Filmy o sebevraždě matky
A frightening, well-acted portrait of a young wife, mother and artist dealing with severe postpartum depression, “A Mouthful of Air” tells the story of Julie Davis (Academy Award nominee Amanda Seyfried), an author of best-selling children’s illustrated books, who attempts suicide while she is home alone with her toddler son. The film is set in 1995 in New York City and based on a novel by “I Smile Back” author Amy Koppelman, who also wrote the screenplay and produced and directed.
When we first meet Julie in her colorfully and elaborately self-decorated Upper West Side apartment, she is drawing her favorite character Pinky, who is learning to climb high with a little bird companion (Koppelman provides the film’s illustrations). Julie is also caring for her toddler son, Teddy. When her husband Ethan (Finn Wittrock of Lenox) arrives, the picture is complete, and what we see is a happy and attractive family.
Julie Davis (Amanda Seyfried) and Ethan Davis (Finn Wittrock) in ‘A MOUTHFUL OF AIR.’
Julie Davis (Amanda Seyfried) in A MOUTHFUL OF AIR.’
But demons lurk inside Julie’s mind, making her feel inadequate and incompetent. Like many of us, she worries about how everything can go horribly wrong. Leaving Teddy in front of the TV, she goes into the bathroom with an X-Acto knife and lands in the hospital, where she meets Dr. Sylvester (Paul Giamatti), who, when he isn’t making up some weird story about candy and spider’s eggs, makes the mistake of reading a poem by Sylvia Plath to Julie to demonstrate some pointless point. A better reason to avoid psychiatry than Dr. Sylvester would be hard to find.
Julie discovers she is two months pregnant, and she, Ethan and Dr. Sylvester agree to go on with the pregnancy, if she will take her antidepressant medication. Soon, Julie allows that she can “see color again,” meaning that she is getting better. But like Ethan, who comes across thanks to Wittrock as a loving and patient partner, we walk on figurative eggshells watching “A Mouthful of Air.”
While Seyfried delivers a powerful and deeply compassionate performance as the troubled wife, mother and author and artist, I must confess that I found it disturbing to watch Julie taking care of her children, knowing what she was capable of.
In the role of Julie’s vain, but lovable mother Bobbi, Amy Irving provides a ray of light in the film’s bleak darkness. Flashbacks to Julie’s childhood mix idyllic images with her father (Michael Gaston) shouting at her and her child self screaming in fear. Julie’s new book is about a “star monster,” who gobbles up stars and leaves the sky empty. Oh, my. Julie’s father shows up again after Julie and Ethan move to a suburban house, and Julie’s father helps paint a room with Julie in a scene that is a physical and emotional mess.
The editing can be confusing, especially the ending, which is set in the present time. Speaking of Plath, perhaps reading her 1963 novel “The Bell Jar,” a classic story of a brilliant and suicidal young woman, might be a better use of one’s time.
(“A Mouthful of Air” contains profanity.)
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In a mother’s suicide, a story of family and mental illness
This week, a documentary film about one family’s struggle with suicide will screen in Saranac Lake, Malone, and on the Akwesasne Mohawk.
Apr 07, 2015 — by Brian Mann , in Westport, NY
Kathy Leichter at the farm in Essex County, N.Y., where she spent summers with her mother Nina. Photo: Here One Day
Apr 07, 2015 — This week, a documentary film about one family’s struggle with suicide will screen in Saranac Lake, Malone, and on the Akwesasne Mohawk Reservation in Franklin County New York.
The film, called “Here One Day,” was made by Kathy Leichter, a seasonal resident of Essex County who also lives in New York City.
Kathy’s mother Nina took her own life in 1995. The documentary tells a deeply personal, intimate story, but it is also meant to spark a wider conversation about mental illness and suicide.
A home crowd for a hard conversation
I have had manic depression illness for 18 years. I am sixty now.
I met Kathy Leichter last summer in Whallonsburg in New York’s Champlain Valley, where her movie was screening at the Grange Hall. «It’s really a treat to be here and I played bingo here. Who knew that I would be back showing my movie,» she laughed.
Documentary filmmaker Kathy Leichter. Photo: Here One Day
One of the things that interested me was that she kind of grew up here and spent summers and holidays on her family’s farm down the road, so showing the film to these people, was deeply personal. «A lot of you knew me since I was zero,» Leichter said. Many people in this audience also knew her mother, Nina Leichter, who fought her illness and even worked as a mental health advocate for many years. When her daughter Kathy was 28, Nina took her own life. In the documentary, Kathy talked about hearing the news from her father. «He said mom took her life and I said ‘No” and I hung up the phone,» she recounted.
At the center of this documentary film is a powerful voice
Nina Leichter struggled for decades with her mental illness and served as an advocate before taking her own life in 1995. Photo: Here One Day
«Here One Day» is remarkably intimate. It puts people very close to this family’s harrowing experience, but there is something more. One part of the story is remarkable, even breathtaking. Often, people who take their own lives are kind of opaque. They act behind a wall of overwhelming silence. After her mother’s suicide, Kathy made a remarkable discovery. «One of the things I found when I moved back into my parents’ apartment was a box of audio tapes, all labeled with my mother’s handwriting,» Leichter said. «It was hours and hours of her talking to herself that she had recorded.»
