MENTAL HEALTH IN FILM.

Kirtsen Dunst, Melancholia 2011, Lars Von Trier

Hey guys, Steph here. So in light of being in a very rocky place with my mental health, I've decided to look a little into the representation of mental health in films. I'm trying to break this into two extremes but I don't think my examples are extreme enough. But personally speaking, up until about 2015 films and media in general shaped my ideas of what being mentally ill meant so my ideas of mentally ill people were either people who were criminally insane or people who were suicidal, which while yes both are true it's not all that's there. I'll be giving examples of films that shaped the aforementioned mindset and ones along with a lot of memes that reshaped my thinking. Oh and happy Mental Health Awareness month, isn't May awesome? (p.s. my birthday is on Wednesday so send gifts :*).



1) SHUTTER ISLAND (2010), MARTIN SCORSESE.

So, before we get into this, I have to say how much I love this film and Leonardo DiCaprio and Martin Scorsese I mean its a bit of a masterpiece. BUT, how easy is it to use the criminally insane in a psychological thriller, a good few of psychological thrillers are set in asylums, because it's so easy to take "crazy people" and turn them into a spectacle for "sane" audiences isn't it? And let's be honest it's what they've done here. Okay so yeah the plot is great but it only works because we have a "sane" character we identify with and relate to and then plot twist he turns out to be crazy himself because aren't we all crazy? At some point it becomes a cheap exploitation of this group of people. Just to prove my point here's a few other films: Stonehearst Asylum, Gothika, The Ninth Configuration, Silence of the Lambs as well as the countless other horror/thriller films that have asylum scenes or employ a criminally insane character. (p.s. they're all really good films, dammit)

2) TITICUT FOLLIES (1967), FREDERICK WISEMAN.

WARNING: Contains graphic images.

So on the other side of fiction is documentary and famous for his documentaries that study public institutions, Frederick Wiseman decided to make a documentary on a home for the criminally insane, Bridgewater State Hospital. This is one of the films screened during my course at uni and sitting through the whole hour and a half of it was slightly torturing. Wiseman's goal was to expose the brutality against the patients by the hospital staff (yes it worked, the prison got so mad they took it to court and banned the film for nearly 3 decades), but somewhere along the line he turned the film into a sort of freak show, it became invasive and almost turned the patients into a spectacle, like "hey sane people look at this crazy freaks" it felt exploitative once again but maybe that's my own issue.

3) 13 REASONS WHY, (2007/2017) JAY ASHER/NETFLIX.

Welcome to your tape lel. Okay before I get into it let me just say I haven't finished watching the series because it's a bit too triggering for me maybe I'll finish maybe I won't, who knows. But that's okay because I'm not here to talk about the show I'm here to talk about its reception. A lot of people have talked about how huge its reception has been especially among younger audiences, you know high schoolers and stuff. When I was in high school, I read the book which struck a kind of melancholic romanticization of depression in me. It somehow made depression, victimisation and suicide look sexy to me. Not to mention, it coincided with the era of the depressed Tumblr girl aesthetic, I too wanted to be a smoking skinny white girl in her bed sheets captured in black white with the caption "I just don't want to be here anymore" or something like that. So it was the perfect fit and similarly, the show has had the same reception. Released this year, at the peak of millennialism, where mental health is so thoroughly discussed, it has been channelled into many platforms including memes, which is a good thing since people feel safer discussing it but yeah we've kinda made having issues with your mental health look sexy and it's not, which is one issue with this. It may or my not give off the depressed and bullied girl as an aesthetic but I can't judge I haven't reached my tape yet.

 4) MELANCHOLIA (2011), LARS VON TRIER.

This is hands down (in my opinion) one of the most beautifully shot films I've ever seen. I watched it a few weeks ago and I was how do you say... shook? The thing I love about the film is that Von Trier channels his own experience with mental health into the film through the characters, especially Kirsten Dunst's character, Justine. This makes everything so real and relatable so if you take everything I've said was wrong with the other movies and compare to this one: it doesn't exploit the character for a specific audience because you damn well could be Justine, I know I am. It doesn't romanticise it, it shows you every ugly angle of it, which almost makes it an exposé into what someone with depression could really go through. That's also what it kind of was for me, the first time I got a full picture of what depression is like, well, apart from firsthand experience. So I 100% recommend this film for a real representation of mental health; side note people experience mental health in different ways so this is just one perspective as are the rest.

 5) DEAR ZINDAGI (2016), GAURI SHINDE.

Okay so this trailer is really bad and gives you no idea of the film's plot or of who the characters are but then again it's a teaser and let's be honest Shah Rukh Khan's face is enough. But it's actually another perspective on mental health. It deals with stigma against it and in contrast to the very physical manifestation of it in Melancholia, there is a more subtle one here and how it affects the character, Kaira (played by Alia Bhatt)'s life in different ways and an unlikely event leads her to a "brain doctor" (therapist) who helps her sort her shit out, it's a lighthearted but important take on mental health.

Sooooo, thats it folks. I could have damn well been watching all the wrong films so feel free to suggest anymore or even combat whatever I've said if you disagree or have anything to add. More importantly, if you are having issues with your mental health drop me a message and we can just talk, I'm no therapist or counselor but talking has helped me a lot. Bye until next Sunday x