who’s afraid of alice miller (2020)

Alice Miller schreef Het drama van het begaafde kind. Ze blijkt tijdens de jeugd van haar zoon te hebben weggekeken toen zijn vader, Andreas Miller, hem sloeg. De zoon maakte een documentaire, waarin een krakende stem haar brieven aan hem voorleest. Lieve Martin. De zoon is dik geworden van ellende, woedend om de hypocrisie van zijn moeder, die beroemd werd met boeken waarin ze uitlegt dat kinderen die heel begaafd zijn in het nauwkeurig aanvoelen van de behoeftes van hun ouders, bijvoorbeeld de behoefte om belangrijk te zijn, daar later in hun leven geestelijk en fysiek vaak last van krijgen, maar intussen hem, haar zoon, het trauma bezorgde waarvoor ze waarschuwt in haar boeken. Ik begrijp zijn woede en denk dat ze dit boek kon schrijven omdat dit gebeurde. Je schrijft wat je (ont)kent. Ik ben benieuwd naar het verhaal van Julika, zijn zes jaar jongere zusje, die ontbreekt in de documentaire.

[bij het kijken van Who’s afraid of Alice Miller, voor de prijs van 6 eieren op vimeo]

_{Martin is rejected by his cold, uncaring mother and beaten by his father: a childhood without love. It sounds like a case right out of the book “The Drama of the Gifted Child” by world-renowned Swiss psychoanalyst Alice Miller. Except Martin is the son of the children’s rights advocate. After Alice Miller’s death, Martin embarks on a journey to finally understand the contradiction between the famous childhood trauma researcher and the destructive mother. He finally discovers what stood between him and his mother: the greatest drama of the 20th century, the Shoah, the annihilation of the Jewish people. As a young Jew, Alice Miller assumed a false identity to survive amidst the Nazis in Warsaw – and was forced to witness all the atrocities. But Alice repressed these traumatic experiences, disassociating herself from them for the rest of her life. The deeper Martin digs into his mother’s biography, the clearer it becomes: his own emotional pain is the legacy of something that he himself never experienced.}

_comments:

• _{Antonio Orlandi, 1 year ago, Italian subs anyone? Very needed! Thanks!}
• _{user357742829, months ago, More questions than answers. Tragic all around. Why no obsession with Andrzej Miller, clearly a psychopathic man, but once again all this focus on Alice? Why?}
• _{Priya P, 7 months ago, I think that what was said in one of her letters to him–that perhaps Martin hated his mother because to hate his father was too dangerous for him–is actually being played out here too. I love this observation too.}
• _{עקיבא רגן7, months ago, I think Martin Is a very problematic person, and has some deep issues. I am not sure that Alice was not right about her son, being manipulated by his father to hate her. He is very theatrical and not authentic in my opinion and probably suffers from some sort of parental alienation.}
• _{עקיבא רגן7, months ago, Maybe i was a bit harsh. I commented after seeing the fake crying of Martin in the beginning. I am sure he didnt have the best childhood. Still, i think there is much more to the story than the movie presents.}