Anybody who has read the fascinating and controversial works by German thinker Friedrich Nietzsche is going to want to at least see how it looks to actually have Nietzsche as a flesh and blood person walking around town going about his business. The fact that Nietzsche is played by Armand Assante shouldn't really be too much of a turn-off, because although it might not be the kind of role we associate with Assante he's always been a decent and dedicated actor.
The story is one of those fictional/historical conceits, wherein Friedrich Nietzsche ends up influencing the psychology of Sigmund Freud by way of his association with Lou Salome (potentially true) and Jacob Breuer (not true). In such matters, I'm not such a stickler for "accuracy" but more like accuracy of feeling or idea. Did the film present these characters in such a way as they would have interacted? And so on a scale of 1 to 10 where a 10 represents Salieri and Mozart's relationship and 1 represents Teddy Roosevelt falling in love with Sacajaweah, I guess this movie is maybe a 6 or a 7.
But the big surprise of the movie is just how excellent Ben Cross is playing the role of the frustrated doctor Breuer, going through a mid-life crisis and dealing with his own neuroses as a means of bringing Nietzsche out of his shell (basically attempting to get Nietzsche to self-diagnose). His facial expressions, the way he acts out his frustrations with Nietzsche and then tries to hold equal ground as an objective and unemotional intellectual when he's with Freud, is fascinating. During the final sequence of events when he watches the woman he's obsessed with (Michal Yannai) declaring love for another, and is embarrassed to be found beardless waiting tables, his performance reaches rare heights of comic mania.
Unfortunately there is bad casting on display as well, in the female leads. Joanna Pacula is the only female member of the cast to hold her weight, and she's not given a lot to do. Yannai is mixed, pulling off most of a very difficult role. But Katheryn Winnick is a terrible actress, saddled here as well with a Russian accent, and she seems imposed on the film for eye candy. The film fails to portray her as someone who Nietzsche or Freud or anybody else would form an intellectual fascination with.
The dream sequences, therapy/vision sequences, and hypnotism sequences are all done with fairly poor CGI, but a couple of them are well worth cherishing; particularly humorous and bizarre is the "Swan Lake" sequence.
Basically this film would be a decent introduction to basic ideas of Nietzschean philosophy and Freudian psychology, and for more experienced viewers there's at least some intellectual interest in a fantasy fictional representation of the inspiration that Freud took from Nietzsche. Some parts are damaged by the low budget -- it would have been best not to attempt to visually depict any of Nietzsche's "Zarathustra", if the best they were going to do was something that looks like a History Channel re-enactment. But the film is worth watching for Cross' surprising and engaging performance and Assante's not surprising but almost equally engaging performance.
The story is one of those fictional/historical conceits, wherein Friedrich Nietzsche ends up influencing the psychology of Sigmund Freud by way of his association with Lou Salome (potentially true) and Jacob Breuer (not true). In such matters, I'm not such a stickler for "accuracy" but more like accuracy of feeling or idea. Did the film present these characters in such a way as they would have interacted? And so on a scale of 1 to 10 where a 10 represents Salieri and Mozart's relationship and 1 represents Teddy Roosevelt falling in love with Sacajaweah, I guess this movie is maybe a 6 or a 7.
But the big surprise of the movie is just how excellent Ben Cross is playing the role of the frustrated doctor Breuer, going through a mid-life crisis and dealing with his own neuroses as a means of bringing Nietzsche out of his shell (basically attempting to get Nietzsche to self-diagnose). His facial expressions, the way he acts out his frustrations with Nietzsche and then tries to hold equal ground as an objective and unemotional intellectual when he's with Freud, is fascinating. During the final sequence of events when he watches the woman he's obsessed with (Michal Yannai) declaring love for another, and is embarrassed to be found beardless waiting tables, his performance reaches rare heights of comic mania.
Unfortunately there is bad casting on display as well, in the female leads. Joanna Pacula is the only female member of the cast to hold her weight, and she's not given a lot to do. Yannai is mixed, pulling off most of a very difficult role. But Katheryn Winnick is a terrible actress, saddled here as well with a Russian accent, and she seems imposed on the film for eye candy. The film fails to portray her as someone who Nietzsche or Freud or anybody else would form an intellectual fascination with.
The dream sequences, therapy/vision sequences, and hypnotism sequences are all done with fairly poor CGI, but a couple of them are well worth cherishing; particularly humorous and bizarre is the "Swan Lake" sequence.
Basically this film would be a decent introduction to basic ideas of Nietzschean philosophy and Freudian psychology, and for more experienced viewers there's at least some intellectual interest in a fantasy fictional representation of the inspiration that Freud took from Nietzsche. Some parts are damaged by the low budget -- it would have been best not to attempt to visually depict any of Nietzsche's "Zarathustra", if the best they were going to do was something that looks like a History Channel re-enactment. But the film is worth watching for Cross' surprising and engaging performance and Assante's not surprising but almost equally engaging performance.