#10
Post
by therewillbeblus » Mon Apr 06, 2020 2:10 pm
Full disclosure: I wasn’t crazy about this the first time I watched it years ago because at the time it seemed to follow the Short Term 12 syndrome of a near-perfect representation of the milieu of residential treatment with exaggerated dramatics that left a bitter taste in my mouth. While that modern film continues to frustrates me, a revisit of this one was a monumental improvement. Once I was able to get on its wavelength the dynamics rang true in placing the very real countertransference between clinical worker and patient into a cinematic dramatic narrative without losing the authenticity of the issue being explored.
The performances and script meditate on details that provide magnetizing curiosity, psychologically drawing us to Seberg and the other patients, as well as Beatty who strikes me as a traumatized man craving connection but presenting as disconnected, a state that a part of him is fighting. The emotionally charged vicarious selfish justice that Larson commits in the 2012 film is so direct in belly-flopping into the artificiality of the movies that it feels out of step with the otherwise compelling narrative, while Beatty and Seberg’s relationship grows naturally, and the photography and sound design plant us intimately close with them, admiring the quirks and subtle attractions, reminding us of something honest and real without a power differential - which is key to respecting what this film is doing.
The film casts a light on Beatty as the primary character study of dysfunctional behavior and thought patterns, and Rossen has the audacity to dictate the fine line between the hospitalized patients and the “normal” people on the outside, who have just a few more skills to cope with their brokenness in socially appropriate ways. Lilith arguably has more self-regulation skills to remain feeling free as she’s trapped in an institution, while Beatty requires co-regulation from his role in a job being told what to do, other people to latch onto, and escapism into suppression. The argument that those in these settings have more resilience than those on the outside has only recently been theorized and this film is way ahead of its time on professing that view. The conversation about insanity and unhappiness as synonymous is interesting and Beatty’s defensive stance only cements his inability to cope with insight while the patients can.
The raw emotionally-driven interactions carry an internal logic that is also extraordinarily bold for the time. The way Walter offers herself to Beatty through the reason that she’s married but to another man is so bizarre and yet the performances elicit a desperate clawing at how to express the need to connect and make sense of ineffable drives. Her standing over his avoidant slumped flat affect makes her seem like the caretaker for his patient, though even in this physical and communication power differential, both are crushed. As Beatty finds the one place where he can exert such power by blending into a professional role, he continues to divert from his own development of growth. Lilith asks him early on why he does this for a job when he could do anything, a question he doesn’t have an answer to, but nobody goes into the human services field without a very personal reason, conscious or not, and Rossen swarms us in a field of questions via dizzied atmosphere of role fluidity, which is the right way to approach this subject.
I’m so glad I revisited this one- it’s made a complete reverse and ascended in my esteem to being one of Indicator’s best releases, and one of my favorite films on the subject of institutional psychological treatment, because of the fearlessness in tackling taboo realities while cautiously disengaging from offensively overcooking the dramatics into a faulty attempt at catharsis via self-gratifying indulgence as so many lesser films have done.
