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
THE LADY DEPICTS FAMILY LIFE AMID the POLITICAL STRUGGLE OF AUNG SAN SUU KYI
Fortuitously timed for release while Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was in Myanmar (Burma), The Lady is a biopic of Aung San Suu Kyi (played by Michelle Yeow) from her return to Rangoon in 1988 to be alongside her dying, hospitalized mother Daw Khin Kyi (played by Marian Yu) until her entry into politics that continues until the present. Featured are the events of the 1947 assassination of her father that established military rule, the 1988 crackdown as the country prepared for elections as featured in Beyond Rangoon (1995), her house arrest in 1989, her party’s pyrrhic election victory in 1990, awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991, Japan’s foreign aid offer in 1994 conditional on her release from house arrest that proved shortlived, her husband’s death in 1999, the protest march of monks in 2007, and her appearance before them while still under house arrest. Much of the drama involves her husband, Oxford professor Michael Aris (played by David Thewlis), and her two sons, Alexander (played by Jonathan Woodhouse) and Kim (played by Jonathan Raggett). Directed by Luc Besson, the film ends with an explanatory title providing information on the desperate state of affairs in the country but not the news that by elections are now scheduled for 2012 in which she will be a candidate. The Political Film Society has nominated The Lady for awards as best film on democracy, human rights, and peaceful conflict resolution of 2011. MH
RAMPART IS ABOUT A COP-TURNED-VIGILANTE, NOT THE RAMPART SCANDAL
For those expecting a drama about the Rampart scandal that affected Los Angeles in the late 1990s, Rampart is not that. Instead, the film is about what happened to Dave Brown (played by Woody Harrel-son), one of those corrupt cops, as his career ends in 1999. Directed by Oren Overman, Rampart asks us to feel sorry for law enforcement officers who bend the rules to serve as vigilantes in uniform. The cast is full of stars, but the perhaps unintended message is that police departments should end the careers of their errant officers at the first sign of trouble. MH