Watch The Soul Keeper For Free

You won't be disappointed!

The Worst Film Ever

the audience applauded

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Carl Jung, the Swiss psychiatrist, having decided to go on his own, set his practice treating people according to his own principles. Having been associated with Sigmund Freud for a while, he was getting known for his work with difficult cases, one of which involved Sabina Spielrein, a Russian young woman, that is brought over to him to see if he can help her. Basically, Sabina's problems were difficult to detect, although Jung determines to experiment the work he had developed with Freud in order to treat her illness. There are two narratives in this film. The other one takes us to the present time Russia where a young French woman goes to Moscow to do research on Sabina's case. Marie is determined to get to the bottom of Ms. Spielrein's work and her work in the famous White School, that she founded during the Stalinist era. Marie meets a Scottish scholar, Richard Fraser, who sees in the young woman a determination and resolve to get to know what happened to Sabina.After successfully treating Sabina, Carl Jung developed a passion for his patient, something that might have been considered as unethical. Dr. Jung was married to a cold woman who did not appreciate his work, or at least took no interest in what her husband was trying to accomplish. The relationship ended badly as the doctor came to his senses thinking in his family and his standing in the medical community. Sabina, on the other hand, decided to go back to Moscow where she married and had children. Those were hard times in the old Soviet Union, but she prevailed in establishing a school that was revolutionary in its own right. Mary's research gets to the bottom of the story as she goes to Rostov where the last part of Sabina's life were spent and where she died with the thousands of Jews that lost their lives in the conflict.Directed by Italian Roberto Faenza with an international cast, we saw an English version of the film. We do not know whether the film was shot in Italian, or was conceived just as we watched it on a DVD transfer. We had enjoyed Mr. Faenza's "According to Pereira" with the great Marcello Mastroianni. Mr. Faenza contributed to the screenplay which was written in collaboration with about six other writers. The film presents a good story, but the screenplay does not do justice to the story of Sabina. No doubt, the creators had the best intentions in mind to present an interesting account about a subject that unfortunately leaves a lot to be explained and the second narrative seems a bit superfluous in our humble opinion.Iain Glen, the Scottish actor is seen as Dr. Jung. Emilia Fox plays Sabina. Craig Ferguson and Caroline Ducey are the researchers that uncovered the facts of Sabina's fate.

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.)

This movie *could* have been much more than it was. We have two historical figures, psychiatrist Karl Gustav Jung, and a gifted patient, Sabina Spielrein, who first becomes Jung's lover, and then a child psychiatrist in her own right. I had been hoping for deep psychological insight, instead I got a cartoonish loony (Sabina) and a starchy doctor (K.G. Jung). The characters are over-simplified, and their complex relationship is dumbed down to Harlequin Romance level. Furthermore, Sabina's life in Russia and her accomplishments are barely even mentioned in the movie. The subplot with Marie and Frazer (the present-day researchers) is 100% unnecessary, too. So, in the end you are left with a pleasant, if sleepy, non-controversial movie, suitable for airing on national tv at prime time. Come to think of it, maybe this is what they had in mind all along...

Roberto Faenza has shot a very brave film, brave because shows an argument like this in the today's film panorama should be considered very brave. Nowadays, any film that enters into the psychoanalysis field and its world should be at least seen. In this case, Faenza shot a non Italian film, with a multi national coproduction about a sort of small biography of Carl Jung the famous psychologist who has funded a personal current beside the one developed by Siegmund Freud. The film has some very good moments, specially when Jung is at his very beginning of his career in a house hospital in Zurich and meet Caroline Ducey as his very first patient. The developing of her illness and Jung's very modern approach compared to the rest of his colleagues in the hospital is really the best part of the film, this together with the start of their love "affair" worth the whole film. Unfortunately the rest of the film is not well driven, a sort of general and confused flashback brings the old scenes to a "today" situation through a "path" that a relative of Caroline is following in Russia with the help of some old books. Rating: 6/10