A mind beneath the mind:movie review:A Dangerous Method

When the two of my most favourite things,cinema and psychology,come together,I have to write about it."A Dangerous Method" is one such film.To top it all,it's a Cronenberg film,a veteran in the industry.

A star-studded cast,having the likes of Michael Fassbender,Keira Knightly,Viggo Mortensen,and Vincent Cassell,made it even more promising.

The film,set at eve of World War-I,traces the turbulent lives of young Swiss psychiatrist,Dr Carl Jung,the controversial neurologist Mr Sigmund Freud,and Sabina Spielrein,a troubled Russian psychoanalyst.

Through this film,Cronenberg shows us where the concept of psychoanalysis was born,and the rift it created between the two of the most brilliant minds in psychology,Freud and Jung.

Michael Fassbender,plays Dr Jung,who is initially a dedicated psychiatrist and a devoted husband who believes that certain undesirable urges should always be repressed,to maintain normalcy in relationships.However,his life is changed by the maladjusted Sabina,played by Keira Knightly,who,while under his treatment,tempts him to yield to these desires.This is further fueled by the bold advise of the unstable but brilliant psychoanalyst,Otto Gross,played by Vincent Cassell,who also becomes a patient under Jung.Gross influences Jung into thinking that expression of every single sexual desire is actually normal and healthy,thus leading Jung on to have a roaring affair with Spielrein.

Sabina eventually becomes Jung's mistress but there is certainly an intense emotional connect prominent in their relationship.

The best portions of the film are the ones involving Freud,played by Viggo Mortensen and Jung's conversations and debates on psychoanalysis.While Freud believes that sexual desires underlie every human action,Jung disagrees and his ideas seem more inclined towards mysticism and the occult.Hence what began in friendship,ends in bitter rivalry between the two.This is also further bolstered by Sabina's beliefs on psychoanalysis being more akin to Freud's and not Jung's.This leads to Jung's eventual nervous breakdown as he loses both his love and his companion.

Knightly's performance is a little over the top and the effort is quite conspicuous.There is an unnecessary amount of focus on the hysterical aspect of her character and her transition didn't seem very convincing.Fassbender is smooth as Dr Jung and expresses the turmoil and anguish beautifully when the rift occurs and when he loses Sabina.However,the stand out performance is of Mortensen,as Sigmund Freud,as he depicts the superiority he felt over Jung and the obstinacy regarding his beliefs definitively.

A Dangerous Method,to me,is a bold film that  is more educating than entertaining.Cronenberg highlights some of the most significant theories in the field of Psychology and how they were conceptualized.We see Freud interpreting Jung's dreams and speaking of the importance of our subconscious,.What started as coffee table conversations went on to become the milestone concepts of 'dream analysis' and the 'collective unconscious'.

After brilliant films like 'Eastern Promises' and 'A History of Violence',it may not Cronenberg's best work,but it definitely is a successful attempt at reliving the lives of some of history's most legendary figures.