Delirium
dir. Ihor Podolchak · 2013
The experience of being alive is a complex interplay of identity, perception, and the struggle to find meaning amidst chaos and uncertainty.
"Delirium" immerses viewers in a haunting exploration of identity and existential dread, where the boundaries of reality are as tangled as the knots that symbolize the characters' struggles. This surreal journey invites contemplation on life, death, and the complexities of human connection.
A funeral procession leads to a distorted reality where time loops and images of death appear. A psychiatrist is invited by a family to help with their father’s suicidal fixation on ropes and knots. As he delves into the case, he blurs the lines between doctor, patient, guest, and priest, questioning his own identity and the shifting nature of reality.
Full synopsisspoilers
An ordinary funeral procession moves along its path from church to cemetery. Observing, you slip from reality into a place where time has lost its linearity, looping through the odd images thrown off by a distorted reality. Images of non-existence, of varying reflections of death issuing from both past and future, concrete yet abstract, horrible yet desirable. A family asks a young psychiatrist to be their guest for a while to untangle the circumstances of their father's illness.
He's developed a suicidal fixation for ropes and knots among other things. While deeply involved in analyzing the patient's delirium, the doctor begins to lose track of what is taking place. The task of "how to help" is twisted into "who am I? Doctor or patient?
Chance guest, member of this suffering family, or a catholic priest who has dreamed this all up?" In order to get a handle on it all, it's best to start from the beginning, but why do things keep shifting, changing?
