1. Clean, Shaven (1994)
Clean, Shaven directed by Lodge Kerrigan, is an onjective attempt to get into the mind of a schizophrenic and see the results the illness has on other people around him. Peter Winter has been released from a mental hospital and is intent on finding his daughter. A young girl accidentally hits his car with a soccer ball and he gets an orange bag and exits the car. Off screen we hear the young girl screaming as if she is being beaten and Peter returns to the car with his orange bag. Has he killed her? We see Peter's schizophrenic behaviour when he returns to his home. He hates mirrors and believes a transmitter is buried under his skin which he tries to cut out. He seeks refuge in isolation but his mother shows a lot of concern for him. She treats him like an idiot and doesn't want him to find his daughter. Peter's travels resume and he gets caught up in the investigation of a murder of a young girl. The detective has no evidence but this doesn't deter him from following Peter to his daughter. Peter kidnaps his daughter and they are about to reconcile when the detective bursts in on them. Peter fumbles around with his gun and the detective assumes he has killed his daughter and shoots Peter dead. Returning the gun to Peter's car, he finds the orange bag is filled with nothing but newspapers. Kerrigan's film is the best film you could watch if you want to get an insight into the horrors of being a schizophrenic. Every shot is meaningful and full of tension. Things may appear irrelevant to the viewer, but they are highly portentous in the world of the schizophrenic. You get to experience anxiety, hallucinations, extreme paranoia and delusions as well as the terrible feeling of isolation and the fact that nobody could possibly understand what Peter is going through unless they have had an acute psychotic episode. Director and lead actor - Peter Greene - must have done some serious research for their roles. Greene in particular doesn't just act, he saturates himself in the role. The film is probably repellant to most people who couldn't face living in the mind of a schizophrenic for an hour and a half. This is understandable as the condition is an ugly one and extremely frightening for most people to comprehend. But Clean, Shaven will take you the full nine yards when it comes to the illness