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She could not bear to listen. She said she did not want to admit her mother was dead, so she put the audio tapes back in the closet for sixteen years. It is a gift that Kathy Leichter eventually found a way to listen and to translate those tapes into this amazing documentary film. The audio recordings offer access and a way to listen to a vibrant, smart, compelling woman in the middle of a desperate fight against mental illness.
A private battle narrated in secret
Sometimes Nina Leichter sounds lost, adrift, but at other times, she narrates her own battle and still thinks clearly about where this illness takes her. «I don’t think we’re ready to write our wills. I am not ready to write my will, but I’m very full of these thoughts and feelings and it helps me to record them this way,» she said. She wondered aloud whether her voice will ever be heard. She said, «I don’t know if anybody else will be allowed to hear [these tapes] or will come across them accidentally.»
Helping to spark a national conversation
Decades later, Nina Leicther’s voice and her daughter Kathy’s documentary have become a catalyst for conversations about mental health and suicide. A new study just released this month found that suicide rates in rural areas like New York’s North Country are nearly double the rate in urban areas. At the screening in Whallonsburg in the Grange Hall, Stephen Valley, director of mental health services in Essex County, talked about the importance of pulling more people into this conversation. «Suicide and mental health are really public health issues that require action by the entire community, not just by a small handful of professionals,» Valley said. «By raising awareness of these issues, we can literally save lives.»
Bringing her family’s story home to the North Country
After the screening, I visited Kathy Leichter at the farm her parents bought in the Champlain Valley in 1968. The farm was a refuge for her mother, a place where the Leichter family spent some of their best years. She said traveling the country and joining the wider conversation about mental health has been a powerful experience, but she said bringing the film home to the North Country felt particularly good and important. Leichter said, «We were given so much by this community and by my life here. It really meant so much to me to give back and offer this film to the community and to say here’s something I want to share with you and share our story.»
«Here one Day» screens tonight at North Country Community College in Saranac Lake, tomorrow at the St. Regis Mohawk School Library, and on Thursday at the New Covenant Church in Malone.
‘night, Mother (1986) A super bleak film wherein Sissy Spacek tells her mother Anne Bancroft all about how she’s going to commit suicide at the end of the movie.
Ústřední melodie: ‘Noc, matko is a bleak movie about suicide, therefore it has a lot of violins. Dreary and strained violins, which go on and on.
Interesting Dated References: Taking up an interest in crossword puzzles as being a good alternative to committing suicide. Hanging out at the A&P as a good alternative to committing suicide.
Best Line: Much of the dialogue in this movie is very bleak (in a good way). Spacek goes on about the general emptiness of life, but it’s best summed up with this line — “I’m just not having a very good time.”
Social Context: There are overarching themes on the struggles with familial ties, disappointment, dissatisfaction, and a general malaise throughout the film.
Summary: Sissy Spacek wanders around her house doing various chores. She seems to have a disinterest in most of what she’s doing, but that’s because she’s not drinking beers and listening to 80s metal (Accept, Scorps, Fastway, etc.), which I find makes doing shitty household chores 500% more enjoyable and rewarding.
She’s being super anal, too, going so far as to squeeze all the toothpaste to the front of the tube. Doing that would be a whole lot more rewarding if she was running on about four ice-cold Budweiser and jamming out to Neon Nights off of Restless and Wild.
Eventually Spacek’s mom, Anne Bancroft, comes home. They have gobs and gobs of idle chatter and eventually Spacek asks her mother where her dad kept his gun. After she tracks it down, she announces to her mother she plans on killing herself later that evening.
Over the course of the next hour, Bancroft runs through a gamut of emotions in an effort to save her daughter, offering up changes she can make in order to be happy again.
On the other hand, Spacek is more concerned with teaching her mom all the daily tasks that need to be completed around the house. Bancroft relies on her for everything, including managing finances and getting groceries, so Spacek thoughtfully tries to cover all this with her before offing herself.
At times the conversation turns to Spacek’s motivations for a suicide run. The dialogue is very well done and bleak as fuck. ‘Noc, matko was a well received stage play before it was made into a movie and it’s very apparent. Spacek and Bancroft are the only two characters in the movie and it appears the film was shot inside a single house. At times the setting can be claustrophobic. It seems the filmmakers added a lot of tracking Steadicam shots to give the movie a little visual depth.
After going ballistic a few more times and dredging up all kind of dirt about unhappy marriages, disappointing childhoods, and bouts of epilepsy, Bancroft finally resigns herself to acceptance. Then Spacek goes to her room and shoots herself.
Then Bancroft calls the police. Well acted, but seriously, there’s not much else to say about the depressing subject matter.
Poster and Box Art: Even the poster for ‘Noc, matko looks depressing. If you ever meet anyone who is super into this movie/play you should stop hanging out with them because they are probably a sociopath who enjoy watching miserable situations play out in real time.
Availability: In print on DVD.
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