in the series Separation Apple TV+, directed by Ben Stiller, working isn’t just a way to make a living. It is also a way of defining identity. Which, of course, is not uncommon in today’s business world. What is unique and troubling is the possibility that the personality of work can be separated from the everyday. And not metaphorically, but through a medical procedure that splits the employee’s brain into two separate functions. In other words, to transform the employee into two people at the same time trapped in a single body. Both personalities, with often opposing goals, inclinations and desires.
Separation explores its bizarre premise with nightmarish coldness. The Innnies, the worker personality from the procedural, spend hours in the offices. Programmed to repeat tasks without complaining or worrying. Loving the routine and having the feeling that working— until exhaustion — is a privilege to be enjoyed. On the other hand, the Outies or the rest of the individual who loves life outside the office, is a confused automaton. As much as the characters who go from place to place jostling with a cold happiness that terrifies with its sinister confused quality.
The Apple TV+ series approaches this double world between mirrors from the perception of an environment that inevitably recalls one of Kafka’s most claustrophobic stories. The whole atmosphere is polished, symmetrical, clean, so clear that any displaced element refers to a world that does not exist.
Lumen Industries , the setting for much of the argument, is an efficient prison that the Innies remain locked in for hours on end. Exhausting days which they enjoy without complaining or qualifying. In this corporate superstructure of Separation, work is a physical condition. It defines, supports and elaborates a look at who we are, ruthless and cared for.
The prison of labor Separation
Mark underwent the process after his wife’s death. And he did it with all the intention of getting in his “innie” a space of mental peace in the middle of the duel. The decision ended up shaking her perception of pain until it became something else. A kind of unpleasant and agonizing push towards a mental and emotional silence with hints of alienation on a large scale.
I am Bhumi Shah, a highly skilled digital marketer with over 11 years of experience in digital marketing and content writing in the tech industry.
