Definition of mise en abyme : placement at the escutcheon's center: depiction of the escutcheon itself within an escutcheon: image within an image: story within a story.
In one scene in the film Thottapan, a brawl happened while they’re watching a movie in a theater. After they finished with it, they sat back down and continue with the movie.
The screen is showing the protagonist grabbing a coin from the air and looking through it. In the next scene, he looks through that coin towards the characters of Thottapan.
At the same time, we also watching them through his pov. And Thottapan characters are watching us!
It is us watching a film of them watching a film. Then the film they’re watching, are watching them.
Film within a film within a film. It puts us in the middle between two mirrors. Into the abyss.
Mise en abyme.
That is a term used by Dibyendu Mrugaraj upon the observation of the 3 minutes film, Artaud Double Bill, made in 2007 by Atom Egoyan. The film’s two protagonists watching different film in two separate cinema yet shares the video stream of them to each other through handphones.
Which leads to commentary about the modern culture of the internet. Where the majority of us possess a persona in a type of an abyss itself. We need not wait for ‘multiverse’ or ‘metaverse’ to arrive. It is already within us.
The transition happens so slowly it is almost unnoticed until it is too late. They somehow knew humans will resist any sudden and abrupt changes. But that is for another topic, another day.
