Schizophrenia is a topic that comes to my daily consumption lately. It started on valentine’s day when I watched a fantasy romance called Double Lover (L’amant Double) by Francois Ozon and followed by a drama thriller called The Vanishing of Sydney Hall by Shawn Christensen.
These are summaries of both movies.
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What if you found out that your lover actually has a twin he kept on a secret? Chloe lost trust and go look for the truth by herself. Alas, she fell in love also with the twin of her lover.
Paul, Chloe’s lover, and his twin, Louis.
They both have a different personality. Paul is kind and loving. While Louis is violence and threatening. Chloe, driven by curiosity, chase Louis and have an affair with him. Deep inside, she needs both twins to feed her emotional needs to have a security from Paul and adventure from Louis.
In the end, she found out that there is not another side of Paul. It is her all the time. She severe from a mental disorder caused by a living being that has been growing slowly inside of her.
She was a dominant twin cannibalized the other one. Her hallucination is the unconscious guilt she has been built throughout her 25 years.
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The vanishing of Sydney Hall, on the other hand, is taking a journey of Sydney Hall (obviously) on punishing himself by burning his own novels that are sold throughout the country.
It is a guilt that he built since the death of his friend, Bret, which could have been avoided by him.
Bret and all people that involved in Sydney’s youth life appear several times and disappear. They are a hallucination that looks real it haunt him down. The pressure is on. It makes his relationship with his wife become ruined into pieces. He can not protect his wife, career, nor his well being.
His journey ends by telling his revelation to another author who helps him overcome his depressing journey.
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Both stories start with guilt and end with revelation/opening up.
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People with Schizophrenia are having a thought time distinguishing between reality and fantasy. Does it sound familiar even to us without the disease? Especially in this time when we can’t distinguish what’s real and not from the news, social media, and advertisement.
Good Schizophrenia story ends with revelation. It is transparency that heals our hallucination.
