Home | Donate | Links | Contact
Washington Center for Psychoanalysis

Personal favorites may be universal stories. They may reinforce what we hold true, or teach us something new. Maybe they are favorites because they shock or startle us. Or perhaps they evoke in us something particular, something about our histories, or where we are in life. The visual aspect of film makes it more sensory, yielding access to the unconscious in a very distinct way. It’s easy to get lost in a movie, to become completely enveloped. This year, many of our discussants are humanities scholars. They will speak about psychoanalytic thought as it applies to film from cultural and literary perspectives. Each presenter has selected the film they will discuss because it is a personal favorite.

October 9

You Can Count on Me (2000) 111 min. (R)

Pressured single mother Sammy attempts to provide stability for her eight year-old son, Rudy, in a small, upstate New York town. Amid struggles with work and relationships, her wayward brother Terry returns and makes things all the more fun – and complicated. Sammy and Terry come apart and come together in this subtle, bittersweet film about family.

November 13

I’ve Loved You So Long (2007) 106 min. (PG-13)

A story of family trauma and its fallout, I’ve Loved You So Long follows a numb, muted, and chain-smoking Juliette as she arrives to live with her younger sister Lea, after having been banished from the family for 15 years. As she drifts through her sister’s world, Juliette unsettles the inhabitants of that world—Lea and her husband, their young daughters, and friends— as she herself emerges from a state of moral limbo. It’s a tale of individuals confronting their past, and an illustration of how relationships evolve and personalities unfold as they do.

December 11

Jellyfish (2007), 78 min. (NR)

In Tel Aviv, the lives of three unrelated women crisscross. It is Noa’s wedding day, Batiya, newly single, is part of the catering crew, Joy, a Filipino immigrant is a caregiver for a guest. Jellyfish is about the disappointing ruptures that occur between people. And the mysteries of childhood. It is also a meditation about the small, odd and beautiful moments of being alive.

January 8

Murderball (2005), 86 min. (R)

Murderball was the original name for wheelchair rugby, a synthesis of basketball, hockey and rugby played by quadriplegics outfitted in armored chairs. This sports documentary follows the rehabilitation, training and competition of several players in the Paralympics. Mark Zupan is a tough-talking, tattooed quadriplegic who survived a horrific accident as a teenager. Joe Soares, a polio survivor, is the former head of the American Paralympic team, who accepts a job as coach of the archrival Canadian Team. The men who play wheelchair rugby riff on many aspects of masculine identity, and speak about the meanings that the extreme sport holds for them.

February 19

Lars and the Real Girl (2007) 106 min. (PG-13)

Lars is a lonely, stuck, single man living next door to his married brother and pregnant wife. He buys a mail-order life-size sex doll he names Bianca, whom he introduces to his family, co-workers, and community as his fiancé. Bianca’s presence brings with it new and unexpected possibilities for Lars and his community.

March 19

The Third Man (1949)

It is postwar Vienna, and Harry Lime is dead. Writer and sleuth Holly Martins tries to find out who he was, and who killed him in this film noir classic.

April 9

Cinema Paradiso (1988) 123 min. (R)

In smalltown postwar Italy, young Salvatore (nicknamed Toto), lives with his mother, a war widow. He befriends Alfredo, the projectionist for the local movie house. The film catalogues the evolution of Salvatore’s love f movies, his friendship with the philosophical Alfredo, and sends the viewer through a history of film greats, and the greatness of film.