Augustine [HD]

Not Enough Character, Not Enough Story
In the opening scene, 19-year old servant Augustine (French pop star Soko) has a violent seizure at a high society banquet. The onlookers have no idea what they are seeing or what to do about it, except throw water on her. When Augustine awakens, she cannot open her left eye and so she is shipped off to a posh clinic (that looks more like a chateau than a hospital) in the countryside to be treated by Dr. Charcot (Vincent Lindon) who specializes in female hysteria. We have no idea who decided to send her there, or who is paying for this extravagant and controversial treatment, nor do we ever learn. What we do learn very early on is that director Alice Winocour is uninterested in such details but is very interested in the fact that the doctor's profession is a compromised one as the doctor must continually market his research/work to potential backers, and an essentail part of this marketing involves treating his profession as a form of theatre and staging/inducing hysterical fits...

Horrifying, Informative, Funny and Sad
This entry from France (English captions) to the 2013 Seattle International Film Festival is by turn, horrifying, informative, funny and sad. Written and directed by Alice Winocour, I wasn't sure if this had any real basis in fact. Reminded of "Hysteria" released in June of 2012, which named real people treating the same "ailment" in 19th century England, I wondered if this too, was equally grounded. Happily, I found plenty of evidence that it is based on real people. Unfortunately, the barbaric equipment they used in their "treatments" is also based on fact. That is the horrifying part!

We watch:
* Vincent Lindon ("La moustache") is wonderful as Professeur Jean-Martin Charcot, whose well-documented treatments for hysteria were conducted at Salp