FILMS, VIDEO'S
(with/about dissociative phenomena a.o. mental or personality
disorders)
MAY 33rd (Guy Hibbert) (2004) Directed by David Attwood for BBC ONE.
In Guy Hibbert's film May 33rd, Lia Williams stars as Ella, a young woman whose disturbing and tortured upbringing forces her into a living nightmare.The film is an exploration of the consequences of repeated ritual abuse as seen through the eyes of a young woman whose personality has fragmented into five different people. A fictional drama based on extensive research. While trying to escape her family - a small group of relatives and their friends who have abused her since childhood - Ella visits an osteopath to relieve the pains in her body. When Edward (Soren Byder) applies pressure to certain parts of Ella's body, it triggers her into different personalities. Through Ella and her other identities the drama explores the chilling and shocking condition Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), formerly known as Multiple Personality Disorder, which is a condition associated with ritual abuse.
Writer Guy Hibbert says: "I learnt of the condition of Dissociative Identity Disorder and the real life cases of young women from all over the UK who had suffered from it as a result of ritual abuse. "The research led me to professionals working in this field and the victims of this horrific cruelty."
He continues: "One of my reasons for writing this drama is to encourage a greater understanding of both the condition of Dissociative Identity Disorder and its causes.
"Through my research I discovered that because these causes are so cruel, society prefers to disbelieve the victims because it cannot cope with the truth." (DISSOCIATIVE IDENTITY DISORDER)
A
BEAUTIFUL MIND (Ron Howard)
with Russel Crowe (2002)
In A Beautiful Mind - Russell Crowe portrays real-life Nobel
Prize-winning mathematician John Nash. He delivers a thoughtful,
measured and moving performance directed by Ron Howard.
Nash was a student in 1947 reading mathematics at Princeton
University. He delivered a paper on game theory (the mathematics
of competition) that overthrew the accepted ideas about
economics, only for his mind to later succumb to what was
then diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenia. Nash, with the
considerable help and forbearance of wife Alicia (Jennifer
Connolly), fought his disease and continued his mathematical
work (still teaching even by the age of 73). He won the
Nobel Prize in 1994. As a testament to the high heritability
of schizophrenia his son, also a mathematician, reportedly
had schizophrenia. The latter point is not mentioned in
the film. (SCHIZOPHRENIA)
THE MAN WITHOUT A PAST ( Aki Kaurismäki)
with Markku Peltola, Kati Outinen (2002)
The spare and quirky comedy of Finnish auteur Aki Kaurismaki is in delightful form in The Man Without a Past. A man (Markku Peltola) awakens after a brutal mugging with no memory; he wanders into the outskirts of Helsinki with his face wrapped like an escapee from a classic horror film. A destitute family helps nurse him back to health and a Salvation Army worker named Irma (Kati Outinen) helps him get a job. Though bureaucrats and policemen who can't seem to cope with this amnesiac's lack of established identity, the amnesiac plants potatoes, manages a rock & roll band, and romances Irma as he builds a new self. Kaurismaki weaves his movies out of small details and careful, cautious steps forward--but by the end, The Man Without a Past has become a rich, engrossing, and very funny portrait of the possibilities of life. (MEMORY LOSS)
MEMENTO
(Christopher Nolan) with Guy Pearce (2001) Leonard Shelby is a man who cannot remember. Quite
literally -- his brain, due to head trauma Leonard sustained
during a break-in in his home, cannot create new memories.
His wife is dead, and he is searching, through a system
of notes and photographs, for her killer. And that's all
I can say about Memento without ruining the whole experience
for anyone who wants to see it...and that would be a damned
shame, since this is one of the most incredible films produced
in a long, long time. Well, that's not -all- I can say.
I can say that Guy Pearce is excellent in this; as good
as he was in LA Confidential. He does a fantastic job of
keeping the viewer's attention and sympathy all the way
through the film; he makes you care about the character.
