2-24-07

Goran Paskaljevic, Special Treatment (1980)

An old man paces a street filled with vice repeating, “lottery, lottery.” There are men sitting idly by drinking. A woman stares at a glass of wine with hungry eyes. A prostitute turns the heads of men and refuses the old man saying, “no more for lottery tickets.” Then, suddenly, the woman staring at the wine grabs the glass, quickly emptying it. She rises from the table and steps onto the other, foggy side of the street. There is a cut and we see a train speeding toward her. Just before impact – the lights go up and we become aware that this was all an elaborate staging, rehearsed by “ex-alcoholics” who will go on a trip with their doctor, where their will-power will be tested as they tour a brewery, and ultimately perform to give a testimony to the evils and loss of freedom, much like flinging oneself in front of a train, that stem from alcoholism. This initial scene may perplex us at first, but it becomes increasingly apparent throughout the course of the film that it may be commenting on the nature of performance and hinting that things may not be as they appear on the surface.

I was immediately struck with an eerie feeling while watching the initial staging and after it was revealed that it was all just a rehearsal for a planned performance, I was further perplexed by the fact that it all appeared too real to be staged – the lighting conditions and effects could have never been reproduced as shown in the sequence, on a stage. This effect made me a little more cynical throughout the viewing of the film, always looking for the hidden meaning, not that it was particularly difficult to find in many cases.

The figure of the doctor is immediately set up as a dictator – what he says goes for the recovering alcoholics as he convinces them that the human will is what will set them free. For example, on the way to their destination, the patients are singing up beat, but common, saloon songs when he signals them to be silent. The doctor then turns on a tape and we begin to hear Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries” – music that is monumental and sublime, and, as pointed out in class, was composed by the official composer of the Nazis, a fact that subtly comments on his actions enforcing control and lack of choice. The doctor has a typical dictator’s mindset that people do not make the best choices for themselves on their own and must be both allowed to take control of their destinies and to be made to do certain things, “for their own good.” Shortly after the music begins, the doctor states that it is snack time and that everyone gets an apple because “apples are therapeutic.”

Also believed to be therapeutic is the “good example” the doctor shows by ordering beer during a stop while all of the patients drink mineral water, acknowledging that they have no will-power and that they cannot stop themselves after one beer, only to spill it out before leaving, without taking a single sip. What the patients do not see is the hypocrisy of the doctor who goes inside with his son to the restroom, only to order and consume an entire beer before returning to the table outside. Politically, this sends the message that there is a great deal of show and propaganda on the part of the regime, yet corruption from within.

Also problematic is that the film does not seem to fully endorse one particular ideology. In some instances, the alcoholics are portrayed as more alive and free when they are drunk than when they are following the strict orders of what is essentially a corrupt dictator. I found the scene of the old man sneaking out to the van and injecting apples with vodka to be liberating as he passes them around as a gesture of rebellion and the power of personal choice (not that the others knew what they were choosing until they took the first bite, but none of them stopped eating). It is when they are drunk that they perceive themselves as free, like birds, repeatedly used as a symbol of freedom and beauty throughout the film. It is also when they are able to conquer their fears, just as the stuttering actor is able to finally recite his lines clearly. But, there is a downside to this freedom, the actor, after all does not stutter, but always forgets some of his lines and fear of the doctor and returning to order sets in soon after the period of freedom. Take, for example, the exercise scene after the apple sharing episode – the patients desperately attempt to discipline themselves for show because they fear the doctor finding out about their lapses in will-power.

In the end, even after the rebellion of the alcoholics makes a mockery out of the doctor’s speech, he continues to relentlessly strive for the never-quite-attainable ideal. On their way back home, the doctor states, “I trusted you and you betrayed me, but I’ll cure you. I’ll make you decent citizens if it kills me.” Here is another irony, the doctor may feel betrayed by his patients but he betrayed them all along after they (some more than others) trusted him and his unconventional treatment to the point that they temporarily gave up their own wills in order to gain the prestigious will-power.

In the final scene, the camera focuses on a flock of birds in the sky as the son of the doctor looks up in awe of them and we may remember an earlier discussion on birds between father and son when the doctor tells his boy that God made everything beautiful. “Even the birds?” the son asks and his father says yes. The son then comments on how the doctor taught him that humans evolved from monkeys as if to say that human kind is not inherently beautiful. Keeping this earlier scene in mind, while this particular way of ending the film could suggest several things, including a symbolic reference to the son as the next generation that will grow up to be just as corrupt as his father’s, to me, the end seemed to say: “Birds are beautiful and free. Humans will never achieve the same freedom because their nature is not beautiful.” This, I think, adds to the idea that even though the doctor is attempting to make his patients free, his methods cater to the dark side of mankind and, because of his own corruption, the beautiful end he is attempting to achieve will never be possible.