A Vida em Mim

This documentary was approached in much different way to which I would've thought they would approach it. There is a lot of visual metaphor in the particular shots they choose, not really giving much context to the backstory of each child. It jumped several places throughout, however I thought that the transitioning between stories and finding connections to move from one child to the next was a nice touch. In a way, it pulls the audience in and at times pushes them out. I'd honestly have to say that I learned more in the white text before and after the actual footage than the footage itself.

It was not the most informative film although it seemed to be more focused on the pandemic of this syndrome from an emotional perspective, I personally think that a documentaries job is among other things supposed to be informative, the emotional aspect of it should come from the facts mixed with the story which this film didn't really do. I loved the film, however there are some blank spaces where pieces of vital information and medical reliability through interviews with specialists are missing.

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.

An absolute riveting watch. My heart broke for those families.

A few years ago I read a lot about resignation syndrome and found it so interesting. But today, when I watched this documentary, I felt it has no depth. If you found the topic interesting, google to know more.

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.