He takes what was a very difficult role and pulls it off
beautifully -- he portrays the mix of purposeful patience
and frantic urgency of a man who desperately needs to -remember-
and will never be able to. The fragmented technique is one
that rarely works...but in Memento, it fosters the atmosphere
of a puzzle -- a mystery that we see as an investigator
might see. When the movie starts, we know what happens at
the end. We have no idea how or why it happened. I can also
say that although this movie can be very confusing at times,
it is never distracting or unpleasant. (SHORT-TERM
MEMORY LOSS)
MULHOLLAND DRIVE
(David Lynch) with Naomi Watts, Laura Harring ... (2001) Pandora couldn't resist opening the forbidden box containing all the delusions of mankind, and let's just say David Lynch, in Mulholland Drive, indulges a similar impulse. Employing a familiar film noir atmosphere to unravel, as he coyly puts it, "a love story in the city of dreams," Lynch establishes a foreboding but playful narrative in the film's first half before subsuming all of Los Angeles and its corrupt ambitions into his voyeuristic universe of desire. Identities exchange, amnesia proliferates, and nightmare visions are induced, but not before we've become enthralled by the film's two main characters: the dazed and sullen femme fatale, Rita (Laura Elena Harring), and the pert blonde just-arrived from Ontario (played exquisitely by Naomi Watts) who decides to help Rita regain her memory. Triggered by a rapturous Spanish-language version of Roy Orbison's "Crying," Lynch's best film since Blue Velvet splits glowingly into two equally compelling parts. (D.I.D., MEMORY LOSS)
ClOSET
LAND (1991) with Madeleine Stowe, Alan Rickman; Director:
Radha Bharadwaj
This film is an incredibly accurate portrayal of the severity
of childhood sexual abuse. From the very beginning of the
movie I thought, "This man is a child abuser toying
with this woman for sadistic fun or punishment", and
then he said, "You can do anything with a child as
long as you play with them". He continued to show awareness
that his prisoner had been sexually abused and make references
to her as a child. Closet Land is where this woman escaped
to during the abuse she endured as a child. When I was a
child I had imaginary worlds to go to also. This aspect
of the movie was very accurate.Alan Rickman is an incredible
actor. His skill enables him to play the part of an abuser
frighteningly well (at least in my experience). Madeleine
Stowe plays the part of a child abuse survivor/political
prisoner equally as realistic and powerful.
This is a very important movie if it is viewed as a way
to understand abuse and torture, and not as a way to indulge
in sadistic fantasy. It is rare to see such an accurate
depiction of the experience of abuse. The movie was tastefully
done. All of the torture was alluded to; none of it was
shown. I do not necessarily recommend this movie
to abuse/torture survivors. It is extremely triggering,
and the insinuation of the torture could evoke vivid, personal
memories. (CHILD ABUSE) (buy
vhs at amazon.com - only in NTSC!)
GIRL,
INTERRUPTED by James Mangold (2000)
Set in the changing world of the late 1960s, GIRL, INTERRUPTED
is the searing true story of Susanna Kaysen a young woman
who finds herself at a renowned mental institution for troubled
young women, where she must choose between the world of
people who belong on the inside-like the seductive and dangerous
Lisa - or the often difficult world of reality on the outside.
(BORDERLINE)
SHATTERED (Wolfgang Petersen) with Tom Berenger, Bob Hoskins (1991)
Tom Berenger stars as an amnesic victim of an automobile accident who tries to reconstruct his life. Berenger's diagnosis is announced as "psychogenic amnesia", because it covers only his personal life, not impersonal memories, but of course organic amnesia also dissociates episodic and semantic/procedural memory. Later in the movie, Berenger experiences some recovery of memory, but that also occurs in traumatic retrograde amnesia following a concussive blow to the head. One interesting feature of the film are the efforts of Berenger's wife (Greta Scacchi) to help him relearn his past history. This succeeds, to some extent, but they seem to have the qualities of "second-hand", semantic memories.(MEMORY LOSS)
I
ONLY WANT YOU TO LOVE ME Directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder
1976
Stark, disturbing chronicle of Peter (Zeplichal), a troubled
young man who has been desperately seeking his parents'
love and approval. With his new wife, he attempts to start
a new life- which will prove to be much more difficult than
he realizes. "Lack of parental love, a subject close
to Fassbinder's own experience, is the theme of one of his
most poignant and realist works, based on a true account..."
