Kazuhiro Soda's New Documentary On Mental Illness

[Mulboyne]

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Director Kazuhiro Soda, who made the well-received documentary "Campaign", has another film called "Mental" on the festival circuit which has also been picking up awards. He describes the work as:

"A feature-length documentary that observes the complex world of an outpatient mental health clinic in Japan, interwoven with patients, doctors, staff, volunteers, and home-helpers, in cinema-verite style. The film breaks a major taboo against discussing mental illness prevalent in Japanese society, and captures the candid lives of people coping with suicidal tendencies, poverty, a sense of shame, apprehension, and fear of society."

Sado wrote this on his blog after the world premiere in Korea last month:

"Both screenings were sold-out with lots of young audience in 20's. The Q&A session after the screening on 3rd was remarkable - it was supposed to be 40 minutes, but it lasted for an hour and a half...Unlike Q&A of CAMPAIGN where I and Yama-san spoke like stand-up comedians, the Q&A session of MENTAL was more serious with some tears in the audience...a lot of viewers came up to me crying in the lobby and thanked me for making the movie. Many of them confessed to me that they suffer from mental illnesses. I was really surprised and thrilled because I was most worried...that viewers who are ill may end up feeling worse if they watched this film. I was also worried that some people may criticize me that I'm exploiting sick people by showing the film. But I got the feeling that the audience who enjoyed and appreciated the film most were patients"

[kusai Jijii]

Well done Mullie.
that looks really interesting!
Thanks

[Takechanpoo]

"Mental illnessed" dudes are just pretending to be maddness to deceive their own weakness, loserness or bitchness. There is not mental illnesses but just brain defects.
If you know real strongness, you never suffer from so-called mental illness.
Never treat them seriously.

[Mulboyne]

"Mental illnessed" dudes are just pretending to be maddness to deceive their own weakness, loserness or bitchness. There is not mental illnesses but just brain defects.
If you know real strongness, you never suffer from so-called mental illness.
Never treat them seriously.

Congratulations, I think that's a good summary of the attitude which has made the subject such a damaging taboo in Japan.

[Iraira]

"Mental illnessed" dudes are just pretending to be maddness to deceive their own weakness, loserness or bitchness. There is not mental illnesses but just brain defects.
If you know real strongness, you never suffer from so-called mental illness.
Never treat them seriously.

Treat them seriously when they carry a knife. By the way, you are starting to sound a bit Tom Cruise-like in your flippant dismissal of psychiatric disorders. Japan is full of Scientologists?

[wuchan]

"Mental illnessed" dudes are just pretending to be maddness to deceive their own weakness, loserness or bitchness. There is not mental illnesses but just brain defects.
If you know real strongness, you never suffer from so-called mental illness.
Never treat them seriously.

Japanese ignorance on this topic is amazing at times. Last week I saw a couple of high school kids get on the train. I didn't think much of it at first but I did notice a unusual amount of space around me after a few stops. When I looked around I noticed that the kids were from the special needs school and all the locals left the car almost as if the poor kids were infected with anthrax. I could only think to myself "those poor children". I had to work with special needs kids in school, most of them were the nicest people ever. A few did have some very strange fetishes, the female staff could not wear open toed shoes because some of the male students would, well you can figure it out.

There really needs to be better education on topics like this in japanese schools.

[Charles]

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[Greji]

A few did have some very strange fetishes, the female staff could not wear open toed shoes because some of the male students would, well you can figure it out.

I'm starting to get hard....

[Takechanpoo]

[Tengu Kid]