3. Through a Glass Darkly (1961)
Through a Glass Darkly is a sombre Swedish film directed by one of my personal cinematic heroes Ingmar Bergman. In this film, he produces an excellent portrayal of a psychotic break in a schizophrenic woman - Karin played by Harriet Andersson. The action takes place over a 24 hour period on a Swedish Island. There is Karin, her husband Martin, her brother Minus and her father David. Karin has just been released from hospital and her husband informs her father that her disease is almost incurable. Over the 24 hours, Karin begins to crack. In the middle of the night, she is led by a foghorn into a room in which she can hear voices behind the peeling wallpaper. She goes for comfort to her father. When he leaves the room, Karin reads his diary in which he has detailed how he finds himself having a cold and curious fascination with her illness. This greatly upsets her as her worse fears are confirmed - she won't be cured. The next day, Karin tells Minus about her episodes and how she feels God is going to reveal himself to her behind the wallpaper. An ambulance is called for. Karin wants to go back to the hospital because she cannot bear to live in two realities. She runs to the attic and Martin and David follow her. She hallucinates that God appears to her in the form of a spider with a cruel face which tries to penetrate her. She screams and cries in horror and has to be sedated. The helicopter comes to take her away to the hospital. A lot more goes on in the film than I have described, but for the purposes of this article we are chiefly concerned with the portrayal of mental ill health. Karin's psychotic break is very convincing and true to life. Many schizophrenics have delusions about God and they are very idiosyncratic. The fact that Karin's case is incurable would be in fitting with the time - 1961. There was a paucity of psychiatric drugs and suitable treatments. The ultimate drug for incurable schizophrenia - Clozapine - was decades away from being in use and helping the lives of people like Karin. Nowadays, there would be more hope for her.