Asylum (1972)
Amazing doc by Peter Robinson (dir) Richard W. Adams (camera/edit).
From the Kino website:
"In 1971, filmmaker Peter Robinson and a small crew entered a world of anarchic madness and healing compassion unlike any other. The resulting film, Asylum, records their seven week stay in radical psychiatrist R. D. Laing’s controversial Archway Community -- a London row-house where the inmates literally run the asylum. Laing’s conviction that schizophrenics can only heal their shattered "self" where they’re free and yet are held responsible for their actions, challenged patients, doctors and, in Asylum’s incredible document, the filmmakers, to live communally and peacefully."
I recorded some excerpts and re-worked them, in a way mimicing the double-bind Laing talks of in the image treatment. It's interesting to think of this in terms of the filmmaking process, especially when the filmmakers set up this 'immersive invasion' style of gathering images and stories. You wonder what effect they had on the day to day goings-on in the house, and to what extent they caused the residents to see themselves reflected in the making of a film about them.
2 comments:
I haven't seen Asylum but I would like to. Where and when can I do that. The girl in this film is very interesting, in a hypnotic way. When did you make this one Paul?
I found the film on Netflix in the US. Not sure about how to find it in Europe, but as it was a British production you might have some luck with it here.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0775421/
I just saw it last week and made the video the same day.
The girl Julia is one of the several mazing characters in the film.
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