Exploration of Human Nature from the Perspective of Psychoanalytic Film Theory --A Brief Analysis of the Film "Dogman"

Abstract

Since entering the field of film research in the 1970s, psychoanalytic film theory has gradually developed into an important meth
odology for film and television criticism. This theory compares the viewing subject to the dreaming subject, providing a methodological tool
for understanding the unconscious operation in film narratives. This paper takes Lacan's mirror stage theory as the core framework, combined
with Metz's psychoanalytic film theory, to analyze the self-identity crisis and its transcendence of the protagonist Douglas in Luc Besson's
"Dogman". The study found that Douglas' growth process presents a path of spiritual evolution, which is the unconscious psychology embod
ied in the humanistic self-exploration after childhood trauma hidden beneath the surface of the film's images. The film thus reveals that the so
called "self-exploration" is not about retrieving some kind of authentic existence, but a process of reconciling with desire amid trauma and
fragmentation. "Dogman", through psychoanalytic image writing, completes a profound inquiry into the self-construction mechanism deep
within human nature.