A Dangerous Method (2011)

David Cronenberg was perhaps more fun two or three decades ago, when he was occupied with all sorts of monsters and weird forms of existence. His style has been cleaned up, to the extent that his latest film is a costume drama about prima Victorian people. But yes - the point of the film is to show the ways that this civilization is kept in check, and only barely successfully so. All this is going on in the relation between Freud and Jung. Jung is portrayed as a man who fights with himself. Freud, on the other hand, is presented as a man who rarely doubts, whose presence is a bit suffocating, and whose ideas are piece and parcel of bougeois reality. But, honestly, I am not sure what is supposed to be the most important element of the film. The major part of it is taken up by the relationship, sometimes professional, in many senses of the word, and sometimes erotic, between Jung and a certain Spielrein. Of course, the drama between the two are intertwined with the history of psychoanalysis. But I am not sure whether the film makes an interesting case of two images of psychoanalytic treatment or ideas. It is far too involved in images of a woman on her way to personal liberation and societal normality (or something) and a man's feeble denial of himself. Some of the scenes are plenty of fun. The wackier side of psychoanalysis, embodied by a certain mister Gross, is absolutely hilarious when put in action together with the two family men Freud and Jung. It's also amusing to see Viggo Mortensen as the authority-loving, constantly pipe-sucking Dr Freud. When reading Freud's own texts, I have a hard time not hearing Mortensen's snarky, gruff interpretation. From a cinematic point of view, there is not much to say. Cronenberg's touch is light, traditional - conservative almost. To some extent, I think Cronenberg is playing with this formula. The scenes of female madness are so over the top, and the same goes for the images of the bourgeois, respectable wife who never thinks badly of her man. Sexuality, of course, is reduced to a dark and uncontrollable force that all characters grapple with in their own ways. --- What's new under the sun? Not much, apparently. I found very little that would provide a fresh understanding of psychoanalysis. In my view, Cronenberg was just repeating the old story of psychoanalysis as an expression of the slight discontent we, or at leaste the more affluenct classes, have with society. The interpretation the film seems to give is that traditional psychoanalysis did not help very much to cure this discontent, even though it will make people "less ill" in the eyes of society. But it won't provide any insight into any deeper things. - -- At least partly, this is what the film appears to say.