A Dangerous Method

directed by David Cronenberg, (2011)

Last night I went to see A Dangerous Method.  I was quite excited and full of anticipation since it's a Cronenberg joint with a star studded cast: Michael Fassbender as Carl Jung, Viggo Mortensen as Sigmund Freud, also Kiera Knightley, and Vincent Cassel as mental patients who are more than the usually portrayed gibbering idiots.

It wasn't what I expected.  Actually it sort of was what I expected, because the trailer makes it look like a gothic romance with Knightly's Sabina Speilrein as the prize in a pissing contest between the two doctors, and I wasn't far off.

 

More accurate, it wasn't what I hoped.  A romantic triangle develops. Sabina's Choice?  Gone With The Psychiatrist? There's Something About Psychotherapy?  It mainly focuses on the interpersonal relationships of Jung to his patient/student/colleague/lover Speilrein, with some dramatic exposition between him and Otto Gross, (Vincent Cassel), another psychiatrist who becomes his patient.  I was more interested in the relationship between Jung and Freud, and that is shown, but mostly the gradual deterioration from mutual admiration to animosity that developed between them.  I was hoping it was all about the dangerous method - the how and why to the development of the ideas behind psychoanalysis.  But instead of that I got a lot of shrieking Kiera Knightley.  I didn't like her performance much, at least not her bony gaunt face grimacing with over the top madness.  I mean, sure you can depict the ugly reality of psychosis or delusion, obsession etc, but what was shown seemed so phony and affected.  I found it hard to square what I watched with my real life interactions with people who have mental illness.  Perhaps I haven't been around enough crazy people.

What did I like?  I liked how Jung made fun of Freud for interpreting everything in sexual terms.  I liked how Freud is petty and wanting to maintain his power and authority.  I liked how Freud was jealous.  The humanisation of him was interesting, but there definitely felt like there was a simplistic castigation of him and a simultaneous elevation of Jungian ideals.  Dinosaur Freud being evolved out of relevance by the more spiritually minded questing and robustly lusty mammalian Jung upstart.


After reading this article, I'm even more disappointed in the flick.

The importance of Sabina Speilrein was alluded to, but not explicated, in fact exploited would be more accurate, because not much is known of her intimate relations with Jung.  The details of their possible sexual and romantic exploits are completely imagined, yet most people who watch this flick will take what they see as fact.  In truth, I'm kind of appalled at how her story has been ransacked and prostituted as a literary device in service of titillation.

Also on the do not want side, Viggo Mortensen had a ridiculous nose appendage, a Jewish schnozz, that looked absolutely fako, and Kiera's accent sounded like Ver iz Sqverel, Rocky and Bullwinkle, Natasha.

Finally, I think Fassbender did a better job in Shame.  I think his role in that was more nuanced, difficult and challenging than this one.