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Last year I had the pleasure of attending the Adelaide Film Festival to see the movie 'One Eyed Girl'. Now the movie itself was very well filmed and acted, great use of atmospheric camera work, very intense. It managed to keep my attention for the full 110 minutes, but there were definitely parts in the film where I was just mentally shouting at the screen "He's a trained medical professional FFS! Why, for the love of all things kittens, is he doing THAT!".
Basic run down of the film (from memory).
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2307002/
Psychiatrist working mostly hospital inpatient, one patient in particular has grade A borderline PD stamped all over her with a history of self harm and suicide attempts. They seem to make a connection in therapy, she gets discharged and somehow manages to track down his home phone number. After asking her where the hell she got the number from in the first place, instead of screaming 'Eff off you crazy stalker' down the line, he invites her over because she's having a crisis. Blah blah blah she comes over, and oh by the way whilst you're here *cue sex scene*. Psychiatrist goes on to attempt a relationship with said Patient, things go awry, patient commits suicide, Psychiatrist goes completely off the rails.
At this point in the film on what is seemingly a whim he attends some sort of weird cult/church movement for the treatment of drug dependence (seeing as he has a few problems with booze and pills himself). First impressions he more or less calls BS, but then he overdoses and in a moment that almost had me yelling at the screen 'What the hell, he's a Doctor!" he doesn't call for an ambulance, he rings the cult group - the same group he'd been denigrating just days before.
Fast forward several scenes, he's more or less held captive by the group on some farm out in the middle of nowhere. He tries to get away numerous times, but somehow they manage to gradually lure him in until he's singing to the tune of 'one of us, one of us, gooble gobble, gooble gobble, one of us' (Tod Browning's 'Freaks' if you didn't get that reference). Cue this trained medical professional swallowing every bit of codswallop that gets thrown at him.
Whilst I did actually enjoy the film over all, as I said before my mind did keep wanting to scream at the screen 'How in the green hell is he falling for this bulls***'
Now I know Psychiatrists are people too, and susceptible to the same foibles as anyone else, but from a Psychiatric point of view how likely or believable is it that a Psychiatrist, even one with severe substance abuse and boundary violation issues, could be taken and brainwashed/indoctrinated to the degree shown in the film (he only snaps out of it when he witnesses the abuse of a cult member, and then finds out 'Oh hey look there's Kool Aid to drink, Kool Aid and guns').
So to recap:
- Inviting a patient over after she's proven herself to be capable of stalking by tracking down his home phone number - meh fairly unbelievable, maybe in a moment of weakness I'll give that a pass seeing as it moves the plot of the movie along.
- Overdosing as a trained medical professional and ringing a cult group instead of hitting 3 simple numbers (000) and getting an ambulance out to help him - LOLWUT?!
- Actually falling for what the cult is selling - Priceless.
So, opinions, discussion, academic references, anecdotes, catharsis, whatever else. I know probably no one else has seen this film, but it brings up a lot of issues, it had an interesting angle, I'm just not entirely sure the execution as such was really done in a believable way.
Basic run down of the film (from memory).
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2307002/
Psychiatrist working mostly hospital inpatient, one patient in particular has grade A borderline PD stamped all over her with a history of self harm and suicide attempts. They seem to make a connection in therapy, she gets discharged and somehow manages to track down his home phone number. After asking her where the hell she got the number from in the first place, instead of screaming 'Eff off you crazy stalker' down the line, he invites her over because she's having a crisis. Blah blah blah she comes over, and oh by the way whilst you're here *cue sex scene*. Psychiatrist goes on to attempt a relationship with said Patient, things go awry, patient commits suicide, Psychiatrist goes completely off the rails.
At this point in the film on what is seemingly a whim he attends some sort of weird cult/church movement for the treatment of drug dependence (seeing as he has a few problems with booze and pills himself). First impressions he more or less calls BS, but then he overdoses and in a moment that almost had me yelling at the screen 'What the hell, he's a Doctor!" he doesn't call for an ambulance, he rings the cult group - the same group he'd been denigrating just days before.
Fast forward several scenes, he's more or less held captive by the group on some farm out in the middle of nowhere. He tries to get away numerous times, but somehow they manage to gradually lure him in until he's singing to the tune of 'one of us, one of us, gooble gobble, gooble gobble, one of us' (Tod Browning's 'Freaks' if you didn't get that reference). Cue this trained medical professional swallowing every bit of codswallop that gets thrown at him.
Whilst I did actually enjoy the film over all, as I said before my mind did keep wanting to scream at the screen 'How in the green hell is he falling for this bulls***'
Now I know Psychiatrists are people too, and susceptible to the same foibles as anyone else, but from a Psychiatric point of view how likely or believable is it that a Psychiatrist, even one with severe substance abuse and boundary violation issues, could be taken and brainwashed/indoctrinated to the degree shown in the film (he only snaps out of it when he witnesses the abuse of a cult member, and then finds out 'Oh hey look there's Kool Aid to drink, Kool Aid and guns').
So to recap:
- Inviting a patient over after she's proven herself to be capable of stalking by tracking down his home phone number - meh fairly unbelievable, maybe in a moment of weakness I'll give that a pass seeing as it moves the plot of the movie along.
- Overdosing as a trained medical professional and ringing a cult group instead of hitting 3 simple numbers (000) and getting an ambulance out to help him - LOLWUT?!
- Actually falling for what the cult is selling - Priceless.
So, opinions, discussion, academic references, anecdotes, catharsis, whatever else. I know probably no one else has seen this film, but it brings up a lot of issues, it had an interesting angle, I'm just not entirely sure the execution as such was really done in a believable way.
