Lenka Kořínková, H21358

KAA / MELI

Trauma in the film adaptation of

Jonathan Safran Foer’s book Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close:

The story is told through the perspective of Oscar, a remarkably perceptive, sensitive, and
intelligent boy. Unfortunately, Oscar experienced the death and loss of his father Thomas
Schell Jr. in the September 11th terrorist attacks on the world trade center. Oscar had a very
close relationship with his father. They had a shared passion for solving puzzles and
expeditions. Now, he is traumatized by his sudden passing.

Before his father died, he left some worrying phone messages. Oscar thinks he is the only
person who heard phone messages because being alone in the apartment. In order to prevent
anyone else from hearing the recorded messages, he bought a new phone and kept the old
answering machine hidden in his closet. It is the last secret Oscar shares with his beloved
father. However, he feels abandoned and hopeless most of the time. After a year of mourning,
he finds a key (in a pouch that says ‘Black’) in a blue vase that he broke into pieces
accidentally. He starts a ‘reconnaissance expedition no. 6’ to find the owner of the mysterious
key named Black, and in that way, he tries to cope with grief after his father’s death.

Oscar’s emotional trauma is manifested through flashbacks, hallucinations, and nightmares.

In the film, he is pinching his body and hurting himself permanently. It worsens when his
urgent quest for the lock to fit the key doesn’t go as planned. When Mr. Black, the owner of
the hidden key, speaks to Oscar, he reveals he has also been looking for the key. It belonged
to his late father, with whom he hadn’t had any close relationship but who left him this
mysterious key to a deposit box. Right after, Oscar unlocks the memories of him not picking
up the phone that tragic day. At that moment, he fully assimilates his memories of what
happened and expresses them verbally. Finally, he can continue living his life.

Of course, it doesn’t go unnoticed by his mother. Though Oscar perceives her status as
strangely inactive – on the contrary, she knows everything about what Oscar has been doing
so far. In my opinion, Oscar’s mother represents the theme of silence and loss of words. On
the one hand, she had to remain silent and let Oscar go on his expedition alone. Viewers know
that he is safe. She does not until he gets home. On the other hand, it seems that after her
husband’s death, she also was traumatized and left in shock. Another representative of this
world of silence is Oscar’s grandfather Thomas Schell Sr. He isn’t able to speak because of

1
 Lenka Kořínková, H21358
KAA / MELI

the trauma he experienced during the fire-bombing of Dresden. Being the survivor of the
Holocaust, he lost his entire family in the atrocities of World War II and his only child during
the September 11th terrorist attacks on the world trade center. Consequently, he suffers from
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and communicates only through written texts in his notebook
or by showing a hand with YES / NO. Oscar knows him only as ‘the renter’ who helps him
find the key owner. In the end, Oscar asks his grandfather in the letter to be part of the family
once and for all. Maybe Oscar believes he may now help him with his inability to express
anything orally.

While watching the film, I felt sad and directly exposed to traumatic events that the movie
characters had to experience. In trauma fiction and its film adaptation, the viewer witnesses
the trauma firsthand in the narrative. However, the death of thousands of people in the
September 11th terrorist attacks was something I remembered seeing on TV when I was
almost 13 years old. After 2001, in the lives of many people around the world, an emotional
trauma was inscribed. In the film, viewers are encouraged to grieve over someone gone
because being sad is ok. In this respect, today’s trauma theory helped legitimize
the importance of recovering traumatic memories in psychotherapy. Watching this movie was
also therapeutic for me. Moreover, I must subscribe to the fact that if viewers experience
trauma through emotion, they’ll be able to witness it with empathy.