A Dangerous Method
Directed by David Cronenberg
with Michael Fassbender, Keira Knightley, Viggo Mortensen
2011
A Dangerous Method has too much of a Hollywood flavour to rip the screen open with flows of untamed unconscious.
The movie traces the development of psychoanalysis in the tensions, ties and passions which animate the Carl Jung - Sigmund Freud - Sabina Spielrein triangle. The plot begins with the dramatic arrival of Spielrein at a clinic, where she becomes Jung’s first patient to be treated with Freud’s psychoanalytical method. The successful, and yet somehow puzzling outcome of the therapy will give Jung the chance to meet Freud. Through their friendship, the film captures the uncertain future psychoanalysis faced at the time: rooted in Freud’s figure and doctrine, and yet open to an infinite numbers of possibilities. Eventually, Jung’s illicit affair with Spielrein, and Spielrein’s own academic career, exacerbate the tensions between Jung and Freud, bitterly ending their friendship.
The movie presents Jung and Freud as polarized figures: if Freud is the one who academically relates to his theory, Jung is the one who internally lives it. Freud appears as motivated by a dream of academic immortality and unquestioned authority, while Jung is assaulted by doubts, willing to question parts of Freud’s theory in order to develop psychoanalysis further. Freud is for stasis, Jung for transformation. Yet, the duo lacks that unspoken tension which the movie could have developped further.
The trio of actors does justice to the movie’s powerful trio of minds. In just over a month, we have seen Michael Fassbender transforms on screen from a sex addict (Shame) to Jung, second father of psychoanalysis. Despite all the rigour and composure, Fassbender manages to give to the character a human side which questions the notion of morality. Keira Knightley, in the role of Sabine Spielrein, wonderfully transforms, under the suggestive power of words, into a bundle of nerves which seems to be contrived, pulled and stretched by invisible hands as her neurosis acts on her. Viggo Mortensen, as Freud, balances the contrasts and incongruities of Jung and Spielrein by building a figure of authority which is as much of an anchor as it is a target to the other two characters.
If the plot of the movie is about instincts, cinematographically A Dangerous Method is an example of rigour and precision. Each shot is perfectly balanced. The result is as beautiful as a porcelain cup: light, elegant, precise. This, however, somehow undermines the instincts’ drive of the plot. A Dangerous Method seems, at times, too controlled, too perfect, too conscious. Even Jung’s masochistic affair with Spielrein appears neat and elegant. Nothing in the movie speaks of that obscure force at the core of each human being which the three characters constantly talk about. But then again, opposites attract each other, as Spielrein suggests in the movie, so one wonders if this was a (un)conscious choice of director David Cronenberg.
The movie seems to be working at two different things: a passionate, illicit love story and the history of psychoanalysis. As their relation evolves, we hear from Spielrein’s lips all the famous concepts of Jung’s theory, suggesting that much of it came from the intuitions of a young woman. Without making A Dangerous Method a feminist film, the story acknowledges Spielrein’s role in psychoanalysis, somehow revisiting its history. This historical side of the movie, as well as all the references to psychoanalysis, are however too outplayed by the glamour and drama of the love affair to make a real point.
The final scene of the movie, however, does leave you with a point of reflection. One wonders if the real significance of psychoanalysis has been, first of all, that of freeing sex from morality.
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