Anssi Vartiainen A biographical drama movie about Dr. Carl Jung, founder of analytical psychology, Professor Sigmund Freud, founder of psychoanalysis, and Sabina Spielrein, a patient of Jung and eventually one of the first female psychoanalysts. It starts when Spielrein arrives to the become of Jung's patients and follows their lives from thereon out.Like a good biographical dram should, this movie taught me quite a lot about the subject matter. Naturally, as a movie under two hours, it takes certain liberties with the source material, but the essentials are still there and they're there to spark your interest. I've gone to Wikipedia after many of these movies to learn more. Likewise in this case. For example, I was quite aware who Freud and Jung were and I was familiar with the gist of their theories and studies. I was even aware that Jung was considered to be something of a successor to Freud's work. But I had never quite realized that they had been peers in the same field living at the same time. Jung is younger, certainly, but they had frequent correspondence and regarded each other as equals. Or at least very close to equals. I also had never realized that Freud's Jewish origins painted his discipline in a certain light in those early days of the 20th century.Though, to be fair, the movie has some flaws. The acting is for the most part great. Viggo Mortensen as Sigmund Freud is especially inspired casting and his tired musings are some of the best content the film has to offer. Keira Knightley as Sabina Spielrein is the one that's going to divide opinions. Her later scenes are for the most part fine, but some of her early scenes, when she's still suffering from severe hysteria, are almost laughably over the top. She juts her jaw out like a cavewoman, speaks with odd pauses and behaves quite like the stereotypical cartoon mental patient. It's of course possible that the real Spielrein had such symptoms, but I doubt it.The movie also suffers from the bane of biographical movies, which is to say that the story doesn't have enough cohesion. The initial setup in certainly interesting, as are the characters, but the film falters towards the end because there's really no great place to stop. There are still things in the future worth mentioning, but the overall themes and ideas have already been exhausted, yet the characters continue to live their lives. Like real people do. Very few biographical movies can escape this trap, and I don't blame this movie for being unable to do so, but it's still something of a problem.Still, definitely a film worth watching for the fans of the genre.

thesunsmellstooloud This review is pretty hard to write, because there is so much in this film that I enjoyed, and so much that I nearly cringed at. Cronenberg has been a master of taking complex psychological themes and giving them terrifying conclusions, while making powerful statements on modern society. And he has set the bar very high. The marriage of the director and a film on the origins of psychoanalysis could've been a match made in Heaven, but the film tries to deal with too much, without focussing on one single storyline, and not being able to do justice to any one of them.The film starts off with Sabina Spielrein and Carl Jung's first conversations while she was suffering from hysteria, and their relationship develops into a sexual one. While Carl Jung helps her develop her career in psychology, he finds fulfilment in her company. This storyline starts with much potential, but meanders to a halt. The most enjoyable parts of the film were obviously the interactions between Jung and Freud. Michael Fassbender's performance was genuine and passionate. And what can I say about Viggo Mortensen - it felt as if Sigmund Freud himself had time travelled to act in this film. This film captures beautifully how these two men feel an emotional affinity to each other, but have different ideas about psychoanalysis, which makes them constantly size each other up, consequently creating a rift between them. I felt that they deserved more screen time together and their interactions should have occupied the foreground.The Jung-Spielrein storyline suffers from Jung mostly feeling guilty about cheating on his wife, and scenes with his wife in them seem quite unnecessary. I like Keira Knightley in a lot of her films, but she was miscast in this one. Her performance was shockingly bad and restricted me from getting immersed in the film and the characters. Instead, I was fully aware of watching someone act, and act badly. Vincent Cassel as Otto Gross makes a big impact in a small role. He has some controversial views on sexuality and eventually plays the serpent to Jung's Adam. While this film could've been a roller coaster ride of emotional, professional, sexual and psychological conflicts, it stays snuggled comfortably in between.

