i just saw two amazing little films on DVD, both from the Land of Quirk. One is Dirty Filthy Love, the other is Me and You and Everyone We Know. Dirty Filthy Love is neither dirty nor filthy, though it is about love. what it is really about, though, is serious OCD coupled with serious tourette’s syndrome. the story is about mahk (mark, really, but it’s a british movie), a promising young architect who, in his thirties, experiences such a worsening of his OCD and tourette’s that his wife leaves him and he is laid off from his job in a trendy firm. one little absurdity of this made-for-tv film is that no one — his wife, his best mate, his doctor — is able to diagnose mark’s rather textbook tourette’s. two facts about tourette’s: it is possible for it to get really bad when one is in one’s thirties (i learned this from the fact that no one amongst the various sufferers on imdb.com pointed this out as unlikely), and it is only a small minority of tourette’s sufferers who are compelled to swear. mark is part of this small minority, though only when he’s greatly stressed. the nicest thing about this movie is shirley henderson’s performance (you’ve seen this great character actor in a ton of british movies). henderson also suffers from OCD — how is not apparent till the movie ends — but, mostly, she is quirky in that special british way that is guaranteed to throw off the average american viewer. as the leader of a peer support group for people with OCD, she is equal parts patient, impatient, downright snappy, and tender. her character frees us to laugh with the group members rather than at them. this, however, is not a comedy. it is a story about mental illness, companionship, and acceptance. the second nicest thing about this movie is the bold claim that if there is something very wrong in your head, you may be better off with a bunch of people who struggle through the same illness you have than with a doctor. this should be a big no-brainer, but the pharmaceutical industrial complex has made sure that such a claim is nothing short of revolutionary.
Me and You and Everyone We Know is directed by filmaker-to-watch miranda july, who is also a performance artist and a writer. besides directing, she wrote and acts in this film, and she’s absolutely great. this is a such a delicate, intelligent, and beautifully shot movie, it is a delight to watch. the july character, the miraculous christine, is herself a performance artist/filmmaker, and is the lone ray of sunshine in a human landscape whose dominant features are loneliness and inescapable isolation. as the movie progresses, we come to realize that all the characters are connected. most of the communication that takes place between them, however, happens when they are not face to face or even on the phone with one another. it takes place through computers (the computer sex is hilarious and ultimately very moving), videotapes, unlikely phone messages, code-language, and notes stuck to windows. when the characters interact directly, the communication is almost unbearably painful.
july uses a lot of child sex, which is doubtless the reason why the movie has an R rating. her use of child sex is brave and poignant. the movie’s various kids, from whom july extracts truly great acting, are a deeply sad bunch, not only because their parents are too busy with themselves to give them any proper attention, but also, maybe primarily, because being a kid is difficult and disempowering, and because children can be lonely in ways that grown-ups can’t even fathom (time is a merciful thing indeed).
the fim ends on a positive note that is much more tenuous than the harrowingly negative note on which it starts. july, though, keeps it all light and quirky enough that, while you won’t feel particularly good about life, you sure as hell will feel buoyed about the state of independent filmmaking.
I once rode a bus in LA with a gentleman who had the compulsion to move from seat to seat and exclaim “Your mother’s ass!” at each movement. He got off at Pico and Sepulveda.
I often wonder about films that feature mental illness–do they choose the most “photogenic” manifestations and manipulate them in order to fall back on that old hoary conceit, a loving community of acceptance–or do others resist placing this kind of illness within the usual “narratives.” It’s been mentioned here before but the most harrowing film I’ve seen regarding mental illness is Titicut Follies. The most instructive film about OCD is Le Samourai. And I love the TV show Monk, but if one was in fighting mode, one might say it makes a debilitating condition merely comic fodder–or does it establish that these conditions have accompanying strengths?
all of which ignores the films Gio has discussed–unfortunately because I haven’t seen them, or even heard of them.
