes evident that he has engaged in another fight in the even more cramped space, as his opponents are pushed out when the elevator opens again in the building's parking lot. As he walks on the sunny sidewalk while people watch, his voiceover declares: 'Now, I became a monster' (0:44:51). This self-recognition as a monster depicts the film's central moral problem: within the flat, lawless spaces the film constructs, justice and revenge become indistinguishable. Dae-su is not just a victim of unfair imprisonment at this point but also a perpetrator, caught in what the film presents as a cycle of violence and revenge.
The film's formal treatment of repetition extends beyond the physical imprisonment sequence into a narrative structure through resurfacing trauma that reinforces han's resistance to closure. This operates most powerfully in Woo-jin's final elevator sequence, which shows alternating close-ups and temporal juxtaposition to blend past and present. The camera frames Woo-jin in a close-up from a slightly lower angle as his blank expression transforms into one of sadness. The silence fills the shot, before an extra-diegetic soundtrack plays. As he looks down and reaches out, he is holding another hand, which, in the next shot, turns out to be Soo-ah's. The sequence reveals he is reliving the moment when his sister dies, holding her arm to stop her from falling down the bridge. Her final words are edited in a sequence that alternates between young Woo-jin and present Woo-jin, demonstrating how he remains trapped in that final moment: 'Woo-jin, I know you've been scared. So let go of me, okay?' (01:45:44). As the background music intensifies and he loses grip, Soo-ah drops into the river with a splash of water. Woo-jin cries, and as he cocks his hand like a gun, the shot abruptly cuts to the elevator opening as Woo-jin shoots himself in the head. The sound of the gun coincides with the cut, signifying that the film is back to the present, where Woo-jin's revenge and thus his world ends. This sequence exemplifies what Caruth describes as trauma's returning nature: Woo-jin cannot fully possess or control this experience, yet cannot escape it (1991, p. 187). His revenge has been a prolonged, traumatic reenactment, and as it comes to an end, the temporary remedy disappears, forcing him to face the original event anew. The elevator's vertical enclosure mirrors the earlier corridor's horizontal confinement, suggesting that the architecture of revenge, whether ascending or progressing, offers no genuine spatial or temporal escape from the return of trauma.
Dae-su's final choice to be hypnotised to forget rather than live with unbearable knowledge represents the film's most perverse moral dead end. The ending is ambiguous: as Dae-su wakes up in the middle of a snowy mountain after he is separated from the 'monster', his facial expression shows confusion, as if the hypnosis worked. However, his smile in the final close-up shot echoes the empty smile in the previous sequence, raising unsettling questions for the viewer: What does this smile imply? Forgetting here is neither healing nor successful repression but han's transformation, from conscious, burning resentment to unconscious dreading, from felt trauma to a hidden scar. Dae-su decides to live with Mi-do as her lover instead of being consumed by the desire for revenge, though it remains unclear whether this choice stems from his love for Mi-do or simply from having no one left to avenge.
The film thus presents two responses to han: Woo-jin's obsessive remembering that can only end in suicide, and Dae-su's forgetting that may only hide it rather than resolve his suffering. Both ways demonstrate han's resistance to closure, its refusal of cathartic resolution that would restore linear temporality or moral order. The film's use of temporal, spatial and traumatic repetition depicts revenge and han as an endless imprisonment. This cycle can be interrupted only through death or hypnotic erasure, neither of which can become a genuine resolution.
Oldboy demonstrates how han accumulates through temporal and psychological suspension. Flat and lifeless spaces question the morality of the characters that might distinguish justice from violence and the victim from the perpetrator, depicting their violence as exhausting and futile actions. The repetition and reliving of trauma suggest that neither remembering nor forgetting offers an escape; characters within these cycles can only reach an end through death or erasure of memory.
Oldboy's violation of Korea's deepest cultural taboos within this framework creates an impossible moral dead end: altering the unbearable implication of incest into aesthetic shock as the shame leads to violence and thus leaving trauma as a physical scar even as the memory is gone. Then, the film asks the viewer, either Korean or international, to inhabit rather than simply observe the weight of han that refuses closure, challenging conventional frameworks for understanding revenge cinema through its cultural specificity and formal experimentation.
