REVIEWS
A Dangerous Method REVIEWED BY MARKADAMS
An elegant and absorbing chamber-piece of a film, David Cronenberg’s delve into the turbulent rela- tionship between psychiatrists Carl Jung and his mentor Sigmund Freud and the talented but trou- bled young woman — Sabina Spielrein — who comes between them, is beautifully watchable and driven by thoughtful and stylish performances. It is a cool, mannered and perfectly structured
film (it leaves you wanting more rather than less) with fine performances from Keira Knightley, Michael Fassbender and Viggo Mortensen and an easy visual grace. It is film with sex and sensuality at its core, and while Knightley’s on-screen spank- ing antics will no doubt attract a certain press attention, this is a film resolutely about the mind. Adapted by Christopher Hampton from his
stage play The Talking Cure (the term for the early development of psychoanalysis), the film treads an intelligent and dialogue-heavy route through a complex subject. Scenes are set mainly in treat- ment sessions, static conversations and letter-writ- ing, though there are also some delightfully staged exterior sequences which make great use of stylish Austrian and German locations. The film opens in dramatic style as a screaming
and flailing Sabina (Knightley) is carried into the Burgholzli Clinic in Zurich in 1904 and into the care of 29-year-old Carl Jung, who at this stage is dabbling with Freud’s experimental theories. Dishevelled, raging and convulsing, Sabina is encouraged to talk, to share her early memories of a physically abusive father and her sexual responses to his beatings, with Jung a calm and caring sounding board. Two years later, Jung travels to Vienna to finally
meet Freud (Mortensen, sporting a prosthetic nose and chain-smoking cigars) to discuss theo- ries and Sabina’s case in particular. So begins a wary but close relationship between the two men with Freud charmingly unwilling to go too far beyond his own theories and Jung pressing to extend the boundaries of their discussions.
GALA
Can-UK-Ger. 2011. 99mins Director David Cronenberg Production companies Lago Film, Prospero Pictures, Recorded Picture Company, Millbrook Pictures International sales HanWay Films, www.
hanwayfilms.com Producer Jeremy Thomas Co-producers Marco Mehlitz Executive producers Thomas Sterchi, Matthias Zimmerman, Karl Spoerri, Stephan Mallmann, Peter Watson Screenplay Christopher Hampton, based on his stage play The Talking Cure and based on John Kerr’s book A Most Dangerous Method Cinematography Peter Suschitzky Editor Ronald Sanders Production designer James McAteer Music Howard Shore Main cast Keira Knightley, Viggo Mortensen, Michael Fassbender, Vincent Cassel, Sarah Gadon
Freud asks Jung to meet/treat a fellow psychia-
trist Otto Gross (Cassel), who — in a plot device that feels oddly simplistic — expounds his disdain for the concept of monogamy and enthusiasm for sex in general, just as Jung finds Sabina keen for their relationship to extend beyond that of patient and doctor. Despite a content — though cold and old-fashioned — relationship with his wife Emma (Gadon), Jung finds himself drawn to the vibrant, wilful, intelligent and beautiful Sabina. Before you know it Jung and Sabina are in an
intense sexual relationship, fuelling her masochis- tic desires with a little light spanking on the side and with Jung regularly filled with self-doubt as he analyses his ethics rather than embracing his lusts. Though there are plenty of bedroom scenes, these moments are never overly sexual (and cer- tainly not erotic) and are merely there as a set-up for further debate on psychoanalytical theories. Fassbender plays Jung as a slightly vague but
enthusiastic academic, with slick-backed hair, round glasses and a monotone voice that lacks any real accent. He is passionate and oddly naïve, see- ing little beyond his desire to learn. Mortensen’s Freud is an engagingly calm character, with a cigar permanently clamped in his mouth and with
a confident composure and genial humour. As always Mortensen — in his third film with Cro- nenberg after A History Of Violence and Eastern Promises — dominates the film and brings a much- needed sly humour to the proceedings. And if the two good doctors are always authori-
tative and perfectly groomed, then perhaps Knightley has the most difficult of roles, and she does an impressive job as the tormented Sabina. We all know she can wear the frocks and sport the stylish haircut, but here she is far more challenged. The early scenes of her character hysterical and
ranting feel slightly forced — a little too much ‘act- ing’ — though Knightley gets better and better as the film draws on, and in truth it would have been nice to know more about Sabina and her many achievements (she went on to be a distinguished analyst in her own right) rather than simply as a catalyst between these two men. The film bears no distinctive Cronenberg cine-
matic moments (well, certainly no exploding heads or scenes of ultra-violence, though a lingering shot of experimental instruments harks back to the darkness of Dead Ringers) but he is completely at ease in this more rarified, almost stagey structure. » David Cronenberg interview, p24
n 18 Screen International at the Toronto Film Festival September 9, 2011
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