Framing Fearful Symmetry

Abstract This article examines the theme of duality in the films of Agnieszka Smoczyńska (b. 1978), focusing on her acclaimed feature short Aria Diva (2007) and the sophomore feature Fugue (2018). Contrary to the established view of her oeuvre, Smoczyńska's female doubles do not merely embody the contrast between the socialized and rebellious strategies of engaging with the patriarchal social order. Aided by Lacanian and post-Lacanian psychoanalytical theories, I suggest that in her films, the manifest doubling often hides a latent one—such as the disembodied voice in Aria Diva and the spectral nature of the dual protagonist in Fugue—that problematizes both the above binary and the emancipatory ethics typically ascribed to Smoczyńska's cinema. Through her intricate use of the theme of duality, the director invites us to probe the symbolic and affective attachments that anchor us in social reality. However, the goal is not to sever them in a radical gesture of rejection à la Ibsen's Nora, but to find creative and liberating ways of reconfiguring them so as to restore the individual's sense of agency. From this perspective, the figure of the double ceases to be a portent of symbolic death and becomes an invitation to play an active part in forging one's identity.