(ATTACHMENT)
MARNIE
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock (1964)
Hitchcock's most liberated and poetic film, MARNIE is a
masterpiece of psychological mystery that encompasses all
of the director's obsessions--the unleashing of suppressed
female sexuality, duplicitous personalities and false identities,
childhood trauma leading to a disturbed and warped reality
in adulthood. Its characters are possessed by psychological
demons similar to those in VERTIGO or PSYCHO. Hedren plays
a kleptomaniac whose compulsion to steal springs from her
need to be loved. Using various identities and disguises,
she moves from one job to the next, each time running off
with a cache of cash and leaving behind no clues. Connery,
a business associate of one of Marnie's previous victims,
recognizes Marnie when she comes to work for him, and confronts
her with his information. Rather than turn her in, however,
Mark blackmails her into marriage--discovering her deep-seated
fears of men, sex, thunderstorms, and the color red. (PTSD)
FESTEN
Thomas Vinterberg Een Deense film. In zijn riante hotel
heeft een succesvolle zakenman al zijn vrienden en familie
uitgenodigd om op grootse wijze zijn 60ste verjaardag te
vieren. Alleen zijn zoon Michael is niet welkom, omdat deze
niet op de begrafenis is geweest van zijn zus Linda, die
zelfmoord heeft gepleegd. Zijn andere zoon Christian houdt
een toespraak, maar als hij tegen het glas tikt om aandacht
te vragen, wordt het gezelschap geconfronteerd met een dramatische
onthulling... (INCEST - ONTKENNING)
FIGHT
CLUB met Brad Pitt en Edward Norton
Jack (Norton) - een verzekeringinspecteur
die aan chronische slapeloosheid lijdt - probeert wanhopig
uit zijn supersaaie bestaan te ontsnappen. Bij toeval ontmoet
hij Tyler Durden (Pitt), een charismatische zeepverkoper
met een bizarre levensfilosofie. Tyler gelooft namelijk
dat 'zelfverbetering' enkel voor de zwakken is, het is 'zelfvernieling'
dat het leven meer waarde geeft. Samen met Tyler organiseert
Jack de ultieme vorm van ontspanning: 'Fight Clubs', waar
gewone jonge mannen het beest in zichzelf loslaten in blote
vuist-gevechten. Het bevrijdend effect op de deelnemende
mannen doet een vreemd soort kameraadschap ontstaan, die
al snel gevaarlijke vormen aanneemt.
(D.I.S.) Er komt veel geweld voor in deze film.
LOST
HIGHWAY met Regie en scenario van David Lynch (Twinpeaks)('96) Een gesloten wereld zonder vluchtwegen.
Jazzmuzikant Fred Madison verdenkt zijn vrouw Renee ervan
een verhouding te hebben. De buitenwereld ziet een steeds
-door jaloezie gedreven- waanzinniger wordende man. Dubbellevens,
D.I.S. - psychische aandoeningen, er zijn genoeg interpretaties
mogelijk, maar te verklaren is er niets. Er gebeuren dingen
die niet kunnen, niet in een wereld anders dan onze innerlijke
wereld. Lost highway doet een beroep op zintuigen en intuïtie,
niet zozeer op rationele vermogens. En op die manier moet
de film ook worden ondergaan. (Dissociatieve fenomenen)
SLEEPERS
by Barry Levinson (1996) "Sleepers," based
on the best-selling book by Lorenzo Carcaterra, is a provocative
story about events that abruptly end the childhood of four
boys and push them into a world of violence and abuse. A
decade and a half later, nothing can erase their painful
memories, but the lessons of Hell's Kitchen allow them to
even the score of the terrible hand that Fate had dealt
them. In their shocking retaliation, they are daringly aided
by a neighborhood priest and an aging, shadowy mob figure,
both of whom have known the quartet since their childhoods.
Film over 4 jongens die door cipiers worden misbruikt. Hoop
aandacht voor tijd van het misbruik, maar ook voor de gevolgen
voor de 4 in hun volwassen leven. Veel ontkenning, schaamte
en isolement. Uiteindelijk ook wraak. Cast met Kevin Bacon,
Brad Pitt, Robert de Niro en Dustin Hoffman.(SEXUAL
ABUSE - MALES)
WARRIORS
van Peter Kosminsky Britse televisiefilm over Britse militairen
die deelnemen aan een 'peacekeeping' -missie in Bosnië.
Ze worden geconfronteerd met de gevolgen van een barbaarse
burgeroorlog. En eenmaal weer terug in Engeland bij hun
verwerking met P.T.S.S. verschijnselen
Deze televisiefilm werd o.a. bekroond met twee BAFTA-awards.
(P.T.S.S.)