Two intellectuals challenge each other with arguments looking for the profound meaning of existence in a world increasingly upset by twenty of war.
Existence of God, life, death, emotional relationships, relationships with parents, neurosis, unconscious, dreamlike images and profound humanity are intertwined in the film Freud – The last analysisin which the director Matthew Brown reported the father of psychoanalysis on the big screen.
The film released in 2023 in the United States, while in our country he made his debut on November 28, 2024. Do you want to go into the forest of the human mind? Have a nice trip and good vision!
ATTENTION: The article contains spoiler.
Cover image: Copyright Prime Video
A mysterious meeting
In a London deceived by fear for the incipient second world conflict, weighed down by trains full of children evacuated towards the countryside and alarms that announce possible bombs of bombs, on September 3, 1939, two days after the Nazi invasion of Poland, the Dr. Freud (Anthony Opkins) opens the home doors to the young Oxfordian writer, future author of “The Chronicles of Narnia”, CS Lewis (Matthew Goode).
It is a successful narrative expedient to start one of the Last analysis sessions by Freud. The news of a meeting with a young Oxford assistant a few days before his death, which took place on September 23, 1939 for Euthanasia, leave the mystery open on the identity of those who actually crossed the threshold of the London house of the doctor.
In the cinematographic adaptation of the theatrical drama of Mark St. Germain, the responsibility to confront the existence of God with the Viennese neurologist is entrusted to the young writer trained in the circle of Tolkien at the prestigious English university. The result is a brilliant essay with arguments that intertwine with memories and personal events of the two intellectuals.
Freud’s point of view
Opkins interprets a seriously sick Freud and perhaps for this interested in deepening the debate on the existence of God. The suffering for the carcinoma in the mouth in the terminal phase allows to outline a intimate and human fresco of the father of psychoanalysis.
The crumbling of the world in front of the Nazi madness, a particular story heard by Freud forced to leave the beloved Vienna as a Jew, the loss of a daughter due to the Spanish influence and a grandchild for tuberculosis, a tumor that eats bones and meat, are valid motivations valid to ask where God is in front of the pain human.
Raised between the rigidity of a practicing Jewish father and the affection of a Catholic housekeeper, for Freud the faith is a neurosis. The relationship with the paternal And the figure of the father are the main themes of the film and the psychoanalytic reflection. The memories of little Sigmund mix with the morbid relationship with her daughter Anna of whom she struggles to accept any form of separation, including the homosexual relationship with Dorothy Burlingham.
Among the numerous statues that enrich the analyst’s study, shadows of the Oedipus complex lengthen.
Lewis’ point of view
Converted to Catholicism thanks to the influence of Tolkien, the character played by Goode also presents, next to the intellectual one, his human face. If Freud carries out from several points of view the narrative of the paternal, Lewis, who remained orphaned by mother and sent to the college in England with his brother by the Irish father, deepens the question of relationship with the maternal.
In the development of the debate, it is learned, in fact, how the promise made to the friend who was killed in the traumatizing trenches of the First World War, has become an important emotional relationship.
The oath of taking care of the mother of the comradian mother becomes an opportunity to develop a coexistence with the woman, greater than him. Bread for Freud’s psychoanalytic teeth.
During a momentary transfer in a bunker due to a false alarm for a bombing, a panic attack reveals the signs left by the conflict on the writer’s mind. The tremor of the lights and strong noises activate in Lewis, and in the viewer, the images of the dramatic experience of a Europe again in war.
Will faith tear the darkness of such a great horror or will the young author’s creed leave in front of Freud’s arguments and the passages of the bombers in the London skies?
Anna Freud’s point of view
Liv Lisa Fries plays Anna Freud. The events concerning the woman constitute a third narrative that is part of the main dialogue between the two intellectuals.
Engaged in her lessons at the Institute of Psychoanalysis, Anna must fight against the prejudices of the students who see only the daughter of the father of psychoanalysis in her, but above all with a relationship of pathological attachment with the parent.
Father, analyst, idol: Anna seems to hang from her lips and in no way to move away frompaternal authoritywhich forces her to leave the teaching commitments to look for morphine in a London congested by concern for the imminent war.
Freud does not miss an opportunity to refresh the need to assist him in his daughter given the disease. What place can the relationship with Dorothy opposed by the father? How much are the two psychoanalysts aware of the morbid dimension of their relationship? Will Anna be able to free himself from his father’s yoke by deciding to live with Dorothy?
The last session
After a day of intense debate, Freud and Lewis leave. Memories, dreamlike visions, glimpses of the unconscious enrich the main narration of gloomy shades, at times.
The father of psychoanalysis will die after twenty days, probably swallowing a pill that several times appears in the film starting from the arrest of Anna by the Nazis, who would then issue it.
Who is God? Where is God? Who is the man? Are there effective answers to these questions? How does Freud’s last session end? Are sexuality and aggression really the engines of humanity on the brink of destruction? If you are looking for these answers, the vision of Freud – The last analysis It is the best place to find further and multiple doubts.
