Jimmy Piccard suffers from obsessions and bad, incomprehensible dreams. All these phenomena acquired Jimmy on the fronts of the Second World War, during which he heroically fell out of the car and hit his head on the ground. Placed in a psychiatric clinic, Jimmy is perplexed by doctors. Difficult to diagnose, the descendants of Aesculapus choose a win-win option - you have schizophrenia ass, you will not turn away! With the diagnosis, Dr. Devereux fundamentally disagrees, who gently dissects the patient’s vulnerable soul and will achieve his cure.
The light, unobtrusive atmosphere of the madhouse, gently envelops the viewer from the first minutes. A madman joyfully poking himself with a table knife, a howling, drooling moron in a wheelchair (Ay Martinez's beautiful cameo is the half-forgotten Cruz Castillo from Santa Barbara) - all these small details set in a positive way. A black-footed Indian named Jimmy defies traditional treatments, is sullen, dispassionate and absolutely impenetrable to psychiatrists.
Dr. Devereux is a practicing psychoanalyst, easily finds contact with the patient, but interprets his memories in the spirit of vulgar Freudianism. Drawn by Jimmy a landscape painter, Devereux immediately explains to his colleagues in the spirit of the Viennese shaman: you see these mountains are undoubtedly female breasts (personally, I like this interpretation very much, that is why I love landscape painting - in each drawing the sun). The story of an Indian from his childhood, during which he found his mother in bed with some Chingachkuk, the psychoanalyst elegantly interprets.. how would you think? Why does a child see his mother in bed with a stranger’s uncle and run away in tears? Of course, he just wanted to be in the place of his uncle, and he is already busy.
The film was shot in a cold, detached manner. The director behaves with the audience like a psychoanalyst with a patient - keeps his distance. We are shown the gray, worthless life of Jimmy, whiskey, women, nothing remarkable, ordinary cloth-hoofed. Why - then open the veil over the personal life of Devere, a little - a little, the slightest, and there is little interesting, some indistinct relationship with someone else's wife, an old-fashioned English woman of horse appearance. The sluggish gurgling of bourgeois passions causes nothing but bewilderment. Why should the viewer be interested that Devereux will never return to Paris? Why won't he go back to Paris? What does this have to do with Paris?
Benicio Del Toro (Jimmy) plays very calmly, without tears, for most of the film maintaining absolute equanimity. Amalric (Deveryu) for the first twenty minutes radiates with false optimism, smiles tensely, and even jumps playfully on the spot - that's what a life lover and jeer I am, bubbling like champagne. Then the vitality leaves the hero, a red nose, a juicy nose (why – the director especially focuses on Devereux’s snot, I am even afraid to think about what exactly the snot is associated with in the works of Freud’s grandfather). Next is the usual image for Amalrik of a reflective intellectual, the film lifelessly hobbles to the end.
Bottom line.
It is recommended to view fans of psychoanalysis, healthy people should not watch this movie.
3 out of 10