The Evolution of Existentialist Ideas in Michel Houellebecq's Work and Film Adaptations of His Prose

The article analyzes the films based on the novels and essays by the modern French writer and poet Michel Houellebecq. This article shows what transformations occur when translating Houellebecq's prose into the film language. The author compares the plots of the literary sources and their adaptations (in particular, finales) focusing on the directorial techniques of transferring literary images into the screen space and discusses the factors that determine the tendency of softening Houellebecq's rigidly pessimistic worldview by strengthening the melodramatic component of the story and introducing optimistic motifs into the finales of their films.