A Dangerous Method

I think this was an exceptional and brilliant film and give it 5 stars, but I have been reading the work of Freud and Jung for thirty years and I think that many people unfamiliar with the history of psychoanalysis would find this film too complex and dense to be enjoyed. That is a shame since the themes explored are fascinating and the acting was first rate. But the bottom line is that this is a film that will appeal to a limited audience of intellectual viewers.The primary focus of the film was divided between the psychological struggles of a brilliant young woman and the sexual and intellectual struggles of a brilliant psychologist attempting to forge a model of human consciousness and unconsciousness while at the mercy of his own desires and impulses. A secondary theme was the professional scientific and personal relationship between Sigmund Freud and Carol Jung over a 7 year period critical to the development of the field of psychoanalysis.Carl Jung was very familiar with the work of Sigmund Freud and began writing to him about there mutual interests in abnormal psychology. But the two men were very different in many ways and these differences eventually lead to tension in their relationship. The film does a credible job of contrasting Freud, an Austrian Jewish physician, and the wealthy Jung, a privileged Swiss psychiatrist. Early in the film Jung begins to use Freud's method of analysis whereby the psychiatrists sits behind the patient so as to reduce projection onto the psychiatrist and to create a more ambiguous sensation for the patient so that they can actually focus on their own projections and images without looking to the therapist for approval or disapproval. Jung complains that Freud writes much about the intellectual side of the analysis without giving many details as to the actual implementation of the methodology, thus early in the film Jung's independent thought is demonstrated.Freud saw Sabrina Spielrein as a patient when she was 19 years old and published her case history as the case of Sabrina S. It is Emma Jung in the film who tells the viewer that surely this Sabrina S written about by Freud is the same Sabrina Spielrein who has been admitted to the psychiatric hospital under the care of Dr. Jung.Michael Fassbender does an outstanding job as he plays Carl Jung. The character of Jung is pivotal in this film and Jung is a brilliant but conflicted human being. Jung was an outstanding genius, comparable to the genius of Freud, but he loses his bearings when he begins an affair with Sabrina Spielrein. His attempts to gain control of himself and the relationship reveal his cold determination which Fassbender plays very well. Fassbender's athletic sexual physique appears to be ready to explode out of the tight Victorian clothing that binds him much as Jung's sexuality is exploding out of his overly controlled intellect. Jung may appear overly harsh, controlled and rejecting as he ends the affair with Spielrein but he was becoming unhinged from the ground upon which he had built his personal, intellectual and professional life.Kira Knightly does a superb job of playing Sabrina Spielrein. Spielrein has neurotic tics that manifest when painful or conflicting memories emerge. The early scenes where Spielrein relates to Jung how often her father whipped her naked behind and then forced her to kiss his hand after the whipping are very powerful. As a child Spielrein would sometimes urinate in fear while being whipped and her father would whip her again for the urination. She now dreams of a catlike creature whispering into her ear as a slug like creature crawls on her lower back. Jung is able to connect that Spielrein would masturbate to images and memory of physical punishment and that pain had thus become eroticized for her. Knightly was able to portray mental illness, repressed eroticism and intellectual acuity in one outstanding performance.Vincent Cassel deserves mention for the part he plays as Dr. Otto Gross, another brilliant but unstable mind in an addict. However it is in conversation with the way-out Gross that Jung comes to terms with his passion for a brilliant and beautiful patient.Viggo Mortensen plays Sigmund Freud with careful understatement. Freud believed that in Jung he had finally found the champion, the heroic son, who would carry his theories forward. Much of their relationship in the film vibrates between a father-son relationship, a mentor-mentee relationship, and a professional competition. Of course the scene is included where Freud and Jung share dreams on the voyage to America and Freud tells Jung that one dream he can not reveal since he would lose his `authority' which Jung relates as the point where Freud lost all authority for him. It is to the film's credit that it includes the discussions between Freud and Jung on strategy whereby Freud wished their work to remain focused, concentrated, demonstrable, and repeatable whereas Jung was becoming more expansive, overly inclusive, and willing to explore paranormal experiences that are almost impossible to demonstrate or repeat under controlled conditions. Both strategies may advance scientific thought but the tensions eventually disrupt their personal and professional relationships.Eventually the tables turn as Spielrein emerges from her neurosis and becomes a brilliant psychoanalyst in her own right, mentored and complimented by Sigmund Freud.Thus this 99 minute films is about two complex themes; the development, expression, and repression of sexual desires as demonstrated in the relationship of Spielrein and Jung and the creation, translation and re-creation of complex scientific ideology as demonstrated in the relationship of Jung and Freud.

An interesting and thought-provoking film. Five stars, but I have some minor reservations. Lets psychoanalyze this:1] Jung. While certainly a womanizer, Carl Jung was quite mainstream. Though he and his patient Sabina Speilrein were lovers, Jung didn't spank her in the bedroom with his belt. Not even for medicinal purposes. Did this come from the director's fertile imagination or his suppressed desires?2] Freud. It was bold, but silly to cast Aragon of "The Lord of the Rings" (Viggo Mortensen) as Sigmund Freud. This didn't pay off, because Viking-looking VIggo (Isn't he Danish?) looks more like Jung than Freud. Freud was 5' 7'" (170 cm), while Viggo is six feet-tall. Details are important. While Viggo acts well, he doesn't look believable. But perhaps Freud himself wouldn't have mind it?3] Frau Spielrein. Making "Pirates of the Caribbean's" Keira Knightly into Sabina Spielrein didn't quite work either in my view. Sabina was attractive to Jung because she was (apart from being neurotic) very rich, very bright and very exotic. She was a Russian. She came from Rostov-on-Don, heiress to the fortune of a Russian-Jewish merchant. She spoke German with a Russian accent. Correct me if I am wrong, but Keira doesn't fit this profile, although she did best she could with her West London accent.Perhaps I am nitpicking. Overall, the film is good and, in cinematographic terms, good-looking. The music-score is nice. While casting is overall suspicious, Vincent Cassel is brilliant as Otto Gross, a deranged over-sexed psychoanalyst. Jung's wife is also well cast. The costumes are tremendous; the atmosphere of the times is well reproduced. I highly recommend it to everyone interested in the history of psychoanalysis and films for grown-ups.P.S. The main argument between Jung and Freud perhaps should have been better explained in the film: it was about nature of the libido. Freud conceived of the libido as a quantitative (or "economic") concept: it is an energy which can increase or decrease, and which can be displaced. Freud insisted on the sexual nature of the energy, and he maintained a dualism in which the libido is opposed to another (non-sexual) form of energy. Jung opposed this dualism, positing a single form of life-energy, which is neutral in character. I believe Freud was nearer the truth: at least he stayed scientific, while Jung descended into the alchemy.