Darkness to Light

These patients have turned away from outer reality; it is for this reason that they are more aware than we of inner reality and can reveal to us things which without them would remain impenetrable.

--Sigmund Freud

That inner reality is explored with remarkable perception and puissance in Diary of a Schiiophrenic Girl. The movie demonstrates that although no mental illness is less understood than schizophrenia, some schizophrenics can be cured. It also shows how hideously time-consuming the process can be, and what exorbitant demands it makes upon the therapist, which explains why such intensive treatment can be available for only the very few. A single patient may occupy almost all of an analyst's time, for months or years.

First released in Italy in 1968, the film is neither documentary nor purely creative cinema. Rather it is a dramatic and scrupulously faithful reproduction of an actual case history in which a Swiss analyst, Madame Marguerite Se-chehaye, successfully treated an apparently irretrievable 18-year-old girl.

Mother-Infant. In the film, Anna (Ghislaine D'Orsay) lives in an interior Tibet, where she rules as queen but is not permitted to eat. She cries of "orders that must be obeyed" and "a system that is accusing me of an infinite crime." She resists even spoonfeeding. Her analyst, Blanche (Margarita Lo-zano), patiently unravels the girl's deep, snarled skein of emotions.

Anna's resentful mother had been psychologically unable to breastfeed, and the child had rejected the bottle. Thus Anna willingly eats only apples she plucks from a tree, since she equates them with the breast and anything else represents the artificiality of a bottle. Anna makes substantial progress--until she discovers the analyst with another patient and tries to drown herself in a fit of jealousy. Blanche takes Anna home and assumes a mother-infant relationship. Carefully, she leads the girl through 1.8 years of life in 18 months.

Directed by Nelo Risi, who also collaborated on the script, Diary is candid without being voyeuristic and sympathetic without being mawkish. Risi's gentle direction never obtrudes, and even the flashbacks do not obstruct. The film's muted colors and luxuriant landscapes heighten the dramatic impact.

Ghislaine D'Orsay, a schoolgirl in Italy making her first acting appearance, is unselfconsciously compelling as the irrational, ranting girl. Margarita Lozano carefully controls her role as the wearily optimistic analyst. She is especially touching at the end, when the girl she has raised from darkness to light--and who in turn has uplifted her--is ready to leave. "It feels like a bereavement inside of me. That, I suppose, is the price of giving birth."

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