Fest Track On Sirk TV Film Review: FIXATION [Toronto International Film Festival 2022]
The element of the subconscious and perspective are the tenets of psychology that many doctors might think they understand but each individual identity likely alters the experience. In "Fixation" [Contemporary World Cinema], Dora [a fantastic Maddie Hasson] is stuck between the notion of reality and her internal visions. The film commits to a smart angle in that it keeps the motivation or the need to explain all facets of this woman's psychosis to a minimum while allowing the imagery to do alot of the work. The element of realization is an interesting connotation because with the story here it is based in the idea of fault and blame. Dora, as the movie moves through its different sections, has moments of lucidity but only deep inside her constantly shaping mind. Hasson realizes this and has to fluctuate between an analytical being and total loss of logic both physically and emotionally as well as intellectually. Her projections onto her therapist as well as her main doctor are interesting because they create fabrications of doubt but also persecution which might (or likely not) be true.
The film has midnight movie qualities but it has a more dreamlike essence to it because the composition of the images can be so stark and yet contrasted. A specific scene with a truck bathed in snow and water is a very good example. The film does place the character through abstract shifts but they are rooted in memory or at least what Dora can place of it. There is the texture of the repression of memory due to trauma, physical repercussions in the real world as so forth. Her would-be brother Griffin figures into this idea but beyond her accusations and rage then resignation, the actual truth is muted because she doesn't know what it is (hence the buried rage). The filmmaker Mercedes Bryce Morgan is smart to place little clues including a paper dictating what might have happened that only passes on screen for a second. Like "A Blazing World" directed by Carlson Young out of Sundance which had visceral and beautiful moments, "Fixation" is more controlled and brilliant in its own way which might have to do with the actor and director being separate (no fault to Young).
"Fixation" is not a film for everyone but it realizes that some images can be more triggering in their simple context than sex and violence. "Fixation" is just as pertinent within this element. The other parallel with "Blazing" is in its overt Alice In Wonderland metaphors, both thematically and literally. Hasson moves down the rabbit hole so far that she can't get out. But what she does fantastically as an actor without truly overplaying is working out the logic of the character as she tries to work it out without the connection points in the brain to allow that to happen. It is a thin line. Some of the sequences towards the end are a bit more stylish and less dreamlike and paced. This likely is supposed to represent the breakdown of the mind or at least a reset so it can function on a base level (though not on a sane level) through regression. "Fixation" is a fascinating movie, especially if one is interested in the chemistry and psychology of the mind because it shows a pattern of thought and path, without making one feel that these are being told with a finality in mind. A-
By Tim Wassberg
