Jimmy P. Psychotherapy of a Plains Indian, Cannes Film Festival - film review

Arnaud Desplechin's latest, about the psychotherapy of a Native American man shortly after the end of the Second World War, is the first real clunker in the main competition at Cannes
JIMMY P. (PSYCHOTHERAPY OF A PLAINS INDIAN) by Arnaud DESPLECHIN
20 May 2013

Jimmy P, which is indeed about the psychotherapy of a Native American man shortly after the end of the Second World War, is the first real clunker in the main competition this year at Cannes. It's such a dud that it requires some explanation as to how it made the cut.

Jimmy, a Native American Blackfoot, suffered a head injury while serving in the war. Suffering from spells of dizziness and blindness and acute headaches, he goes to be treated at Topeka Military Hospital in Kansas – where no physical cause is found. The hospital's genial director calls in a friend from New York, Georges Devereux, a French (in fact, Jewish Hungarian) anthropologist and unqualified Freudian therapist. Over a period of weeks, Devereux sympathetically helps Jimmy explore his dreams, own up to his troubled family relations and respect his identity as a Native American – and Jimmy leaves the hospital a much happier man.

For his part, Devereux wins tenure as a result of this success, and also enjoys a visit from his married mistress (Gina McKee). Jimmy P properly appreciates his psychotherapy. "I'm glad I met you. You kept your promises - thank you", he says. As for Devereux, he sagely pronounces, as they part: "Anyone who is at peace with himself is at peace with others."

Benicio del Toro (who has some Native American ancestry but is very visibly mainly Hispanic) plays Jimmy pretty proficiently, at first occluded and troubled, then opening up and standing tall, all the while speaking in a strange clipped accent. As Devereux (on whose 1951 memoir Reality and Dream this "true story" movie is based), Matthieu Amalric is ever so continental, ridiculously bright-eyed and sparky, intuitive and wise. Gina McKee, meanwhile, is foxy and irrelevant. The movie is lamely scripted and agonizingly slow.

So how did Jimmy P. come to compete for the Palme d'Or at Cannes? The main reason must be that the festival has the attractive characteristic of keeping faith with its past luminaries, of whom the film's director Arnaud Desplechin is certainly one. Then again, the subject matter of a Native American being seen to be either sick or crazy by white Americans, when, as the savvy European Devereux soon discerns, what he is really suffering from is psychic trauma ("my friend, your soul was in a lot of pain") was always bound to appeal excessively in this superbly French arena.

And lastly, France is one of the few places left in the world, apart from select streets in Hampstead and Frognal, where Freudianism is still considered to be a therapy rather than a cultural curiosity. So that may be the explanation. Still a mistake, though.

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