Genre in Italian Cinema · UCL MA Film Studies · 2024/25
Throughout the years, the depiction of mafia in films has changed as both the 'film and media industries' and 'mafia organizations have changed and mutated, becoming less like their 1930s stereotypes' (Wood 2019, 278). Wood (2019, 278) explains further: 'Seventeen years later, in the wake of the financial kickback scandals, trials of corrupt politicians, murderous mafia attacks on honest magistrates, and successive Berlusconi governments in which the prime minister attempted to put in place legislation that would make some corrupt business practices immune from prosecution, Paolo Sorrentino confronted the problem of representing the twenty-first-century mafia'. In Le conseguenze dell'amore (The Consequences of Love, 2004), instead of the glamorised depiction of the violence seen in Hollywood films of the late 20th century or 'the 1960s slapstick comedies of Franco and Ciccio' (De Luca 2018, 400), Sorrentino depicts the psychological and physical confinement bestowed upon the protagonist, Titta Di Girolamo (Toni Servillo), by the Sicilian mafia Cosa Nostra through creating a complex portrayal of his psyche via his stylistic use of cinematography, editing and mise-en-scène. Leotta (2011, 291) summarises the depiction of the relationship between Titta and the mafia within the film: 'The storyline emphasizes the complicity between the Mafia and the financial world. The film reveals how the hand of the criminal organization stretches till the banking system and the stock market influencing the life of a simple accountant'. Titta is involuntarily stuck at a hotel to spend his meaningless days after ruining an investment opportunity that has cost the mafia billions of Italian lire, fulfilling an assignment to deposit their funds to a Swiss bank regularly. Titta's dull life changes after falling in love with the bartender at the hotel, Sofia (Olivia Magnani), and he finally decides to rebel against them after 8 years of obedience.
As most of the events occurring within the narrative take place inside a nameless hotel in Lugano, Switzerland, the spaces within the hotel become a crucial lens through which the change in Titta's psyche is portrayed. Not only that, the use of the spaces becomes the metaphor for the mafia power and how Titta struggles and succeeds in escaping it. As such, this essay will analyse how the hotel functions to reflect Titta's choices to free himself from the omnipresent mafia influence on his life.
Firstly, the space that the film begins with, later revealed to be an underground hallway of the bank, encapsulates Titta's life for the past 8 years: a seemingly endless corridor without any hints of liveliness. The space's muted colour palette of black, white and grey and the camera positioned in a way that distorts the symmetry of the space create a feeling of claustrophobia. There are no windows with the cold, artificial lighting as the only light source. A moving walkway carries a motionless man with a suitcase by his side, shown in an extreme long shot, as the credits appear and disappear. The fixed frame captures him in an undisturbed long take that lasts more than two minutes as he comes closer to the camera, panning slightly right along with him; the extra-diegetic electronic soundtrack plays, instilling a sense of unease. The unsettling feeling comes to a screeching halt as the soundtrack gives way to the noise of the suitcase dragging at the end of the walkway. The shot abruptly cuts as the man exits the frame to the right, to a shot of Sofia in a medium shot on the right side of the frame behind the bar, looking towards her left side. The editing deliberately gives the illusion that the transition between the spaces is continuous, disorienting the viewer as to whether the first and second locations are connected. Then, Sofia makes eye contact with a man in a bow tie in a shot/reverse shot, suggesting the false impression that he is the film's protagonist. However, the viewer is immediately introduced to the true protagonist, Titta, who judges the man's wide-eyed gaze at Sofia: 'Look at the man with a bow-tie, […] I […] only see a frivolous man' (00:03:25). In essence, by the opening sequence, Sorrentino foreshadows the progress of the narrative and introduces Titta's personality to the viewers succinctly as '[t]he slow advancing of the conveyor belt represents the mechanic, emotionless routine of Titta's life which is suddenly undermined by his love for Sofia […]' (Leotta 2011, 292).
When asked about the film's conception, Sorrentino explained in an interview: 'One day, while I was at the bar of a five-star hotel, looking around, I noticed these businessmen. I observed them and then tried to imagine one of them working for the mafia. That is how the film was born' (Bonsaver 2009, 328, my translation). As such, the hotel as a location plays a crucial role in depicting Titta's psyche. Small (2011, 116) summarises the spaces within the hotel: 'Titta lives in an unnamed hotel that is a constructed set of interiors, a space with signification at several levels: as a physical location where his day-to-day existence takes place; as a psychological site specific to him, where the ugly, impersonal spaces convey his deadened existence; and as the physical manifestation of a more general subjugation, a metaphor for the invisible but ubiquitous Mafia power'. Not only does the hotel function as the physical boundary that Titta cannot cross, but it also operates as a symbol of the inescapability of the mafia power. Titta merely exists without an identity in this transient space because '[t]he Mafia has denied the protagonist his identity as an accountant, father and husband. […] He lacks any agency, and is stuck in the role of spectator and in several non-places (the cellar, the hotel), places that, according to Marc Augé, are worlds devoted to "lonely individuality, to the provisory and to the ephemeral"' (Cangiano 2019, 344; Augé 2000, 74). Augé (2009, 6) defines non-places in his essay on supermodernity as: 'two complementary but distinct realities: spaces formed in relation to certain ends (transport, transit, commerce, leisure), and the relations that individuals have with these spaces'. In this sense, the hotel as a non-place within the film creates an intriguing discourse in its relationship with the protagonist. Titta is stuck in a space not meant to be inhabited but passed through, fostering a peculiar familiarity with it, although he will never be able to call it home. Because he lacks the purpose to exist as himself in the non-place, he is isolated even when he is surrounded by other guests at the hotel.
