Friday, February 3, 2012

A Dangerous Method


Director David Cronenberg has been known for making daring and very grotesque films. However lately he has been making less shocking films.
It sometimes happens that I do not know much about a film before I see it. All I knew about this film before I saw it was the cast and a basic plot. I see a lot of films and so I see lots of trailers and so I get to know some films before I see them. It is sometimes refreshing to see a film without knowing much about it.
Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung are two names you hear when people talk about psychiatry. They are the pioneers of what we consider modern psychiatric health. But how much do we really know about the men themselves. This film does not delve much into their full life story but it does explore the men a bit and tells a part of their lives that is quite fascinating. It looks at the relationship they had with the woman, Sabina Spielrein. Jung was a man who admired Freud's methods and decided to use them to treat Spielrein. The Jung/Spielrein relationship is interesting and fraught with many salacious details which make the film very entertaining. This might be why psychiatrist don't get involved with their patients.
Keira Knightley has had a varied career. Not all her roles have been that great and she does not always give a great performance. I think that this one is her best. At the beginning of the film she gives such an emotionally raw performance that she is simply amazing. Both Michael Fassbender and Viggo Mortensen give very understated performances. That suits the role as they are playing characters who are analytical in their behaviour. Michael though gets the chance to be more emotional with his character. Vincent Cassel is wonderful as a crazy character who enters the story to spice things up a bit.
We hear the names Freud and Jung used in TV shows and movies when there is a psychiatrist character. We now get to see who these men are in an excellent film that looks at an interesting chapter in their lives.

No comments:

Post a Comment