(no subject)
Jun. 11th, 2010 08:50 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tree_and_leafI was going to make a longer review post for Vincent and the Doctor, but have accepted that time constraints mean this isn't going to happen this week.
I had been a bit worried about this episode. The invisible-to-everyone-but-Vincent monster risked straying into "magical mad person" territory, but I think it was avoided, what with the emphasis on Van Gogh's artistic ability to see differently (I particularly loved Amy's well-meaning attempt to cheer the artist up with sunflowers, and his unexpected reaction - which nevertheless fitted quite well with how Van Gogh actually painted them).
It looked beautiful; the references to the art were so well done that it didn't really matter that Richard Curtis played fast and loose with the chronology of the artist's life. (Though the person who thought soft rock was appropriate for the trip forward in time with Van Gogh is an idiot. That did nearly tip things over into mawkishness, but the acting saved it).
But what really made the episode - and why I think the charges of sentimentality are wide of the mark, though it did get very near it at times - was the portrayal of Van Gogh's illness, which here reads squarely as depression.*
I have a personal interest in how children are told stories involving depression. My father was seriously depressed for much of my childhood; as such the scene where Vincent huddles on his bed, sobbing and angrily rejecting the Doctor's attempts to "cheer him up" felt uncomfortably familiar. It would have been easy to tell this story in a cringe-inducing way; I felt it wasn't. The Guardian's critic thought that the Doctor's speech to Amy, after she is dashed to discover that they didn't save Van Gogh was sentimental, moralising and over the top. Maybe it is, from the perspective of an adult who - I'm guessing - hasn't had to deal with depression at close quarters. But thinking back to the child I was - I wish I had seen that episode then. Because when the Doctor told me that the illness wasn't because I'd done anything wrong, that what I meant to my father wasn't invalidated by his illness, however bad it made him feel, that all the good things weren't blotted out by misery - I might have believed the Doctor. And my classmates might have been a little bit more understanding, too (at least the well-meaning but clueless ones).
We were lucky; Dad eventually got better, was able to return to work, and hasn't had any major relapses since. Lots of people aren't. And there are lots of children out there who are dealing with parents who are mentally ill; I'd like to think that Doctor Who helped them, just a little bit, to bear it.
* There's also a suggestion that the artist is synaesthetic, but this is not presented as illness.
I had been a bit worried about this episode. The invisible-to-everyone-but-Vincent monster risked straying into "magical mad person" territory, but I think it was avoided, what with the emphasis on Van Gogh's artistic ability to see differently (I particularly loved Amy's well-meaning attempt to cheer the artist up with sunflowers, and his unexpected reaction - which nevertheless fitted quite well with how Van Gogh actually painted them).
It looked beautiful; the references to the art were so well done that it didn't really matter that Richard Curtis played fast and loose with the chronology of the artist's life. (Though the person who thought soft rock was appropriate for the trip forward in time with Van Gogh is an idiot. That did nearly tip things over into mawkishness, but the acting saved it).
But what really made the episode - and why I think the charges of sentimentality are wide of the mark, though it did get very near it at times - was the portrayal of Van Gogh's illness, which here reads squarely as depression.*
I have a personal interest in how children are told stories involving depression. My father was seriously depressed for much of my childhood; as such the scene where Vincent huddles on his bed, sobbing and angrily rejecting the Doctor's attempts to "cheer him up" felt uncomfortably familiar. It would have been easy to tell this story in a cringe-inducing way; I felt it wasn't. The Guardian's critic thought that the Doctor's speech to Amy, after she is dashed to discover that they didn't save Van Gogh was sentimental, moralising and over the top. Maybe it is, from the perspective of an adult who - I'm guessing - hasn't had to deal with depression at close quarters. But thinking back to the child I was - I wish I had seen that episode then. Because when the Doctor told me that the illness wasn't because I'd done anything wrong, that what I meant to my father wasn't invalidated by his illness, however bad it made him feel, that all the good things weren't blotted out by misery - I might have believed the Doctor. And my classmates might have been a little bit more understanding, too (at least the well-meaning but clueless ones).
We were lucky; Dad eventually got better, was able to return to work, and hasn't had any major relapses since. Lots of people aren't. And there are lots of children out there who are dealing with parents who are mentally ill; I'd like to think that Doctor Who helped them, just a little bit, to bear it.
* There's also a suggestion that the artist is synaesthetic, but this is not presented as illness.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-11 11:37 am (UTC)I particularly liked that clear distinction. And I particularly liked that the Doctor was approaching depression quite clearly as a fellow sufferer not as an Authority.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-11 08:47 pm (UTC)