‘A Dangerous Method‘ is the new movie from seminal film maker David Cronenberg (responsible for 2005’s ‘A History of Violence‘ and the controversial films ‘eXistenZ‘ and ‘Videodrome’). It stars Michael Fassbender as Karl Jung, Vigo Mortenssen as Sigmund Freud and Keira Knightley as Sabina Spielrein, and explores the tensions in their various relationships with particular emphasis on the disputes between Freud and Yung concerning their early theories on psychoanalysis.
The initial scenes between Jung and Spielrein are very promising, in fact it’s almost painful to watch Knightley as she plays a deeply troubled young woman descending into madness. In contrast, however, the many scenes between Jung and Freud are comparatively dull and turgid, which I suppose is unsurprising given that these are psychoanalysts not sword fighters, but it was a real struggle to remain interested in the interplay between the two characters. In one scene Freud remarks to Jung, “Do you realise that we’ve been talking for 13 hours?“, at which point I almost laughed because the way time was passing the film felt that long already – and this scene was less than halfway through!
It’s clearly not a winner with the audience either – several groups of people left during the screening I went to (although that might have been down to the rather disturbing sado-masochistic scenes between Jung and Spielrein – Cronenberg does like to shock) but the friend I went with also fell asleep after an hour…
If you have a passing interest in psychoanalysis then I suppose this might float your boat, although I think you’d get more out of popping up to Finchley Road to investigate Mr Freud’s consulting rooms…
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