Asylum (Peter Robinson, 1972): amazing footage inside an R.D.Laing inspired commune for people experiencing mental distress used as an alternative to hospital. Many unforgettable scenes including a frail young girl who regresses to infancy continually and a painfully shy young man wearing eyeliner whose problems are dwarfed by those of his father, who picks him up: a monstrous upper-middle-class, seriously fucked up and repressed Englishman who maybe passes as 'normal' but seems terrifying and deformed in the context of the film. But the main and most intense sequence is towards the end, when the ongoing psychosis of the most disruptive and annoying resident worsens to include violent outbreaks. We get to see this older guy in full and unexpurgated florid mode, with pressured speech, knight's move thinking, word salad, agitation...I've experienced this state myself and it's frightening to watch, frightening to be around and of course not great to live through. He is talked down and through it apparently without drugs and in the very final scene we find out about his earlier life story, and all our pre-conceptions and prejudices are exploded. Thought-provoking and voyeuristic in equal measures, great documentary.
American Movie (Chris Smith, 1999): continually watchable and at times hilarious film following a socially inept low budget horror film director's bumbling attempts to make movies in some godawful midwestern culturally sterile shithole, and his dysfunctional friends and family. You just hate the guy early on, he's as articulate as Beavis and Butthead and seems utterly talentless and deluded. Slowly you start to admire his perseverance against all odds, and what you see of his final cut looks like good fun, the sort of thing I'd love to watch over a drink - the guy in question seems a full-blown alcoholic too, which adds to both the humour and depression. Like Stevie, this showed aspects of life in the USA that are hidden from the rest of the world's eyes.