His isolation is well depicted through Sorrentino's use of cinematography and mise-en-scène. He has been stuck in the same routine for the past 8 years, leading a boring life without any substantive relationship in a hotel that looks like it could be anywhere. In several scenes, Titta looks out the window as if longing for the life he cannot have. The colour palette at the bar, corridors and his room is mostly muted, yellowish and monotone. Although yellow is often considered a warm colour, it creates a distinct ambience in Le conseguenze. Wood (2019, 279) explains: '[D]eriving from the Italian use of the word giallo (yellow) for mystery stories of all kinds, Italian noir films all use yellow colours to indicate the presence of mysteries. In Consequences, we see yellow in lamps, furnishings, and reflections and in the target motifs in the hotel's decor'. The geometric structures of the wall, building frames, asymmetry and bar-like framing of shots all contribute to the claustrophobic and mysterious atmosphere. Titta is often framed at an angle that obstructs the full view of his body within the shot; he is always confined in a way. Unlike the cold artificial lighting used in the space in the opening sequence, the light fixtures in the hotel illuminate in warm yellow. Although there is a big window at the corner of the bar where Titta always sits, natural light hardly hits inside due to the gloomy weather outside. A sequence that shows Titta's view from the seat is when a stranger named Letizia (Giovanni Vettorazzo) approaches him to start a conversation. Letizia joins him at his table, but he merely acknowledges his existence. Instead, he constantly looks out the window, as if he is fixated on the act of seeing outside. Unfortunately, this action does not grant him much freedom; the shot is framed as if the wall along the window is one of the pillars of the building outside, with which the trees in the middle of the frame create a prison bar-like boundary. The natural sunlight only illuminates the place past it. In the case of Letizia, not only does Titta fail to respond to his blabbering, but he is also not allowed in the frame throughout the one-sided conversation. In Titta's world, he might as well not exist. These small interactions, which Titta probably had many times throughout the years sitting at the bar, do not take away his isolation, as Augé (2009, 9) states: 'The space of non-place creates neither singular identity nor relations; only solitude and similitude'.
Interestingly, a directly contrasting use of the same space takes place when Titta's brother, Valerio (Adriano Giannini), visits him on his way to the Maldives. Valerio is someone Titta has a deeper, although strained, relationship with. The mise-en-scène reflects this dynamic, especially when Valerio brings up their father in the conversation. The shot/reverse shots of the two men are shot in close up unlike the previous shots in medium close up, reflecting the proximity between them. The background is in shallow focus, creating a slightly more intimate atmosphere. That said, both Titta and Valerio are positioned at the far end of their respective frames; their conflicting personalities and time away from each other have left an unbridgeable distance between them. The conversation cuts short as Sofia joins in to hand them their drinks and Valerio starts to flirt with her. After witnessing the interaction, Titta goes back to his reserved self, looking out the window again. The subtle familiarity suddenly fades, and the view outside in the background is back in deep focus, visually signalling a shift in Titta's internal state. This moment shows how the psychological confinement is arguably more debilitating than Titta's physical confinement to the hotel. Even when Titta physically steps outside the hotel to send Valerio off, the camera captures Titta from inside the hotel bar. The camera is positioned in a way that obstructs the full view of Titta; the curtain and the sofa in the frame confine him at the top right corner of the frame. Moreover, when the camera cuts to a close-up from the front, then shifts to side-angle shots of him going inside, the hotel exterior in the background is in shallow focus, disallowing the viewer from associating Titta with the space outside. The hotel confines him not only physically but psychologically; he cannot escape unless he himself wants it — something he no longer does, having lost his sense of identity and purpose.
