Serbis, Levinas, and Calasanz

by Ryan Racca

Levinas talked about the fear of alterity, the fear of otherness and in some way, it is also the fear of the unknown. Calasanz added to this in his discussion of the film Serbis and he said that the challenge is to keep moving on. The question there is this: but where? Alan, portrayed by Coco Martin, answered this in the film’s ending. He ran away from the Family movie house and into the unknown. The viewers of the film were left to think about where he went but the audience was left with this certainty: he ran away into the unknown.
The film maintained the theme of circles. Literally speaking, there were a lot of circular things in the film and figuratively speaking, the characters in the film were stuck in a loop. Levinas calls this the Law of the I and in it, one is stuck in a form of relating that is cyclical. It always goes back to itself and does not extend to the Other. The film’s characters were stuck in a vicious cycle of living a bohemian kind of life. To break the Law of the I, one has to experience a certain trauma and this shock comes from relating with the Other (as truly an Other). Here the Law of the Other comes in and in this way of relating, it is no longer cyclical. The title of the film is ironic in this sense. Serbis translates as an action of doing or helping the other but the film doesn’t portray the spirit of serbis (for the other). It portrays a Serbis to itself. The loop being repeatedly shown in the film may be likened to the i l ya. The loop prevents one from going out and much like in i l ya where the I does not assert it’s being an I. It is only in the appearance of the Other, a traumatic experience, that the I is shocked and brought out of itself into something else (taking up responsibility perhaps).

Sir Calasanz goes into the topic of the future, which possesses a nature of uncertainty. Future may entail disappointments and breakups and they will hurt. And the hurt will be normal. It’s what one does after the hurt. Then when one has decided to go beyond the hurt, one will be able to escape the loop. The film shows this breakaway when Alan decides to run away at the end of the film.


In the end of it all, one is called to escape the vicious loop. Breaking away from it is never easy nor painless. The Other beckons the I to go out and run. The future is full of uncertainty but letting oneself be trapped in the loop of things does no good. One must rise above this loop or this i l ya and into a being in service of Others.