Fantasy, Desire and Sexuality:An Interview with Atom EgoyanJoe Daly, Jonnie Miller, Shauna Quilligan

Both films feature an overlapping relationship of desire and technology.

Chloe:

One of the characters is dumped by his girlfriend over webcam

David (Liam Neeson) communicates with students via instant messenger. An act that his wife is suspiscious of and spies on him.

Chloe takes a digital photo of another character while she sleeps then sends it to her. An example of how digital technologies can be intrusive and violating to privacy.

Adoration, features the main character exploring internet chatrooms and becoming part of online communities.

Egoyan investigates how the advances in communication technology have changed behaviour related to desire.

In Chloe it is the use of the mobile phone that Egoyan focuses on.

“you can have a conversation with someone and be present physically at the dinner and be furiously texting with someone else. That idea of having a parallel conversation quite effortlessly is just part of our reality and it wasn’t seven years ago” Atom Egoyan

The intrusive nature is demonstrated when Chloe takes a digital photo of another character, Catherine, whilst she sleeps then emails it to her. This shows how technology make people seem violated by it’s intrusive nature.

Adoration explores how the main character discovers online communities through chat rooms that could not exist in the physical world.

Adoration also suggest that technology can only help someones desires to a certain degree, as after the protagonist uses the online world to form relationship he becomes overwhelmed and has to resort to using the physical world again.