Perhaps
you always suspected Chinese mental hospitals were not very hospitable. If so,
your suspicions have been definitively vindicated by documentarian Wang Bing’s
nearly four hour descent into the everyday lunacy of a decrepit facility
located somewhere in the southwest provinces. Tellingly, the inmates often joke
this place will “drive you crazy.” The same might be said for viewers, but
there is no denying the weightiness and immediacy of Wang’s ‘Til Madness Do Us Part, which screens
tomorrow as part of MoMA’s 2014 Documentary Fortnight.
Yes,
some of the patients/inmates/prisoners have been committed for being politically
difficult. However, they have been mixed in with killers, hardcore schizophrenics,
and slightly loony relatives someone wanted to get out of the house. Unlike bad
old Soviet psychotherapy, the doctors are not constantly poking and prodding
the patients. In fact, staff members are rarely seen throughout the course of a
day. Think Lord of the Flies instead
of 1984. Frankly, it is like Bedlam
in there.
Throughout
most of the film, Wang and his fellow cameraman Liu Xianhui are confined to the
top men’s floor of the facility. The
layout not so coincidently resembles a prison, with a central corridor
overlooking the interior courtyard.
Viewers will become quite familiar with this fenced in passageway,
because Wang and Liu will pursue many a disturbed patient as they go tearing around
and around it.
Obviously,
there are many issues with this sanatorium, starting first and foremost with
the conspicuous lack of resources. The level of care is also problematic,
mainly consisting of the daily dispensing of happy pills, at least as far as
viewers can tell. There is even a mute inmate whose identity remains a mystery
to staff and patients alike. Right, what are the chances he will be cured of
what troubles him?
Given
the 228 minute running time, Wang can hardly be accused of selective editing. Madness is an immersive experience more
than a muckraking expose. Yet, the micro and macro implications are
inescapable. Nobody would want to be there. Yet, Wang still finds pockets of
humanity in the bleakness, such as the man who has somehow commenced a romantic
relationship with a woman confined to a lower floor, mostly through stolen
conversations through barred doors and the like.
