A DANGEROUS METHOD IS THE MOST INTELLECTUAL FILM OF THE YEAR
Sigmund Freud (played by Viggo Mortensen) and Carl Jung (played by Michael Fassbender) debate but have private lives, too, in A Dangerous Method. Accordingly, the biopic would be incomplete without attention to Sabina Spielrein (played by Keira Knightley), who graduates from patient of Jung, even providing some kinky therapy for and from him, to become psychiatrist in her own right. Her life story indeed drives the film, which poses a profound question on which psychiatrists differ even today: Should the psychiatrist help the patient to achieve self-understanding, as Freud would, or go on, in Jung’s view, to help the patient in achieving life goals that could not otherwise be reached without therapy? Other questions are posed as well, such as whether a therapist should have sex with a sexually troubled patient, though Jung appears to have won the argument, with Sabina’s transformation as evidence. The film ends with long titles, indicating what happened subsequently in all three lives. A truly intellectual film, director David Cronenberg has provided film for thought. However, reading the book A Most Dangerous Method (1993) by John Kerr will provide more time to put the book down and think. MH