Family Victim

Video
2010
Not Rated
38m

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Family Victim explores how families manage a troubled and troublesome member. Family Victim is part of the Afflictions: Culture & Mental Illness in Indonesia series, which is one of the first series on mental health in the developing world. Based on footage shot over 12 years in Bali and Java, Indonesia, Afflictions explores the relationship between culture, mental illness and personal experience. The role of traditional medicine vs. psychiatric treatment, family support, community rejection or acceptance, and beliefs about its interpretations and causes are explored in three poignant case studies.

Estu Wardhani is a young Javanese man and has struggled for most of his life to achieve a sense of competency and inclusion in his familial and social world. The second youngest of eight children born to an upper-class family living in the rural region of Gunung Kidul in Cental Java, Estu has been Â“differentÂ” ever since he was a young boy. EstuÂ’s actions, and their disorienting power, cannot be understood outside of the cultural and social context within which they have taken shape nor can they be considered apart from the disruptive and painful effects they have on his family. Estu problems are interpreted as Â“psychopathyÂ” by a psychiatrist, spirit possession by local healers, and as dimangakan or Â“spoiledÂ” by his family. Estu himself desires to be a Â“big manÂ”, and he feels misunderstood and disrespected by his family. His case involves not only his own troubling symptoms, but the striking and extensive interpretive work his family, healers and community engages in while trying to understand EstuÂ’s personality and behavior. This film explores the multiple ways the family interprets such dilemmas, and his tribulations and finally transformations as he matures into culturally defined adulthood.

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Biography Documentary Drama Family Short

Family Victim is part of a series of ethnographic films on severe mental illness in Indonesia, based on material drawn from 12 years of person-centered research by director and anthropologis... Read allFamily Victim is part of a series of ethnographic films on severe mental illness in Indonesia, based on material drawn from 12 years of person-centered research by director and anthropologist Robert Lemelson. The film focuses on Estu Wardhani, a young Javanese man from a highly r... Read allFamily Victim is part of a series of ethnographic films on severe mental illness in Indonesia, based on material drawn from 12 years of person-centered research by director and anthropologist Robert Lemelson. The film focuses on Estu Wardhani, a young Javanese man from a highly respected family. Initially, Lemelson focuses on Estu's neuropsychiatric symptoms. Over tim... Read all

Director
- Robert Lemelson
Stars

See production info at IMDbPro

YOUR RATING

Director
- Robert Lemelson
Stars

See production info at IMDbPro

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Trailer 1:26

Family Victim

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Quotes
Mahar Agusno - Doctor Mahar Agusno: We people in Java, our lives are not separate from our culture. So
[...]
Mahar Agusno - Doctor Mahar Agusno: if someone is sick in a family, the family will also share the suffering, and then the whole society will also share it, so whatever happens, both family and society will make the treatment possible. Because they all feel the effects of the illness.