"Never repress anything"

A Dangerous Method   10/02/12

Director: David Cronenberg

Writers: Christopher Hampton (Screenplay), John Kerr (Book)

2012

Cronenberg delivers us in to the past with a jolt, and we see Keira Knightley acting hysterically. The fact that she is actually doing some acting is a nice relief from her stood looking pretty while pirates run around, even if I did find myself thinking it was a little contrived. To her credit, Knightley damn near pops her own jaw out of her socket while she contorts her face, depicting Sabina Speilrein who comes under the care of Carl Jung. He is played by Michael Fassbender, in juxtaposition to his patient he appears passive, intellectual and professional. Jung has been searching for a patient whom he can treat according to Freud’s theories and Sabina looks a likely candidate. Unfortunately he has to take a break for mandatory military service as a doctor, however this gives us chance to see more traditional, less understanding and more brutal treatment of Sabina. She makes no progress.

            Although his patient is reluctant upon Jung’s return, he finds her a job as his research assistant. Strangely performing research (through word association) on his wife, Jung sees Sabina’s flair for his work as she provides insights in to his unhappy marriage which is expecting a child. Jung and Sabina continue their analyst/patient relationship, and in their sessions we get an interesting idiosyncratic shot; Jung used to sit behind his patient in sessions to avoid distracting them, and this enables Cronenberg to have a two-shot where we see Knightley and Fassbender’s reactions fully. He can cut to a close-up of Fassbender and then to his P.O.V and back to the two-shot rather seamlessly and this helps the flow of such scenes, absorbs us in it, and it makes it more tempting for the audience to analyse Sabina along with Jung. We learn that her problems stem from physical punishment by her father and that along with that came sexual masochism.

            Jung goes to meet his hero; Sigmund Freud (Viggo Mortensen). They discuss Sabina, their profession, Jung’s dreams, in a conversation that lasts 13 hours. Freud believes that their approach to psychology will still be opposed in 100 years. Despite their friendship and many shared views Jung disagrees with Freud’s adherence to a solely sexual interpretation of the mind and this troubles their relationship.

            Meanwhile, encouraged by a fellow analyst and patient, Jung facilitates Sabina’s wish of gaining sexual experience in order to gain a better understanding of her new Psychoanalytical studies. They begin a relationship blending sex and therapy. It is not a well kept secret.

            The rest of the film is an exploration of Jung’s relationships with these two people. Will he agree with Freud that it is better to stick to a sexual interpretation than risk criticism by sceptics? Will he continue his affair with Sabina? Despite these issues there remains a lack of conflict in the film and I found myself losing interest.

            In some ways the subject of psycho analysis being such a large theme of the film encourages the audience to engage with the characters’ minds and essentially analyse them and the film’s subtext. Yet there is also a voyeurism which comes with seeing private therapy sessions and thoughts displayed, as well as the sex scenes between Fassbender and Knightley, and I think this removed me from the characters slightly. This is a very dialogue heavy film. It is well written and you find that one conversation follows another, despite being in a different scene and time, and this is how we get the film’s plot. Characters discuss themselves and relationships on therapy, with others or even their partners, but there is little emotionally content to the conversations.

It is all analysis rather than conflict. While I think this is representative of real life (conversations and consideration of events is more significant in moulding a life than big events) it makes quite plain material for a film. It was intriguing and at times absorbing, however this is not a film I would recommend for the cinema, it is not much of an experience. This is a film that you must analyse and actively engage in to get the most out of it, but even then I wonder how much it has to offer. However it is well executed and convincing, the three lead actors did well and Vincent Cassel’s all too brief role livened things up.