Vom Leben Überholt

This is a very interesting subject, and some of the photography is gorgeous (namely, the overhead shots of the snowcapped forests), but the documentarians largely squander their 39 minutes of running time, leaving too many unresolved questions for the film to feel satisfying.

Resignation Syndrome is apparently a disorder in which children who have undergone traumatic experiences retreat into a catatonic state that could last months or even years. The children awaken once stability has been achieved within the family. This disorder was not recorded until the 1990s, and it has only happened in Sweden and in Nauru (an island territory off the coast of Australia; it has not happened in mainland Australia, as the film suggests at the end). For the most part, it seems only to affect the children of refugees from the Balkans or former Soviet states. I'm not denying that the symptoms of this disorder are very real and that the effect on the families is quite painful and costly, but it seems rather obvious that this is a culture-specific illness, somehow related to ideological influence. The documentary hints at this very briefly in an ambiguous voiceover, but such details could be easily missed.

I would've preferred a documentary that more rigorously explored the medical science behind this condition, the roots and history of its existence, and its relation to other disorders of questionable biological epidemiology (like "koro" in China or the South Korean belief in "fan death"). I would've also preferred a film that more thoroughly detailed the lives and struggles of the refugees featured; we get some elusive details about death threats, but we're not even told what countries the interview subjects come from or what was going on in those countries.

Instead of either of those things, however, we get long, tedious footage of catatonic children. Girls lying in bed while a doctor uses a blood pressure cuff. A boy being bathed. Children being fed through tubes. None of that is especially resonant, at least not as the film depicts it. I empathize with the children and the families taking care of them, but this movie never quite succeeds at saying anything meaningful about their struggle.

While the issue is tragic and potentially extremely interesting, the documentary is quite lame. Basically almost its 40 minutes is silent footage of sleeping children and the backstory of the families is badly explained, the interviewer imho didn't do a very good job. The medical side of the question is left unexplored, just as the cultural one.

Resignation Syndrome is a fascinating condition and the families' stories are very sad. However, I feel this beautifully filmed documentary offers little beyond an introduction. Frustratingly we're never told which countries these refugee families came from, and the film doesn't examine the syndrome from a scientific angle.

Very important documentary. Would have been great with added interviews with the Swedish migration center and politicians. It felt so hopeless seeing those children and feeling like yes this documentary informed us about this but what if it could have actually made a difference politically?

This documentary is about a rare dissociative disorder related to traumatic stress in children. Cases have been noted in other instances outside of Sweden, but it is rare. Many of those affected share common backgrounds.