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Seeking asylum

The synopses of Kathy Dudding’s Asylum Pieces described it as a ‘personal essay’ looking at what the architecture of mental asylums could tell us of how mental illness has been treated…

Asylum Pieces
2010

The synopses of Wellington film maker Kathy Dudding’s Asylum Pieces described it as a ‘personal essay’ looking at what the architecture of mental asylums could tell us of how mental illness has been treated. If this had been a written essay it would have got a B+ for effort but a F overall.

A voice over at the beginning of the film (I assume to be the words of Dudding) talks of another persons interest in depleted buildings and the decision to make a collaboration with that person. But the person left too soon so she decided to continue on with the project herself. The result is a hodge podge of a vague history of Porirua hospital’s architecture, patients and how mental illness has been treated over the past two centuries. Interwoven is a discussion of the Japanese concept of wabi sabi which means if an object or expression can bring about, within us, a sense of serene melancholy and a spiritual longing, then that object could be said to be wabi-sabi.

I had a few problems with Asylum Pieces firstly I thought there was too much going on. There were three different narrations, Duddings own discussion on wabi – sabi and how former mental asylums captured this concept. Letters or excerpts from former nurses and heads of the hospital, however, it was not clear who the dialogue was from because there was no caption given so one could only assume the dialogue was from former workers at the hospital. The third narration discussed a vague history of Porirua mental hospital, Sunnyside and Seacliff hospitals in the the South Island of New Zealand. This part of the documentary was under developed, it was information that can easily be accessed by a quick google search about mental hospitals in New Zealand. I felt she could have delved deeper into the way mentally ill people have been treated in New Zealand, although she discussed the evolution of different treatments (electric shock, lobotomy and drugs) it felt like a superficial analysis.

It was not until the last 10 minutes that you find out the person she spoke of at the beginning was a partner who committed suicide after being treated for depression. The documentary was obviously a way of making sense of such a devastating and tragic event. If this piece of information had been stated at the beginning it would have make the documentary gel a lot more. If Dudding had concentrated on her own journey and delved deeper into the history of mental asylums I think this documentary would have been more of a success.

By Helen King, 21 July 2010.


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