Asylum Pieces

AroView: Filmmaker Kathy Dudding charts New Zealand’s cultural and medical attitudes towards mental health and institutionalization, with a movingly personal level of sensitivity.

She makes a valuable contribution to a small but growing body of inquiry into our embarrassing history of psychiatric incarceration, particularly in her focus on Porirua Hospital’s “lunatic asylum”. Eschewing the ‘talking head’ format, the film achieves a meditative, reflective tone through simple frames and a series of voice-overs that are alternately informative and poetic.

That the director tragically died soon after the film’s premiere, at aged 49, adds to the film’s tremendous poignancy.

“One of the finest documentaries this country has produced.” ~The Lumiere Reader