'Do go through Miss Knightley - the doctor will undress you now.'
It couldn't be a more mouth-watering prospect: David Cronenberg and Sigmund Freud, face to face at last!
For
years, the Canadian movie maker stood unchallenged as the most overtly
Freudian of all film-makers, an explorer of the spectacular ways in
which the Repressed was wont to Return, to wreak havoc on minds and
bodies. But Cronenberg has lately remodelled himself as a classicist, a
master of understatement. If you're hoping for mutant tentacles
flailing over the couches of old Vienna, A Dangerous Method is not your
film.
Disappointingly,
the film is less about the extraordinary Spielrein – who became a
pioneering analyst herself – than about the oedipal clash between
master and acolyte. Freud and Jung are two hyper-intelligent men
constantly talking at cross-purposes, and the driest comedy revolves
around them. After Jung questions Freud's insistence on interpreting
everything through sex, Freud, analysing a dream of Jung's, muses,
"This log – I think perhaps you should entertain the possibility that
it might be your penis" (a suggestion that may have special resonance
for admirers of Fassbender's recent performance in Shame).
But you don't have to
be a Cronenberg cultist to find this piece surprisingly staid. It's
scripted by Christopher Hampton, after his play The Talking Cure and
John Kerr's book A Very Dangerous Method. Set between 1904 and 1913,
it's about the relationship between Swiss pioneer Carl Jung (Michael
Fassbender) and his patient Sabina Spielrein (Keira Knightley). While
treating Spielrein's hysteria, Jung contracts a serious case of
transference and starts an affair with her, which largely takes the
form of decorous, almost comically solemn spanking sessions. Meanwhile,
Jung's relationship with Freud (Viggo Mor-tensen) falls on rocky
ground – partly because Freud disapproves of his acolyte covering up his
misbehaviour, partly because of Jung's zanier ideas.
I think the brief outline above should end here, so as not to spoil your viewing enjoyment or, for some, delicious confusion.
Next: 21st Feb 2012 An Irresistible Ad.
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