El día que Nietzsche lloró

Its not a tremendous film, a must see, of a picture at his own, When Nitszche Wept is very good driven style of fan fiction, that manage to get us near to a lot of Niche, and Freud, concepts -but in reality is only near, because as lots of book-film adaptations, it takes a to much of the director's point of view-, it gets it right in some moments and is not a waste of time at all, but it suffers from his flaws, the nature of art, is specific to each category it belongs, this is most like and homage, and want us to remember very important things, and don't care about being very technical with the acting, the passing, or the writing itself, it's made great with the cameos that it have, and the good vibe the producers have toward those beautiful mind that they were, but maybe fails, to stand alone as film,

Knowing nothing of the book, and based solely on the DVD cover and description I expected a disappointingly shallow, titillating pseudo-intellectual romp through the fields of pretense. But the portrayal of the rare humanity of these characters as they confronted their obsessions and limitations drew me into rapt attention at the next plot development. Perhaps I'm just shallow and easily amused, but this story gave a fairly good look at a decent man, Joseph Breuer, and his struggle to really feel his humanity. This is an important story, one rarely told because how many story tellers have been through the fire of transformation to live for real? Where do you find an audience willing to sit through something they're desperately trying to avoid themselves? Maybe package it as a shallow and titillating pseudo-intellectual romp. Sure there were times when I saw through the weave of the story, for a moment I even saw Assante speaking lines rather than Nietzsche talking but for the most part this story was to me a real story of people really evolving right before our very eyes. That's not something you're going to see every day.

I just wonder how many people are going to be tuned in to seeking out and sitting through a film all about psychoanalysis, detailing very briefly the more desperate incidences in the lives of some of the most brilliant minds ever to have graced Earth. My heart hopes as many as possible but my mind tells me not many will bother, and given this that's quite a shame. The film is a concentrated study on illness and the effects of illness but the said sickness is more affiliated to love or problems of a psychological kind. The events, no matter how fabricated over history, are still compelling and the film just about works as a drama or a study of an individual's actions given their emotions that run on a dizzying high.

The film follows Josef Breuer (Cross) and Friedrich Nietzsche (Assante) who meet and attempt to help one another. The setting is 1870s Vienna in Austria at a time when some of the most brilliant minds ever would congregate to pioneer the study of psychoanalysis; love as an illness and what makes us who we are through these events. On this occasion, Nietzsche has fallen for a woman and she is Lou Salome (Winnick). This acts as the catalyst for him to seek help from Breuer, an experienced and responsible doctor who has battled his own demons in the past to do with one of his parents' early death. Nietzsche at first seeks to run from his problem, thinking escaping to Switzerland will compensate for the pain following the rejection of marriage.

But this isn't the end of it. There is no surprise that a film dealing with psychoanalysis, and containing Sigmund Freud, has a few mind games up its sleeve. The film is uncannily seductive in its general atmosphere and quite humbling on other occasions. Breuer is good friends with Sigmund Freud himself (Elman) and they both seem overly concerned with Nietzsche which propels them into at least pretending one of them needs help from Nietzsche in return.

In order to achieve this, Breuer assumes the stance that he himself is falling in love with one of his patients and requests the help from Nietzsche in return he help him get over his break up. There's a lot of psychology going on here and a lot of scenes and content that deals with mental health. Nietzsche undergoes perhaps the more interesting study of the characters because his is the more dramatic, slipping into despair and depression after initially trying to combat the break up with 'remedy' from prostitution and, like I mentioned, fleeing entirely.

The point When Nietzsche Wept has going for it the whole time is the age of these primary characters. This is not a (another?) mere look at young people in contemporary America or wherever trying to get over relationships or trying to instigate one so that they may have sex, this is a thoughtful and interesting look at people of an older age dealing with real issues that at the time, remained as scary and as ambiguous as you could possibly imagine. The frightening thing that should remain at the back of the viewer's mind is 'what if you were very ill, but you did not know of the illness you have?' Twinned with this, what if you did not know of the treatment and the pain or whatever would simply not disappear? Nowadays, we're all fine with our doctors and so forth and our teen sex comedies that act as an escapist or humoured look at coming of age or love or sex or whatever but When Nietzsche Wept is a pit stop; a look back at times past.

The film is a grand display of surrealism, dreams often beginning naturally enough before descending into chaos. We the audience ask the question of what is going on and just when it seems the impossible or the downright obscure is about to happen, our questions are answered. The film is a study into the great minds that pioneered certain theory but it's a look at their own struggles; their own struggles that helped shape an understanding in the first place. The film is a study of a delicate mentality as expressed by those of a brilliant natural intelligence.

Whether it's the bizarre manner in which Breuer refers to Freud as 'Siggy' or the odd scenes to do with diegetic classical music complete with orchestra that Nietzsche himself composes to the bemusement of those around him, the film remains an interesting look at a subject that is being dealt with head on rather than in a metaphorical or dramatic way, much like Hitchcock and Lynch have done in the past. But don't be fooled for it isn't a documentary and it does retain a fair amount of drama throughout. It may not be as good a metaphorical study but it remains interesting and thought-provoking.

Fine production values, a dry sense of humor throughout, literate script, decent casting (Assante transcends his usual "heroics" and plays a crumbling soul nicely and Cross is always workmanlike and solid), and, slyly, the film (as the book did) finally gives Nietzsche credit for inventing modern psychoanalysis (since Freud, et al, in the field stole from his works outrageously and lavishly, without assigning him the proper credit for his startlingly original insights into the world-historical human, all too human capacity for self-deception).

A tough work for an adaptation, but this movie succeeds where something like "Freud" dismally collapsed into timid clichés.

Nietzsche would have gotten many a devilish laugh out of this work's visual craftiness.

And appreciated being treated, not as a cartoon "Overman" idol, but a struggling, flawed, tragic-comically-profound human.

"Ecce Homo", his anti-"autobiography" warned those who followed not to take him too seriously.

If this film stimulates a few people to pick up his "Joyful Wisdom" (La Gaya Scienza) or "Dawn", it will have made its honorable point.

Yalom was, in essence, giving Nietszche a posthumous brother's embrace for his loneliness and struggle and brilliance and scorn and lack of recognition while he lived.

This movie does the same.

To a guy, who, friendless and abandoned and ignored through much of his writing life, still affirmed the Universe and humanity in the words:

"Man would rather have the Void for a purpose than be void of purpose." -F.N.

Worth a viewing.

I read the book several years ago, and didn't remember much of it, beyond being fascinated by the psychological-philosophical explorations of the legendary characters and intrigued by the migraine issues that Nietszche and Breuer attempt to solve. But the book is deeply intellectual, and it was difficult to imagine it translated to the screen. Unfortunately, the director's interpretation falls very limp indeed, despite valiant attempts by a cast of worthy actors.

Melodrama substitutes in most scenes for subtlety and quiet depth. Two-dimensional beauty in the female characters substitutes for the much harder to convey inner beauty.

I found the heavy-handed artificial accents maintained by all to be especially distracting, if not constantly irritating -- the thick German/Austrian/Russian accents were like bad scenery pulling the focus from any authentic expression of the characters. The wisdom of Nietszche is disappointingly obscured in this mediocre effort.

"And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you."