A Dangerous Method (2011/Sony DVD)

 

Picture: C+     Sound: C+     Extras: B     Film: B

 

 

David Cronenberg is on a roll and his new drama A Dangerous Method (2011) is a solid flipside to Spider (also from Sony, reviewed elsewhere on this site) about his directly exploring psychology.  While that film handled the complex mechanics of schizophrenia, a subject that has haunted some of his past works as well as their form, this is a semi-historic work about the meeting of four important figures in behavioral studies who changed the world.

 

Michael Fassbinder is Carl Jung, the landmark behavioral thinker who was looking for answers beyond the sexually oriented, controversial studies of Sigmund Freud, who he would meet (here played by Viggo Mortensen, who with Cronenberg is forming a great partnership in three great films in a row reminiscent of the Scorsese/De Niro collaborations) and have much to discuss with, furthering the work of both.

 

Enter Sabrina Spielrein (Keira Knightley in a very brave performance that is a career high and a new breakthrough for her), a very disturbed young woman who has some major hysteria problems that turn out to be sexually related and much worse.  She goes to Jung who tries to understand the issues, help her, but then (despite being married) starts to become more involved.  This is where the film likely started to make critics uncomfortable.

 

Despite what we all know about psychology and the like today, this was shocking and subversive in its time and still today offers aspects that make the society at large uncomfortable and that is partly from oppression and in the time we now live in, re-repression since the 1980s.  Vincent Cassel also shows up as Otto Gross, a colleague of Freud who did some groundbreaking of his own, but the film is unfortunately not able to spend enough time on.

 

I was thrilled, impressed and even surprised to see a film so boldly deal with the lives of these figures in an honest, real, palpable way films rarely deal with anything these days, but Cronenberg is in a new state of power as a filmmaker that makes him as formidable now as anyone in the field.  He was always distinctive and made some fine films before, but he can go a few rounds with any filmmaker in the world right now based on his recent work (including Spider, A History Of Violence and Eastern Promises) yet he is not getting the credit he deserves.  Is he too good?

 

He certainly deserves more credit than he is getting and I hope this home video release furthers his reputation and helps his next film.  Very impressive, don’t miss A Dangerous Method, but know this is for mature adult audiences only.

 

 

The anamorphically enhanced 1.85 X 1 image is shot in the Super 35mm film format by Cronenberg’s longtime Director of Photography Peter Suschitzky, A.S.C., and is a beautiful, rich shoot that is likely even better on Blu-ray, but even as soft as this DVD can be overall, you can see the depth intended and the dense fell you expect from Cronenberg films.  The lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 is on the quiet side and is dialogue-based, though surrounds kick in especially for the solid music score by Howard Shore.  Get the Blu-ray over this DVD if you have that capacity, but this DVD is just fine for the format.

 

Extras include a Making Of featurette, a nice & long AFI Harold Lloyd Master Seminar with Cronenberg worth seeing after the film and a feature length audio commentary by Cronenberg you will really enjoy hearing after the film.  He does some of the best such tracks by any director and it is much recommended like the film itself.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo