Opium, diary of a madwoman is a film with a perhaps not too original story, but which is well worked out. Also it is a Hungarian film and I haven’t seen much of those. Dr. Brenner is an opium addict and writer with a writer’s block. Also he is psychiatrist and agrees to an appointment at a remote psychiatrical hospital where he hopes to find inspiration to write again. Brenner’s modern methods (Jung) conflict with the “medieval methods” of Dr. Moravcsik who runs the hospital, but Moravcsik allows Brenner to try his methods on a hopeless patient called Gizella. Brenner is intrigued by Gizella, her illness and behaviour and also finds out that the forced writing of the young woman is better than he even hopes to write himself. The mad and unpredictable Gizella drains the life out of Brenner who starts to use more and more opium, but eventually his only writing inspiration is copying Gizella’s writings.
I know, I know, I give away much of the story, but it is mostly the atmosphere that makes this film a suggested watch. However “thriller” is a bit too much of a description, the film has some good, dark moments, but I would just call this film a drama. The acting is great, the stages are magnificent and inspite of the not-too-good English, the “Naked Lunch”-like commentary of Brenner is wonderfull.
So perhaps this means that the Balkan might be an area to look out for when it comes to films that are a bit different from all the rest. By the way, the IMDb page seems to suggest that the film was based on real diaries.
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