Full Description
Austrian filmmaker Antonin Svoboda spent several years in research producing a documentary on the controversial Jewish psychoanalyst and experimental scientist Wilhelm Reich. The director was so fascinated by Reich that he began writing a fictional biopic while still in the process of finishing his doc. Svoboda brilliantly cast legendary actor Klaus Maria Brandauer (Mephisto, Out of Africa) whose commanding presence makes him the perfect choice to play the embattled Reich. The filmmaker focuses most of the story on Reich’s later years, an incredibly dramatic time when the doctor faced criminal charges which ultimately led to his mysterious death in a Pennsylvania prison in 1957. A victim of Cold War paranoia, Reich suffered intense persecution for his seemingly radical theories which posited that sexual repression could lead to spiritual, even physical harm. Reich unwisely chose to defend himself in court while government agents burned his books and writings. Svoboda’s film has a tense, cumulative power perfectly matched by Brandauer’s understated performance. Even a nearly silent scene (Reich attempting to get a misdiagnosed schizophrenic to merely breathe) is enormously moving. The Strange Case of Wilhelm Reich vividly brings to life the work of the doomed Reich, a visionary who could never have imagined the power his ideas would continue to have on generations to come.
