An Angel at my Table
Saw the weirdest movie yesterday: An Angel at my Table, the story of Janet Frame, New Zealand author. It draws you in, through the gradual introduction of the main character, from childhood on, via a skillful depiction of moments of her life. Painfully shy, she is wrongly diagnosed with schizophrenia and spends eight years in an institution; pursuing the writer's life after her release, she bumbles through human encounter after human encounter, and you feel all the slights, the awkward moments, and her joy at writing in solitude. And then, when the one hundred and fifty or so minutes of this are over and it all hits you, it's like a freight train of emotion. Highly recommended unless you're already tired or sad or lonely, in which case I'd treat it advisedly, reverently, and with great distance. Directed by Jane Campion.