Jung At Heart

Today's film is An Angel at My Table. Originally produced as a three-part miniseries for New Zealand television, this extraordinary film is based on the life of Janet Frame, an introverted, sensitive girl who was later misdiagnosed as schizophrenic and spent eight years in a psychiatric hospital. She would later become one of New Zealand's most celebrated poets and novelists, publishing her first books while she was still confined to a mental ward. Part one traces her childhood and adolescence. Part two covers the terrible years when Ms. Frame was endured lengthy public hospitalizations for mental illness, receiving countless ECT treatments, until the publication of her short stories and first novel, and a prize for the latter, altered the manner in which she was regarded by psychiatrists and led to her emancipation from the hospital, barely avoiding a lobotomy. Directed by Jane Campion. Click here for Roger Ebert's review.