Asteroid City and its Hilarious Absurdism

I recently watched Asteroid City by Wes Anderson and I couldn’t stop laughing. I knew I was going to have fun, of course. However, I think this movie must be one of my top 3 written and directed by him. 

This movie shows how meaningless everything is. No matter if you are an intellectual, a famous actress, or a military photographer nothing can save us from nothingness. Even if there is meaning other than our little lives on Earth, the Universe, the Cosmos, this dimension, or this reality, whatever you want to call it, we can’t understand it. Humans have been trying to explain the purpose of their existence through religion, spirituality, rituals, prayers, meditations, and cults for centuries. Even if people come up with a theory, we can’t verify it. There is no proof that things are the way we think they are. Which takes us back to the unknown and how pointless everything we do is. We are minuscule creatures in a gigantic universe. We find ourselves doing random things until oxygen finally kills us. In the end, we die and become remains, which eventually will become cosmic dust once the Earth explodes. 

However, we have a mind, and we must learn how to live with it. Our minds are our whole world, they make us interpret the things we experience in a certain way, and with emotions combined, they make even the smallest things seem immense and bigger than us. We must fulfill our physiological needs to survive, but we also need to satisfy our intellectual needs to bear survival. While science and technology help us survive on a physical level, religion, faith, or art make us survive mentally. Therefore, we can find activities or beliefs that bring purpose to our lives, anything that makes us feel like we don’t live in vain. 

What is absurdism?

Absurdism is the belief that no matter how much meaning a human being can look for through political beliefs, religion, science, art, etc., everything is pointless. No matter what one does, one cannot escape the absurdity of being a human being. However, accepting absurdism does not imply life will unavoidably and always be depressive. Absurdism tries to look for a way of living meaningfully in a meaningless universe. For example, humans can look for sources of enjoyment through things that don’t involve the need for meaning, but rather pure pleasure. Accepting Absurdism is like living with an illness and feeling well with the fact that one will never be fully healthy again. 

I think Existentialism and Absurdism are a common topic in Wes Anderson’s cinematography. In this movie, I love how subtle the comedy is. It’s almost like a “Nothing makes sense, what else can we do but observe and go through it”, which sounds depressing, but it is ironic. If nothing makes sense and we have no power over things, maybe we can take that opportunity to laugh at how ridiculous it would be to worry about it. 

This movie is absurdist because the more the characters try to find order and an explanation, the more conflicted they become. Not only that but one of the main characters, Augie, accepts humans are doomed and how absurd everything is. For example, when he explained he is an atheist but used to be religious; or when he told his daughters they will eventually grow out of their Episcopalian beliefs, and probably go through the same thought process he did. 

How does Absurdism differ from Existentialism?

Existentialism and Absurdism are very similar, but they differ on one thing. Existentialism ends on a positive note. No matter how meaningless everything is, one is free to choose any meaning and therefore make life meaningful. However, 

Absurdism doesn’t end on a depressive hopeless tone, but it rather accepts that we are condemned to a meaningless unexplainable life. Even looking for meaning is purposeless. Eventually, we will all die, and we don’t know if we will transcend. Absurdism doesn’t believe in transcendence and there is no order given to us by a bigger cause. Therefore, nothing makes sense, and trying to give sense to things, only makes it more pointless because we’d be forcing a meaning where it doesn’t belong. 

In the movie, Midge Campbell never looked for meaning. Her only meaning was being the best actress, poetic, a star, and outstanding in acting. When the alien arrived on Earth, it was not shocking to her. Her priority kept being able to portray a suicidal character. 

For mostly everyone, the alien event was surprising because humans tend to attribute meaning to the beyond, the universe, or the cosmos. Humans look for a universal order as a perception of importance to the unknown. When we face the unknown, we experience fear and a way of calming it down is through attributing importance to it, but it’s fake because it is not relevant, it is rather something insignificant that happened, something propelled by luck.

For June, she thought it was important to teach her students and for them to follow her lessons. Although, there was a kid who didn’t behave or follow her instructions, who would leave and go sing with Country musicians. She tried hard to give her lessons and make her students pay attention, but it seems her lessons are not important anymore because the kids are not paying attention, their attention drifted toward the alien situation, and she can’t explain it to them fully because she is also confused. She struggles to give relevance to her lessons, and it could be considered as absurd because, just like her, the children are learning empirically after seeing an alien from an unknown world. 

Augie knows how absurd everything is, he takes pictures, he photographed the alien, and he is aware everything is absurd because he dares to take pictures of anyone, even Midge Campbell, without asking for consent. When Midge Campbell got angry and said he never asked for her permission, he answered he never asks for permission. Ultimately, he understands nothing makes sense and the only thing he can do is something with his time while he has it; perhaps taking pictures while he is alive. For example, when she’s in the shower, he asked for her approval. Absurdism is also prevalent when Augie observes other characters’ different religious beliefs, like his son, his father-in-law, and Midge Campbell.  

All the intellectual teenagers and scientists, look at the alien and think it is important, they observed the rock and questioned why it was there. If it came from beyond, why did he leave it there? Does it contain toxic chemicals? Nonetheless, the alien only came back for it and gave it a series number. This is Anderson’s ironic and funny Absurdism. All the characters tried to understand the unknown, furthermore, if it came from an uncertain location. It is hilarious and absurd to the point the alien smiled while being photographed and continued with his journey trying to leave unnoticed. 

Stanley went there for his grandkids, his son-in-law, and for his daughter’s ashes. He is religious and religion is the look for meaning. At last, he realized his family doesn’t share the same beliefs as him. He is left with no choice but to accept they can believe in whatever they want. Stanley is not an absurdist, but We Anderson uses him as a figure who tries to look for meaning and ends up being pointless because he can never access the absolute truth.

The most absurd thing is the play with Schubert, Conrad, Augie, and Stanley which tries to tell the same story. No matter how much humans try to tell a story with meaning, our stories are only important to ourselves and our ego. We want to stay relevant, thereof we desperately tell what we’ve lived or what happened to us, so it doesn’t get forgotten. For our human perception, if our experiences go to oblivion, they will lose meaning. We want to tell our stories to satisfy the need for feeling important, but they were never that important. Overall, everything will fade and go into oblivion.