nick king A DANGEROUS METHOD David Cronenberg moves from body horror to mental dangers in this intelligent and handsomely mounted production of a tale from the early history of psychiatry: the relationships between Sigmund Freud, played by Viggo Mortenson, Carl Jung, played by Michael Fassbender, and two of the forgotten people of early psychoanalysis, Sabine Speilrein, Keira Knightley, and Otto Gross, Vincent Cassel.The film imagines a love affair between Carl Jung and one of his patients, Sabine Spielrein, a woman who went on to become an important psychiatrist in her own right. Spielrein's case prompted Jung to contact Sigmund Freud in 1906 for insights into treating her, beginning the relationship between Jung and Freud which lasted until their split in 1914.Relationships are at the centre of the movie. As well as Spielrein and Jung, there are those between Jung and Freud, between Jung and his wife, between Spielrein and Freud, and, most subtly, between Jung and Otto Gross, sent to Jung by Freud for treatment but who ends up influencing Jung into a very different world-view, one which sends him straight into the arms of Sabine Spielrein and some very unorthodox treatment.The film begins with a burst of action as Sabine Spielrein is dumped at the Burgholzi clinic in Switzerland in 1904 and taken as a patient by the newly-qualified Dr Carl Jung. She was diagnosed by Jung as a psychotic hysteric and Keira Knightley's depiction of this state is pretty close to Jung's initial notes, using her own physicality to describe Spielrein's derangement. Her condition improves but that unstable, twitchy dimension is always there as Keira Knightley keeps her on the edge right to the end.Michael Fassbender plays Jung as the polar opposite of Spielrein. Jung is calm, good-natured, kindly, and thoroughly decent even when he's having his affair with her or falling out with Freud. There's an attractive, genuine quality in Fassbender that makes him the stable centre of the film.The other great relationship in the film is between Freud and Jung. Viggo Mortensen's Freud is obsessed with protecting psychoanalysis from its enemies, sizing up Jung as a potential successor yet careful to maintain his own status as head of the clan. There's a dry wit in his performance along with an honesty about Freud's less appealing side, such as his chagrin at Jung's wealthy wife that lets us see Freud as human, all too human - a great but difficult man caught up in the dilemma of looking for a crown prince then, when he finds one, driving him into exile.The arrival of Otto Gross propels the film forward and provides Jung with the impetus, or the excuse, to start an affair with Sabine Spielrein. Gross is the chaos factor, breaking the stalemate between Spielrein's desire for Jung and Jung's staid conservatism and professionalism. Vincent Cassel plays Otto Gross as neurotic, shallow, insightful and obsessive, going through one sexual experience after another in search of Experience, permanently unhappy. He rejected Freud's idea of repression as a necessity for civilised behaviour, insisting on the immediacy of experience as negating the need for analysis, and challenging Jung at every step to do the obvious thing and have an affair with Sabine. It's an intelligent portrayal by Cassel, emphasising the mental and emotional distance between himself and Freud and Jung and condemning their inability to help him or, in his opinion, themselves. When he climbs over a wall and heads off to his tragic fate, of poverty and death, he is walking away from the possibility of psychiatry itself.The urgency and sense of panic in his early horror classics are long gone for Cronenberg. A Dangerous Method has a slow, regular pace and some scenes have an almost painterly quality, aided by some great digital matte backgrounds. Scenes are carefully composed with soft focus around the edges of facial shots keeping our attention on the middle of the frame. Outdoor scenes have people slowly promenading in the background along riversides or in parks, adding life and motion and giving a depth to the world.Deep inside the end credits it says "This film is based on true events, but certain scenes, especially those in the private sphere, are of a speculative nature". The mix of fact and speculation has produced a consistent story thanks to Cronenberg's tight focus on characters who are brought to life by great actors in a film of pristine production values and beautiful music. In a way this mirrors the dangerous and optimistic offer of psychoanalysis: to mix the known and unknown in consciousness and produce a better, more consistent human being.

globewarmer Having watched this film, which is beautifully dressed, acted with some competence, and with sets and scenes bright with seeming authenticity, and with my life spent in psychology and with some of that time spent around psychotherapy and analysis, I am loath to spend this time without writing something here.I knew, of course, that Freud and Jung broke their relationship, but the existence of Frau Spielrein was news to me; I understand the root inspiration of this film is a book by John Kerr, A Most Dangerous Method, published in 1994, where recently discovered papers by that lady were used to unpack the conflict between the 2 psychotherapists. I now understand, from some background reading, that her ideas of the Eros/Thanatos link were seminal to Freud's theories. Somewhere, presumably, in Kerr's book is the explanation for the title's use of 'dangerous'. I didn't hear the word mentioned in the film, and don't understand the reason for its use.After all, as Spielrein herself admits, Jung (using Freud's technique) cured her of her hysteria, and helped put her on the road to qualifying as a doctor. As Jung admits, she was the love of his life. The method then wasn't dangerous to either of them, though it may have been tumultuous.Freud doesn't say anything about psychoanalysis being dangerous, merely that it is about truth. So why 'dangerous'? New, unexpected, reviled, idealized - all those, yes. Dangerous, no. Perhaps it just helped sell the book and the film too.The film, on this site, is hugely praised and hugely panned by different reviewers, but I belong with those who feel rather apathetic, uninspired and mostly uninformed by the script. Rather bemused, really, though I think it may grow on me with a second viewing. Viggo Mortensen was the surprise, who looked rather a lot like the young Freud did look, and who played his part in a very downbeat fashion. He was marvellous as usual. As for the rest, I can only say, at this point, meh!