영화 < 니키타 > 에 나타난 강요된 선택과 욕망의 윤리학 = Forced Choice and the Ethics of Desire in Luc Besson`s La Femme Nikita

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

The dominant modes of contemporary criticism seem to operate basically on the assumption that the human subject is the one who is subjected to and (over)determined by the Other. He or she assumes specific subject positions in a particular hegemonic formation of ideologies at any given historical moment. If we, however, push the premise to its limit, it betrays its own deadlock. One cannot account for human agency and freedom with the notion of subjectivity. The problem was inherent in Louis Althusser when he introduced his highly influential notion of interpellation. That is why Terry Eagleton points out that Althusser misread and simplified Jacques Lacan`s theory of the subject (216). It is in this context that we pay attention to Luc Besson`s film, La Femme Nikita. Are human beings only constituted by power and ideologies? Does the human subject have a creative power to transform the established culture? If so, is it subversive? Nikita provides crucial insights into these questions by exploring the critical problems of subjectively and desire. It shows that the birth of the subject leads to subjection and alienation, but, at the same time, it does not forget that this process of interpellation necessarily entails the desire to transcend them. The film then suggests the subversive possibility of the subject`s ethical act that breaks up with fantasy and satisfies his or her persistent desire to go beyond the order of power.