Dialogues With Madwomen

Seven articulate women speak about manic depression, schizophrenia and multiple-personality disorders. Director Allie Light, who adds her own experience of depression, offsets the interviews with experimental montage sequences. Archive footage and reconstructed images illuminate the darkest corners of the psyche: a keyhole drips blood; a silhouette dances in front of the moon; an interviewee walks into the sea with a suitcase; horrific photographs of self-mutilation. The material draws heavily on early childhood, the reasons for insanity being attributed to life-experience rather than biochemistry; and abuse at the hands of fathers and stepfathers features strongly.