A Dangerous Method

A Dangerous Method (2011)

Director: David Cronenberg

Cast: Michael Fassbender, Kiera Knightly, Viggo Mortensen, Vincent Cassel

A Dangerous Method begins and ends with Sabina Spielrein (Kiera Knightly) inside a coach. In the beginning, she screams and thrashes hysterically as her horse-drawn coach approaches the Swiss mental institution where she is soon to meet and be analyzed by Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender); in the end of the film, ten years later, Sabina exits the frame in a motorized car, a much evolved and accomplished character, pulling away from Jung who played a large role in her development. She is crying, but her grief is representative of a functional woman who is saying goodbye to her unrequited love affair with Jung.

Cronenberg's latest film can be best approached through the summation of each of these scenes; the gradual transformations of its three central characters (Spielrein, Jung, and Freud) on the cusp of major historical shifts, the onslaught of the World Wars. It is surprising, then, that the film, at only an hour and half long, did not continue on the path of a sweeping, narrative epic. The result is that it largely feels inconsequential and short-lived.

This is a shame considering the film's finest attributes. The relationship between Carl Jung and his mentor/best friend Sigmund Freud (Viggo Mortensen, giving the strongest performance) is genuine and touching. Their written correspondences throughout the film serve not only to solidify their intrinsic friendship, but also amplify the most engaging and unique aspects of their characters. After their first meeting, Freud points out to Jung that they have been in conversation for thirteen hours. Jung is apologetic, and Freud assures him not to be; they have already established a friendship that will last a lifetime. The eventual dissolution of that friendship, caused by divergent academic goals and in part by Jung's refusal to account for his mistakes, is the strongest and most tragic plot line of the film.

In contrast, Jung's doomed and scandalous love affair with the sexually crippled, yet brilliantly dedicated psychiatry student and patient Sabina is meant to grip the audience to the same extent, yet fails to do so. This is not necessarily the fault of Fassbender and Knightly; although I would argue that Knightly, in trying her best to play Sabina with heightened idiosyncratic naturalism, often fails to ground her character in the narrative and thus bolster audience sympathy of their relationship. But the major weak spot is Jung's character, which is drawn poorly. By the end we still do not have a definite sense of what drives him. Well which one it is, ambition or passion?

Cronenberg paints wonderful juxtapositions between the repressed Victorian lifestyle of Jung and his wife and that of a burgeoning, neo-liberal counter lifestyle, which we live today. This is most prevalent in Jung's rushed encounter with sexually free psyhoanalyst Otto Gross (a wonderful Vincent Cassel). Gross's presence in Jung's life is meant to drive him toward Sabina and away from his reservations regarding sex and adultery. However, by the end, we realize that his scenes with Gross have only served as a convenient plot development to do just that.

One must wonder what could have been if A Dangerous Method had extended its narrative to culminate in the deaths of Frued and Spielrein during WWII. The film takes us to pre- World War I, wonderfully predicted by Jung's foreboding dream involving "the blood of Europe". However, as the film ends, we are left seduced (ha ha) by a solid and beautiful period piece with exemplary performances, but little else to chew on.

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