Customer Reviews

Family Life [VHS]

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

A young woman, Janice, in fragile mental health, is browbeaten into having an abortion by her overbearing parents. As her mental state deteriorates and conflict with her parents intensifies, Janice is hospitalised, whence she strikes up a friendship with a male patient. Disapproval from the nursing sister reminds Janice of the way she feels excessively controlled by her parents, and her subsequent rage results in enforced administration of medication. Periods in hospital are punctuated by dead-end jobs and further family conflict. Support from Janice's art-school boyfriend, who encourages independence and rebellion, is viewed with suspicion and disapproval by her parents. Consequent breakdown leaves Janice cutting a pathetic figure, lost both to herself and her enviroment. This enormously powerful, humane and moving film, shot in documentary style, paints a graphic portrait of a young person's descent into schizophrenia, and provides the perfect antidote to the mindless, puerile and irresponsible depiction of the mentally-ill by Hollywood.

A vivacious mentally disturbed young woman is driven into a catatonic state. Her actions seemingly embarass her parents, who use this as an excuse to seek a more provincial form of psychiatric treatement than the healing form of therapy she had been receiving. I believe this film is inspired by the English Psychiatrist and fabulous author, R.D. Laing who taught, amongst other things, that craziness was a means to a cure. I saw the film when it first came out as a student at UC Berkeley, and have never forgotten the impact it made on me. A fantastic movie about an equally tragic tale of personal defeat at the hands of a collusion between a pair of uncaring parents and the mental health industry.

I was stunned by this movie. The clarity with which Loach shows Janice's plight is heroic. I felt myself hating and wanting to hurt her parents for doggedly draining any spark of life out of their daughter and then wondering if her parents really were to blame. And if they're not, then who is? The documentary style of the film was very compelling and I later looked up the actors' names on the Internet to verify that they really were actors. I'm not an expert but I certainly hope that people who are diagnosed as "mentally ill" today are treated with more intelligence and respect.