Famous people with mental illnesses: Alexander Hamilton (a compulsion to expose himself to small children); Soupy Sales (necrophilia): Al Jolson (borderline personality disorder); Omar Bradley (a woman trying to escape from a man’s body); Pat Sajak (homicidal paranoid schizophrenia); Spiro Agnew (perfectly normal except for the compulsion to touch each buttock twenty times before retiring to bed–sometimes 10 then 10, others 5-5-5-5. It exorcised the Nabobs of Negativity!).
dear 3timesthenbackwards,
i was at target once late at night. i think there were probably only 10 people in the whole store, which was about to close. the employees were busy putting stuff away. this guy came in with a woman. he had that tic of clearing his throat every few seconds, covering a repressed little shout (there’s a name for this, but i’m too lazy to research it). since the store was so damn empty, his throat-clearing was very loud. the reaction of the store employees was irrepressible giggling. they found the thing totally hilarious. it was hard to resist going up to them and smacking them upside the head.
i don’t think i said anything about loving community of acceptance. if you are familiar with english films other than made-for-hollywood pancakes (Three Weddings…, Love, Actually, Calendar Girls), you’ll know that they tend not to be heavy on the loving side. anyway, this isn’t. one of the two guys who made it has tourette’s, and i thought the movie did well dealing with all that.
Titicut Follies is more about the way we (used to) treat the mentally ill than about mental illness itself. No?
I’d agree that Titicut Follies is more about the way the mentally ill are treated; however I’d also say it’s about the conditions making it possible for mental illness to thrive, conditions in which a “doctor” can brutually force feed a patient “for his own good” because he’s got the bureaucracy and the ideology of normalcy fully behind him.
Are 3timesthenbackwards, Frisoli, and Michael the same?
if frisoli would just use the one name for his comments he’d be much higher in the “comments per member” rankings (see the “statistics” link).
What does the winner in “comments per member” get? If it’s a year’s supply of Turtle Wax, some Farrah slacks and the Spiegel Catalogue–sign me up!
Does Arnab’s posts count when he logs on to chide us for grammar or, more to the point, harangue us for inappropriate content with the vicious glee of an English, sixth-form, public schoolboy?
jeff, that should be “do arnab’s posts count”.
busted again!
By the way, I enjoyed Me and You and Everyone We Know a lot–the way it both draws upon and subverts traditional romcom conventions. I’m specifically thinking of the great sequence where the two adult leads walk together to their cars on a city sidewalk. It’s charmingly written and acted, and the audience is completely rooting for these two, but July concludes the sequence with a scene in a car that is incisively jarring. I truly didn’t know what was going to happen next. I will add that I wish the film had ended with the framed picuture of birds instead of resolving the mystery of the tap tap tapping.
dear 3timesthenbackwards,
i feel compelled to apologize for the rudeness of my fellow watchers. they dealt me the selfsame treatment when i first posted comments! i have now concluded they just cannot help putting commenters on the (blog)spot. please do not take it personally. and, PLEASE, continue posting! if it weren’t for the occasional ‘outsider’ just like yourself, we’d just be talking to each other. all the best,
gio.
Gio (and 3timesthenbackwards) I didn’t mean to sound rude. I honestly thought 3timesthenbackwards and Frisoli were the same. Frisoli loves Le Samourai and all things Melville. And he often regales me with tales of his L.A. bus commutes (Pico/Sepulveda sounds like the Santa Monica 7, which he rode regularly).
In fact, I’m still convinced 3timesthenbackwards and Frisoli are the same!!!
my apologies
they are in fact the same. i demand you retract your apology!
I’m swirling . . . swirling damn you!
oh, all right. so we are still talking to each other. thank you all for killing my hope.
Gio, you must realize that your presence (a strong female voice not letting the boys get away with their clubbiness) is so important. I ranted months ago about the lack of gender diversity and now you have arrived. So there is hope. That being said, posting under various assumed names is bad form. I kinda hope 3timesbackwards and lil’ pony are still out there, still wading through the verbiage, and still feeling the urge to contribute. Molly, are you still out there? Joshua? Graham? Others?
jeff, thanks for the kind words. i love you, too. now can we please go back to when you used to think i was a boy?
jeff, it isn’t too late for you to have the operation, you know. there is a correlation, by the way, between your arrival and the other women on the blog stopping posting. just too much dominating testosterone in your reviews.
I agree that posting under assumed names is very bad form indeed! When we were fighting the Zulu’s (not a very hygienic people but plucky fighters!)if I discovered one of my men posting on blogs under various assumed names, we would bury him up to the neck, cover him with mayonnaise and let a hungry family of Methodists go after him. The very idea! Names reveal the soul, don’t you know!
by the way, jeff this is a club, not a public service or microcosm of an ideal society. in fact, i’m not very interested in hearing from anyone who isn’t a member of the club.
is the correlation qualitative or quantitative?
club, blog, chat room, buzz kill, dessert topping, floor wax