SOUL KEEPER
Italy/UK, 2002, 90 minutes, Colour.
Iain Glen, Emilia Fox, Craig Ferguson, Caroline Ducey, Jane Alexander.
Directed by Roberto Faenza.
Soul Keeper is a film about the psychologist Carl Gustav Jung. It is also a film about one of his patients, Sabina Spielrein, who later became an outstanding child psychologist but was killed in a roundup of Jews at the beginning of World War Two in Russia.
The film has a framework where two researchers are looking for information about Sabina Spielrein and pursue their investigations in England but also with a visit to Moscow. This contemporary episode punctuates the film and brings us back to audience interest in the career of Jung and Sabina Spielreing.
In the central part of the film, Jung is shown at the turn of the century, an established psychologist in Zurich, influenced by his friend Freud, but about to break away from him. He is happily married, his wife expecting a child. However, he steps over the boundaries in his relationship with Sabina Spielrein as he undertakes to treat her for her hysteria. While he succeeds, his falling in love with Sabina has an effect on her, she becoming passionate and infatuated, dreaming about defying Jung’s wife Emma and actually doing this at a social event.
The film shows Jung in a less than favourable light, a talented man, insightful, devoted to his patients – but the victim of his own passion. However, ultimately, he stayed with his wife Emma and built up a career to become one of the significant psychologists of the 20th century. In the meantime, Sabina had a successful career, especially in Russia, brought to an untimely close by her death.
Iain Glen is solid as Jung. Emelia Fox, beginning as an hysterical young woman, going through treatment, emerging as a more balanced human being is very good as Sabina Spielrein.
The film was directed by Italian director, Roberto Faenza.
1. Audience interest in Carl Jung, the personality, his work, his insights, his life?
2. The film as a television drama? The characters, the situations, biographical?
3. The re-creation of the period, early 20th century, costumes and décor, Zurich, Switzerland, Russia towards the middle of the century? The musical score?
4. The film as a biography of Sabina, her Russian background, her anxious parents, the state she was in, being brought to Jung? Being institutionalised? The treatments, the diagnosis, Jung and his willingness to treat her? The reaction of the other doctors, her being condemned as incurable?
5. Jung, his reputation, his training, his practice? His relationship with Emma and his family, his love for her and his family? A cool personality, busy? The relationship with Freud, the collaborations? Approval or not?
6. Sabina and Jung, her arrival, desperate? The treatment, the psychologist interactions, her calming down, changing? The issue of transference? The passing of time, affection, love, intensity of passion? A study in passion?
7. Jung and the effect, the bonds with Sabina, the boundaries? Ethical situations, emotional breakthrough, the affair? Emma, her reaction? Jung, the effect on his conscience, behaviour, his sculpture?
8. Sabina and her transformation, her work, a clever woman, her clients, her dreams and imagination, reality? The meeting with Emma? The truth?
9. Jung, his wanting to break the relationship, the manner of his breaking it, the impact? Emma, the child? His later life?
10. Sabina, returning to Russia, the passing of time, her work with children, her skills?
11. The German invasion, the Nazis, the rounding up of the Russians, taking refuge in the church, Sabina and her courage, the children? her death?
12. The film supplying information in a dramatised form about Jung, pioneers like Sabina, the influence of Jung?
