Lather. Rinse. Get Married. Be Unhappy. Repeat.

“‘Do you hate your husband?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Do you think you’ll get remarried?’ ‘Probably.’”

There are certainly allusions to existentialism in “Trust” (directed by Hal Hartley), and this interaction between Peg and Maria is one that struck me. I was mainly intrigued by the seemingly Sisyphean structure of Peg’s life: get married, be unhappy, get married, be unhappy. The same task until she dies; pushing the boulder of holy matrimony up the hill just to watch it roll right back down. Sure, she hasn’t gotten remarried yet, but Hatley presents marriage in a disapproving-enough way for the audience to infer that Peg will, indeed, be unhappy when she does.

Peg’s unhappiness, at first, seems to contrast “The Myth of Sisyphus,” despite the fact that the movie and the essay illustrate the same philosophy. Camus argues that Sisyphus is the happiest man alive, for he has accepted his fate and released the need for higher meaning in his life. Through this detachment, he has taken control over his punishment. Peg, on the other hand, is certainly not the happiest woman alive. She pushes up the boulder, and although it’s fun at first, she loses interest, becomes depressed, and lets it roll back with regretful disdain. Is there any way she could be happy with a task such as this?

To answer this question, we must first look at the task itself: marriage. It seems to be the cornerstone of a healthy society. It produces children and allows men and women to fall into convenient and productive roles. Hartley, however, depicts marriage differently. In his world, marriage changes people for the worst - most obviously portrayed in Matthew’s transformation to “boring and mean” soon after he proposes to Maria. Through Hartley’s lens, the idea that marriage is beautiful and healthy is societally fabricated. It is also, however, necessary if one would like to conform to social norms and live a quiet life. This is Peg’s dilemma: keep pushing the stone to keep the peace, or ditch it altogether, thus possibly declaring war on the ideals that envelope her? From the quote above, it seems as if she will keep pushing. Does this mean she will never achieve contentment?

If Peg lets go of the importance and accepts the inevitably melancholy end of her marriages, will she subsequently detach from the expectations imposed upon her? Or is believing that they will have a melancholy end the very thing that secures the fact that they will? Detachment may be the route that Hartley suggests we take, but perhaps a certain level of devotion to relationships is necessary to optimize the fulfillment we gain from them. Then again, devotion to a relationship is what got Matthew punched in the stomach by his father, Maria taken advantage of by the football player, and the woman at the bus stop time in a psychiatric ward. Perhaps donning Hartley’s lens simply means taking off the one constructed by the misguided ideals of our country.