sl-22 Reviews

The Soul Keeper (2002)

A note on the Scandinavian DVD edition

[30 December 2004]

At the end of the film there is a text blurb mentioning that Spielrein's theoretical work influenced both Freud and Jung. Unfortunately, in the Scandinavian DVD edition this was mistranslated to the effect that Spielrein's work was *influenced by* both Freud and Jung. Apparently the idea that a woman could have influenced the work of these great men is still so far-fetched that the translator misread (in a most Freudian way) the text. Of course, having seen the film one could forgive the translator for not appreciating the impact of Spielrein's work, since it receives little, if any, attention in the script.

(BTW, There is also a (less Freudian) error in the sound editing, for about 15 minutes of the DVD edition the sound lags about one minute behind. Just so you know.)

The Soft Skin (1964)

mechanics contra eros

[4 July 2004]

*** contains spoiler (although in fairly abstract form & only in the last sentence) ***

I noticed that none of the other reviews commented on the extensive and prolonged footage of mechanical structures in this film. For example, at the gas station the camera focuses on the rolling numbers on the petrol pump, and some time is spent on filming the airplane dashboard in close-up. Of course, this is in stark contrast to the other, more obvious, main theme of the film - the destructive and irrational power of love (or eros, as existential psychologist Rollo May calls it). It seems to me that the film points to the conflict between these two forces - call them rationality vs. irrationality, dead objects vs. living humans, machine vs. spirit, or what have you.

I already mentioned Rollo May; I'm currently reading his "Love and Will" from 1969) which undoubtedly has affected how I see this movie. The main theme of May's book is the exact same conflict and how people in the industrial (not to mention computerized) era tend to become machine-like, repressing and forgetting the importance of eros - the source of both love and destruction. The results of this are either apathy, or the return of the repressed eros in it's destructive form - it is, of course, the latter we see at the end of the film.