I am a big Sigmund Freud fan. I taught him in both semesters of my class this year and just generally think he’s really onto something, except for all the penis stuff which frankly gets a bit old. Then again when you remember his time period you’re pretty impressed even with the penis stuff. So anyway, I also love Viggo Mortensen with a passion verging on the unwholesome, and, although I strongly dislike all of Cronenberg’s early, actually-influential films, I thought Eastern Promises and A History of Violence were tremendous. All this is to say, I was kind of excited for a Cronenberg/Viggo movie about Freud. Unfortunately, this movie sucks and is so boring I thought I had fallen asleep at one point and was dreaming I was watching the film but it turned out I was still just watching the film.
It spans like 35 years or something, and mostly consists of either people reading aloud from letters or Michael Fassbender whipping Kiera Knightley with a belt. If that sounds like your cup of tea then by all means throw this DVD in the old DVD player, but frankly I found it tedious.
The movie starts off way too quickly, with Jung meeting crazy ol’ Knightley for the first time in the first 3 minutes of the film and just immediately having an enormous breakthrough via the newly invented Talking Cure. He’s like “did your dad beat you” and she’s like “I HAD ORGASMS OH MY GODDDDDDD,” like wow, psychoanalysis really works! Seems like those realizations were very close to the surface of her consciousness, just saying. So they talk about masturbation for awhile, and all the time Knightley is spasming ferociously and doing these really unhealthy-looking things with her jaw. I am not meaning to pull an Anthony Lane but it was just a really intense performance. Anyway after that like 10 years pass in about two seconds, with lots of fucking, and in between the fucking Jung and Freud write letters to each other about dreams about fucking. “Consider the possibility that the log being dragged behind this unfortunate horse represents the penis.” Oh boy did NOT see that coming!
It could have been great to watch Fassbender and Viggo play these two guys messing around with the unconscious for the first time ever. I think the discovery of the unconscious is amazing. There are moments in this movie where we see how cool the movie could have been–where it’s almost like they’re playing a new videogame and just trying shit out, like in Zelda Twilight Princess. “What if the ghost in your dream is your father?” “What if the horse represents society?” “Your dream about the carriage tells me you are sick of your wife being pregnant all the time.” Cool! Unfortunately it just doesn’t go anywhere and gets so super boring, all the weird melodrama with the patient Jung is fucking, something something Protestant something something Jew. Long disconnected middle section with Vincent Cassel explaining to Jung that monogamy is for suckers.
Viggo is of course spectacular as always. He plays Freud SO WEIRD. It may be worth seeing the film just to watch his quiet, bizarrely wonderful performance.
Then everyone is pregnant and people become doctors and WWI happens and Jung has a dream in which he foretells WWII. Then the movie ends and there’s an epilogue explaining that the amazing crazy-lady-become-famous-psychoanalyst Knightley portrayed ended up being shot with all her children by the Nazis. GREAT, LETS GO GET A PIZZA
It’s like, nothing in life is as boring as someone telling you about their dream. This is an entire movie featuring almost nothing but people telling each other about their dreams. And there aren’t even any sick Cronenberg techno-sexual fantasy sequences or anything, like, what’s up Cronenberg, have you lost your edge or WHAT?
ALSO can someone PLEASE PUNCH HOWARD SHORE IN THE FACE??????? Worst music ever. The thing about Hollywood film music is that it’s all made by basically the same 3 guys. And I think they pick and choose which scores they’re actually going to think for 2 seconds about, and which ones they’re going to have their assistants poop out during a lunch break. Shore’s score for LOTR is totally incredible–deep and complex and multi-layered. His score for the Freud movie is just this one really dumbass theme repeated on a bunch of different instruments. Through-composed full-score film music is probably the worst thing to happen to cinema in all its weirdo history. Come on, THAT was the solution? A million violins noodling endlessly, making sure I know when I’m supposed to feel sad or whatever? Jesus Christ.
1. WIll you review The Fly
2. Hearing about people’s dreams can be interesting if you ask them questions. “What does that represent?” It’s usually stuff that no one wants to talk about… cool!
I’ve never seen the Fly! I legitimately recoil from Cronenberg’s earlier films, I hate them. But yes, I will review the Fly, since you asked
That’s not a review, is it? My vote is for incoherent rant.
I thought the film was great, btw. But you really do need to pay attention as Cronenberg assumes his audience is capable of filling in the blanks without too much prodding.
– VIGGO
– What about Fassbender? WAS THERE NUANCE
– This is why we need these guys to, say, go play some particularly torrid Henry James or something instead. Costumes plus story, who would have thought?