Eurydice In Zimmerman's Metamorphoses
Mal acts in parallel to Eurydice, as both Cobb and an audience perceive her as a live person. However, through the progression of the film, a viewer recognizes Mal as a projection of Cobb’s subconscious. She has died in reality, yet the “unconscious is ignorant of death” (Johnston 39). Mal only follows him in dreams because Cobb, on a subconscious level, has told her to. This intersects with the final moments of Orpheus and Eurydice in Metamorphoses. Zimmerman draws upon Rilke’s poem in order to give agency and a voice to the typically silent Eurydice. Narrator Two states: She was no longer that woman with brown eyes who once had echoed through the poet’s songs, no longer the wide couch’s scent and island, and that man’s property no longer