I know most of the fandom is enthralled by how the relationship between Andrey and Goncharov develops (and I am too! it's a beautiful film, with a compelling power dynamic!), but I really think we need to talk more about Ice Pick Joe.
and more specifically, we've gotta talk about his ice pick, and how he uses it.
it's implied that he's killed a lot of people with that ice pick, but only one of those deaths is shown in the film. it's a hard scene to watch, and some people might want to skip over it, but I think the brutality is part of the point. there's a reason that it's played out with such excruciating detail.
see, ice picks are used as weapons all the time in movies, usually with a stab to the throat or ear, leading to a quick but bloody death. but in Goncharov, the scene is played out slowly, with Joe tying Amarro to a chair before almost carefully putting the pick through his eye socket.
sound familiar to anyone? it should. for a lot of reasons.
Amarro Fiamberti was the name of the first psychiatrist to ever perform a transorbital lobotomy. it was only due to his research that Walter Freeman was able to come up with his own lobotomy technique: one involving an ice pick.
Walter Freeman died in 1972, just months before Goncharov went into production.
and then there's the fact that Joe's ice pick is stolen (where did you steal it from, Joe? from whose operating table?) and the implications that he has his own struggles with mental health (the mention of his sister's murder, the humor he uses as a coping mechanism, the camera angles that give a sense of unreality to any scenes that are from his perspective).
I don't think any of that is an accident or a coincidence.
in my opinion, Ice Pick Joe's story is a tale of revenge - not against someone who wronged him, but against a medical procedure that wronged thousands of people.
and murderer though he may be, he's still my favorite character.
