Sundance 2020: Slamdance's Beware of Dog: Mental Illness is as Common as Humans

Happy New Year! We’re excited to start off 2020 with some fresh new films!

We continue our Sundance coverage in 2020 with our first review from the directorial feature debut of Russian filmmaker Nadia Bedzhanova. Nominated for Slamdance’s Best Jury Prize for Best Narrative Feature, Beware of Dog covers the lives of three people, from three different countries dealing with three different types of mental illness. It showcases some of their daily lives; their relationships and how each of them deals with, or rather, doesn’t deal with, their mental health.

Marina

Marina (Marina Vasileva) is a, soon to be graduate student from Moscow, who’s dream is to go to New York University. She lives with her boyfriend Sacha in an upscale apartment. but her day to day life is a bit of a nightmare. Marina suffers from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and is a prisoner of the anxieties in her mind. She finds it impossible to connect with Sacha and is hesitant to connect with people in general.

She spends most of her time obsessing over the number eight and has to count nearly everything. From the steps she takes to where she steps; from how many times she turns a faucet off and on to the number of times she has washed her hands. Her mind is a veritable slave driver, demanding that she focus all of her attention on the obsession of the moment.

Taken from some of the experiences of director Bedzhanova’s own personal experience with OCD, Marina attempts to navigate her issues on her own but finds it impossible to live with. She self-diagnoses from information on the internet and takes solace texting her cousin in Berlin, Paula (Paula Knupling), who struggles with her own mental illness.

Source: Allen Pictures

Paula

Paula is wandering in a Berlin museum while texting cousin Marina about what is going on in her life. While sitting outside she crosses paths with Joana (Marina Prados), a student from Spain studying in Berlin. Using English to mediate their communication, as neither speaks the other’s language, they begin a love story of sorts that is soon and predictably interrupted by the Bi-Polar disorder that Paula suffers from.

Though the relationship seems to be “love at first sight”, the nuances of the massive mood swings that characterize Bi-Polar and the stigma surrounding mental illness haunt Paula and make her too much to deal with. When she falls into the depressive state of the disorder, it is nearly impossible to get Paula out of her house and Joana believes that Paula is ghosting her.

In actuality, it is Paula’s belief that Joana will think she’s a “psychopath” if she comes clean about her illness that is stopping Paula from contacting her. Will Paula be able to help herself in time to save this relationship?

Source: Allen Pictures

Mike

Juxtapositioned between the two women’s stories is another about Mike (Buddy Duress), a disillusioned addict haunted by his abusive past. Once an up-and-coming boxer, his depression and addiction to alcohol have sidetracked him into a toxic, co-dependent relationship with Emily (Emily Bahr-de Stefano), another addict lost in her own problems.

Mike believes she is the only thing that is keeping him going on a daily basis because he has yet to come to terms with his own maladaptive behaviors manifesting from the years of abuse thrust upon him by his father. The only friend he confides in and the only person caring enough to tell Mike the truth is Jay (Kevin Iso).

Mike meets Jay in a park to lament to him about his problems with Emily, spouting his idea of chivalry and loyalty as better than hers because he loves her “unconditionally” and would stick with her “through thick and thin”. But Jay delivers him the first and only hard, lucid truth throughout the film stating: “you lack something, so you perceive whatever you’re lacking on somebody else and you stake it for ‘unconditional love’, but it’s not. You gotta love yourself first. I can tell that you just don’t.”

A greater truth has not been uttered. Mike is unable to see how toxic the relationship is, nor how his own toxicity contributes. One must love themselves first before any relationship will work and one cannot truly love themselves until they work through all of their demons on their own and learn to embrace themselves wholly, flaws and all.

Mental Illness: A Difference That’s Not So Different

According to the World Health Organization, 1 in 4 people have or will have a mental illness in their lifetime. However, that is just those that are reported. It’s my belief that most of us have some form of mental illness, whether suffering from Post-traumatic stress, low self-esteem or the more classic disorders featured in the film. Way too many people suffer in silence due to social stigma, isolation, lack of resources and education, and lack of family support.

Source: Allen Pictures

What is utterly impossible for humanity is to have a “normal”, cohesive, exemplary life devoid of problems. Life is hard. There is no one living on this earth who won’t be touched by mental health issues at some point in their lives.

In my work as a Crisis Counselor, I’ve seen it all. The job is very taxing and there is literally no way to truly help those suffering in the world without having worked on and healed your own issues and even then constant self-care is a necessity.

The hardest part about healing is actually having the wherewithal in the first place to know that something is wrong. Very few have that level of awareness and after that, one has to have the courage to endure and face some of the hardest, most painful things in their lives, for as long as it takes to heal.

Mental health isn’t something that is attained quickly, it is a process, lead by many that haven’t dealt with their own issues. It is the blind leading the blind and that is why so many give up on the process before their work is done.

In All Honesty…

Beware of Dog is a timely, necessary film. Most of the world is crying out for help while mired in septic stigma and attempting to navigate the impossibly broken mental health care system.

Bedzhanova weaves together an international tapestry of troubled souls while calling attention to some of the worldwide political landscapes we are living through now. She is able to pull the audience into the film’s world quickly through beautiful imagery and some fast paced, chaotic, yet well chosen, editing by Tom Knight. It craftily immerses us in the tension, irritability and distorted realities of the characters, without being too judgmental or stigmatizing.

The film runs into a few problems with it’s use of documentary-esque, real life experiences and the unspoken “advice” in each of the character’s “resolutions”.

Paula’s story only briefly illustrates what a relationship is like with someone living with Bi-Polar. I felt Bedzhanova had a perfect opportunity to show how impossible it was, yet she wraps Paula’s story up with an incredibly unrealistic “we’ll get through this together” fairy tale. It scared me to think of all of the young people who may watch this, that might actually believe “love can save the day”, when the reality is no, it can’t. No stable, equal partnership will ever exist with someone with unregulated Bi-Polar. None. Zero. Zilch.

Source: Allen Pictures

Ideally, no one should even get into a relationship until they have worked out their own problems, but that too is unrealistic due to our innate need for physical affection.

Mike’s story is one where Bedzhanova apparently linked in footage of some of the actor’s real life documentary about the abuse he has endured in real life.

At first I thought it was rather clever when i thought she was mixing documentary-like scenes into a feature and was very impressed by the “acting”. Then, I found out that it was actually Duress being Duress, which isn’t technically acting, so that ultimately didn’t work for a feature.

Mike and Marina’s resolution is also, a relatively predictable train wreck, dangerously encouraging broken people to be together when they have way too much healing and work left to do. Maybe that was Bedzhanova’s point; that broken people always end up finding broken others, whether it’s a good idea or not?

Regardless, there is too much creativity here to miss it entirely. It is crucial, in our current world climate, for us to know how connected we are. Bringing forward the realism of mental health problems and it’s effect on how we connect in film is critical. It makes us feel less alone in our own suffering and can help many come to the realization that they actually have a problem in the first place.

Since mental illness is such a common issue among us, we should focus less on stigmatizing people and more on how are we going to fix the crumbled system that keeps people from getting the help and treatment they need and deserve.

From what I’ve seen, it is truly appalling how we treat our people suffering from something they have no control over. With the insurance and big pharmaceutical industries in charge of who and what gets treated, the future of healthcare looks bleak.

Which is why it is so important for us to take a stand any way we can. Whether that means educating ourselves and learning how to be more empathetic towards differences or spreading awareness through the creation of responsible films surrounding the problems we are steeped in on a daily basis.

In any case, we are all in this together. The sooner we realize that, the better off we’ll be.