alienation as defined by:
1. a turning away; estrangement
Film : The Wall
The film “The Wall” illustrates another example of alienation through the means of estrangement.
The main character in this film, Pink, is a rockstar who is presented to us as a person who is in a depressive and emotional state. Through the course of the movie we are made to understand the reason for his depression and his withdrawal from a healthy lifestyle. As a child, Pink grows up without his father, who has been killed in WWII. He is traumatized by this loss, and has a difficult childhood. He has trouble at school with teachers that do not understand him and ridicule from his peers at a young age. His mother is presented to us very overprotective and he seems to lead a lonely childhood. Pink’s marriage falls apart, and the torment of his wife being with someone else intensifies his loneliness and despair. That mixed with the intensity of his fame as a musician prove to be too much for him to handle emotionally. He retreats into himself, becoming irrational and self damaging, as well as violent. His substance abuse pushes him further over the edge, threatening his life, and his sanity. Although there may be many external factors which contribute to Pink’s alienation and his loss of control over his life; it is ultimately his depression which leads him to deny the outside world and to become lost in his inner turmoil. Pink fails to turn to others for help, and becomes lost in his hallucinatory fantasy of his history and inner turmoil. Through his voluntary estrangement, Pink creates and experiences a frightening and devastating alternate reality with leads to his mental breakdown, and his complete alienation from the outside world.