Jung & Film – Damage 1992

Jung & Film – Damage 1992

PRESENTERS: John Gosling, Renee Ramsden, Grace Reid
Venue: CG Jung Centre, 87 Main Road, Rosebank, Cape Town 7700
Time: Friday 16 August 2019 18:00 for 18:30

Run time: 1 hour 51 minutes

Dr. Stephen Fleming, a doctor turned politician living a charmed life as MP and government minister, locks eyes with an unusual young woman at a reception. She is Anna Barton, and she returns his gaze with such intensity and duration that we, as witnesses to the scene, hold our breath and become distinctly uneasy. We are correct in our sense of foreboding. As one reviewer put it, “they are careening toward disaster and we can’t look away.”

Anna is Stephen’s son’s fiancee, yet they begin and continue a liaison that might be seen as romantic but feels more like obsession. As an audience interested in Jung’s ideas, we might ask: Has Stephen lived within his thinking function to the detriment of his feeling function, and when overwhelmed by passion he abandons his values? Has Stephen’s shadow been so repressed that it finally bursts out with a vengeance? Are Anna and Stephen possessed by eerily matched, affect-laden complexes? Anna describes herself as “damaged;” in the novel by Josephine Hart (screenplay is by
David Hare), the moment of locked eyes is described as the first “real” moment of Stephen’s life. Stephen and Anna behave as if they are under a spell– a feeling familiar to us all, to one degree or another, when a complex takes over our ego functioning.

Directed by Louis Malle and starring Jeremy Irons, Juliette Binoche, Miranda Richardson and Rupert Graves, “Damage” is a compelling story and a cautionary tale for all who allow an extreme lack of balance to characterise their personalities.

Please book your ticket through the SAAJA Office by emailing saaja@mweb.co.za