Berlinale 2009, Day 2 (Seishin)

As the reigning choco parfait has less time than me, I will, being the “other naruhodou person” (search the blogroll), try to blog the movies she didn’t have time or motivation to watch.

This one was shown on a Saturday at 10 pm, so I was shocked to see, that 20 minutes before the screening there was a monstrous queue forming in front of the cinema hall. Being the good “Berliner” I am, I heartily ignored the people queueing up and placed myself somewhere in the front, which really paid off, as the cinema was packed. (In Berlin it really is perfectly alright to have a rather free interpretation on the concept of queueing up.)

The Cubix and especially its hall No. 9 is a great cinema. The screen is huge, there is abundant leg room and the ridiculously comfortable seats recline! You also have a great view from the waiting areas, especially the one in front of No. 9, as it’s on the (very high) 4th(BE) floor and you can see the television tower and the Alexanderplatz station. Too bad it only shows German language versions, I’d really like our original-language-only-multiplex to move there, it even is the same chain of cinemas! Also, they only let us in 10 minutes after the official starting time of projection. Berlin is not a German city, when it comes to organisation…

Seishin (Mental)
Japan 2008, Soda Kazuhiro, 135′

This was a screening with the director present. He was very happy to see so many people so late to watch his movie and wondered how many would stay until the end. Click here for a very interesting interview about him and the movie, it also covers the relevant points asked in the Q&A.

It started on a very dark note, with a heavily crying, suicidal woman visiting Dr. Yamamoto (the one in the picture), who is the founder of Chorale, a mental clinic in Okayama, Japan. The first impression of the doctor is really bad however, as he doesn’t really seem to care about what the woman has to say and at the end there is this great scene where you see him reaching for a tissue. Not to give it to woman, mind you. Just to clean his own nose! The whole cinema was torn between laughter and exasperation. It goes on in a similar tone, presenting 2 other women with depressions and similar problems which makes them unstable to the point of being suicidal. This part was really uncomfortable und depressing, so actually there were many people leaving the cinema, although maybe they just got headaches from the shaky handheld digital camera, although fortunately the director used a tripod wherever possible.

After you made it through this, the movie portrayed the institution’s projects: “Pastel”, a milk delivery service and “Mini-Chora”, a really cute little restaurant, where all the staff are patients from Chorale. Of course, money in the form of government grants and quarreling for payments from public health services is a dominant theme through the whole movie. At one point, a woman you wouldn’t expect to understand or be interested in politics talks about the situation for people with disabilities and says “Thank you, Mr. Koizumi”, which is one of the moments where you see how “normal” the patients actually are.

There are also examples of a more uplifting nature, if you can call it that. There was one person (Sugano, if you read the interview. If not, do it.) who said many intelligent things and was really good at taking photos and writing poems. A really charming fellow, who said “OK, cut!” every time after he delivered one of his speeches, of course the director ignored it. From his history, you could see that his life could have been really good if he didn’t have this one big mental problem: every time he had to work or study for something he put in a ridiculous amount of effort (e.g. spending 18 hours of his high-school days on school or studying) and every time, after a few weeks or months of doing this, he would completely break down and lose everything he worked for.

Through the movie, with every patient, it became more apparent that Dr. Yamamoto, a really silent and inconspicuos person, was actually the very heart of the whole clinic and a very good, dedicated psychologist, who devoted his whole life to these people. For example, until recently he didn’t get any money for his work and even now he gets only 100,000¥ (around 850€ or US$1100 and the costs of living in Japan are roughly twice as much as in the USA and maybe 1.5 times as much as in Western Europe), much less than his (great and also dedicated) assistants, so he also receives some form of social security. He also speaks at events that are so low budget, noone else would accept. Also, one person tells about how the Dr. traveled a few hundred kilometers just to help him, a former patient. You also gradually see, how he really cares for and interacts with his patients.

All in all this documentary is neither beautiful (although the director has a good feel for the camera) nor very funny or classically entertaining, but it really gives a heart-warming portrait of Dr. Yamamoto, his workers and their patients. If you have any interest in the subject, I wholeheartedly recommend it to you. Shame on the rude people who left. You really could have known beforehand, that it woldn’t be “fun”.