In essence, the hotel is a place of solitude. A short sequence that depicts this notion is when Titta waits for Sofia at the hotel lobby after they agreed to drive to the mountains for his birthday (1:12:24). It is significant that the place is not shown much until this moment of the film; the use of the lobby is interesting because it is the most transient place within the non-place. The camera captures him as he waits for her, occasionally looking at the clock. He is positioned in the middle of the frame in a long shot, his surrounding environment clearly visible. Although there is a big window behind the couch Titta is sat, because the curtain is drawn and because of the gloomy weather, there is almost no natural light coming inside. Only the lamp on the right side of the frame illuminates the room slightly in a yellowish tint. There are four more couch chairs surrounding the table in front of Titta but no one else is there. The lobby is for waiting; Titta is finally ready to wait for someone to join him and get him out of his solitude, but no one is coming. As an electronic soundtrack plays extra-diegetically, the camera moves closer to Titta; as Leotta (2011, 294) notes: '[Sorrentino's] camera favors forward tracking to the easier zoom in (as the former redefines perspective and alters spatial relationships) to reinforce the sense of entrapment and unspecified unease'. With an abrupt cut to the following sequence, the viewer learns that Sofia will not come because she gets into an accident. The sequence reinforces the theme of inescapability in terms of the hotel as a physical space and the symbolic grip of mafia power, as the only hope for freedom thus far in the form of love is destroyed. The narrative progression further solidifies the notion when, after he kills two mafia members who came to steal the suitcase full of money and then takes it himself, he gets summoned by Cosa Nostra in Sicily as they demand it back. Even when he leaves the hotel that he has been staying, he ends up in another hotel. As he sits with a man waiting for his call to meet the bosses, he smirks and says: 'Isn't it ridiculous? I can't break free from hotels' (01:18:15). When he does break free, he chooses death over obedience.
The last sequence of Le conseguenze begins as members of the organisation drive him to a place where he finally regains his freedom. Thus far, the sequences within the film in which Titta travels from place to place, namely from the hotel to the bank or from the bar to his room in the hotel, have been edited in a way that does not allow the viewer to see the journey as a whole; the editing is fragmented and consists of jump cuts to not only disorient the viewer but also to reflect Titta's subjectivity — the journey and the act of travelling do not matter to him because they do not amount to anything meaningful. The ending car sequence differs from the rest in this sense. The trip takes place after he declares his autonomy to the mafia, thus restoring his freedom. Like in the opening sequence, a space that resembles a tunnel begins the last sequence. The story starts with a space that seemingly has an endless hallway, without the hint of sunlight, yet brightly lit with cold artificial lighting, raising the feeling of claustrophobia and being stuck. On the other hand, the tunnel that brings Titta to freedom is dark. Still, the light at the end of the tunnel (although soon revealed to be just a lit part of the tunnel) both literally and figuratively connotes an ambiguously optimistic ending to the narrative. A song intra-diegetically plays as the car with Titta and the mafia members traverses through the dark and bright part of the long tunnel. Unlike in many circumstances where he had to look through the window to look outside, the car window is open this time. After a perspective shot reveals the night view of the town from Titta's point of view, the camera cuts to a close-up of his face, his expression seemingly mesmerised by the scene. A series of flashbacks follow the shots of Titta in the car. Through this cross-cutting between past and present, the viewer finally learns how Titta killed the two revolts who tried to steal the suitcase of money; he first turns off the elevator by cutting its electricity, then turns it back on once the men take the stairs, giving himself a head start to the parking lot where the shooting takes place. This sequence reveals that Titta has not merely been confined to the hotel but discreetly familiar with its layout — familiar enough to use it strategically. Although Sorrentino depicts the hotel in a disjointed, fragmentary manner, Titta moves through its corridors and parking lot with calculated ease. As Wood (2019, 279) argues: 'Titta's ordered and regular life is emblematic of how an illegal power system would exercise control, and its methods mirror modern management techniques in the use of order and repetition to maximize efficiency, and the use of coercion (the Sicilian hoods) to limit risk. However, the mafia, like the state, cannot dominate every area of existence'. In essence, Titta's rebellion, although seemingly insignificant, against the mafia had already begun long before the moment of violence; over the years spent in the hotel, he grew comfortable within its confines and learned to navigate and manipulate its spaces when necessary.
Kilbourn (2020, 3) summarises Le conseguenze: 'The one aspect of Sorrentino's ongoing contribution to the contemporary art film exemplified in The Consequences of Love is the use of onscreen space — the diegetic space of the film's story-world — to establish mood, but even more so to adumbrate the protagonist's psycho-emotional state in a kind of twenty-first-century echo of Antonioni's modernist use of mise-en-scène as existential — and decidedly gendered — pathetic fallacy'. In conclusion, Sorrentino explores the relationship between the protagonist and the space, centring on Titta's long confinement within the hotel. The sterile, fragmented and often disorienting spatial structures within the spaces reflect Titta's psychological shutdown and his entrapment under the mafia control. Through the motif of the hotel as both a physical setting and a symbolic space of solitude, instead of portraying the mafia through violence or as a spectacle, the director shows how its invisible mechanisms of power affect people, revealing how control operates through repetition, restriction and inactivity. In doing so, Le conseguenze dell'amore breaks from conventional mafia narratives, depicting solitude, space and quiet desperation of its protagonist.