If Only Night Wouldn’t Fall, a world premiere in the international competition at Sheffield Doc Fest, is one of several films Dutch director Schmidt has made on the theme of mental sensibilities. “Most of my films are about mental health or mental vulnerabilities,” he says.
(His previous docs include the 2019 In the Arms Of Morpheus, about sleep disorders; the 2014 documentary The Chimpanzee Complex, about traumatised chimps, and the highly lauded 2012 doc Matthew’s laws, in which an autistic man desperately tries to create order in the chaos around him.)
In his latest film, Schmidt is looking at how mental sensibilities are treated and/or prevented in different societies: the Netherlands, Norway and the US.
Across three interwoven stories, based in The Netherlands, Norway and the US, Schmidt observes different stages of prevention: from children at a primary school that get an ‘early intervention’ to keep away anxiety disorders at a later age, to a young man that tries to avoid a new psychosis. A next level is reached in Florida where a city ‘without friction’ is built in order make all residents happy. All the time, the protagonists are being measured and questioned. Of course this is for their benefit, “but what gets lost in this quest for our optimal selves?” the filmmaker asks.
What draws Schmidt to these stories is an acknowledgement of mental sensibilities within his own family, some of which may have gone undiagnosed. “[But] my interest in these themes is not just coming from my personal background, but is also intellectually motivated: what other ways are there to receive reality, than the shared reality of daily life, based on causality?”
All those featured in the new documentary seem very comfortable at being on camera. Schmidt is able to portray them in intimate fashion and to show the world from their perspective. “That is something I am aiming for in most of my films, to get really close to the subjects. There is only one way to do that which is to gain the trust of the subjects – and the only way to gain the trust of someone is to invest a lot of time. You know them, they know you. I am always sharing personal stuff with them.”
In the documentary, the medical system is shown as ambivalent. It may be well-intentioned, but Schmidt has reservations about how it uses data analysis to treat mental illness. “I think everyone wants to do the best they can but I question this tendency to quantify all of our emotions and all our behaviours. That is basically the message of my film. OK, we can measure a lot of things, put them in statistics and draw conclusions about what is normal and what is a deviation…but I am pretty convinced we are missing some very important things when we are doing that. We tend to forget what we can’t measure.”
There is a startling moment toward the end of Schmidt’s film. A young man who has been suffering from mental illness talks about his old condition, from which he has now recovered. “There is nothing as intense as psychosis…everything that comes after it seems boring,” he says.
This is a paradox that Schmidt’s film also explores. “What we call mental disorders you could also see as different ways of experiencing reality,” the director points out. “Of course, obviously, it is a terrible thing to have a psychosis most of the time but there are also sometimes very, very beautiful moments that can happen [although the director underlines that this is not true for everyone]. The way I understand it is that even a very, very negative but intense experience is better than no feeling at all. Even bad experiences during a psychosis can have a valuable meaning for someone, for the very reason that it had such an enormous impact on them. It was a part of them, and should therefore not be neglected,” Schmidt adds.
If Only Night Wouldn’t Fall was made through Basalt Film and has Dutch, Belgian and Norwegian financing. Andana Films is handling world sales. The Dutch release will be through Cinema Delicatessen and is set for the autumn. What’s more, Schmidt expects psychiatrists and medical experts to be interested in the documentary. “This subject is a very hot issue in mental health right now. We are setting up screenings in October where we will have debates around the film.”
As he finishes one project, the prolific director is looking ahead to the next, The Insatiables, which will be made through Doxy Films. “I will start filming in August. It will be about the fear of emptiness and how we try to sedate that feeling,” he explains.
Confronted with the metaphysical meaninglessness of existence, humans (he suggests) often resort to extreme behaviour. They eat and drink too much or develop addictions to sex, alcohol and drugs. “I am not unfamiliar with this feeling of emptiness,” the director admits. “Many of us struggle with the fear of this feeling.”
The film will be part of a series of documentaries about The 10 Commandments. “This one will be the first Commandment, that you shall have only one God.”
Is he religious? Schmidt laughs at the question. “Not all all…both my parents were raised Catholic but they were very much anti-clerical.”
Returning to If Only Night Wouldn’t Fall, the director explains what the title means to him. “To me, it is basically reflecting on something one of the subjects says, that even though psychosis was one of the worst things he had ever experienced, it was also something he wouldn’t have liked to miss. With the title, I am referring to that idea, that even the very bad experiences we have – with night as a metaphor for the dark and negative experiences – are part of life.”
“When we banish all bad experiences out of our life, we end up with a life without meaning. If it is only happiness, that is a nightmare!” Schmidt ends.
This article also appears in See NL, a collaboration between Eye Filmmuseum and The Netherlands Film Fund.
