In 2002 Parveen Adams, an academic who specializes in art/film/performance and psychoanalysis, argues that the flat texture of the movie, achieved through various cinematic devices, prevent the viewer from identifying with the characters in the way one might with a more mainstream movie. Instead of vicariously enjoying the sex and injury, the viewer finds himself a disimpassioned voyeur. Adams additionally notes that the scars borne by the characters are old and bloodless—in other words, the wounds lack vitality. The wound is "not traumatizing" but, rather, "a condition of our psychical and social life".