This offbeat comedy-thriller essentially concerns discontent and materialism. In its plot of one man driven to distraction and then madness by his obsessive conflict with a rat, it is an assessment of everyman’s re-appraisal of priorities. In the yuppie era of the 1980s where the home was an investment as much as the proverbial castle, Weller’s obsession mirrors his growing disenchantment with his own value system. If his struggle with the rat is a primal one of survival and triumph over an adversary, then it also forces him to realize that his values are merely a façade. It is only through this proverbial descent into madness that he can emerge a purged man no longer valuing material success. The house that once meant everything is ultimately unimportant. The film’s great irony is this equation between psychological breakdown and the awareness of a deep-seeded discontent with modern materialism. In madness is insight. The rat is merely the means through which he can confront his own emptiness – a role for which the droll, emotionless Weller is perfectly cast. Thus, the importance of discontent in this case is the subsequent symbolic obliteration and refocusing of the self through adversarial conflict. The element of the Absurd is in the systematic destruction of the house and all it represents, and its humor in Weller’s mounting obsession and uncontrollable rage.
Unlike most defeatist Absurdist traps however, Of Unknown Origin moves towards the protagonist’s moment of triumph and redefinition. Weller may be established as the consummate, dispassionate yuppie professional but rather than flounder in this inhumanity, director Cosmatos delights in its deliberate erosion as psychological breakdown mirrors the surfacing of an irrepressible, innate and purgative Thanatosian desire. In a film about the breakdown of order, the humor is essential, measured and deliberate: the transformation in Weller’s character (in look and attitude) being most engaging as a character study. As he begins talking to himself and the rat, it is clear just how much of a symbolic internal struggle this represents. It is almost a lesson in humility for Weller and of course one of cinema’s more amusing puns on the notion of the “rat race” as an American version of the human condition in the so-called “me generation”. The point of Weller’s pride, his house, is gradually reduced to something approaching rubble and it is a significant moment when he chooses to destroy a vase that has somehow eluded the destruction. The plight of a man driven to demolish all that he most values is the psychodrama to which this film both aspires and achieves. As both a comedic and despairing study of such discontent, the film is unique in the genre, fully deserving of critical re-appraisal. read more