Jimmy P psychotherapy of a plains indian

The story recounts, session-by-session, how a doctor cures a Native American patient for post-WWII trauma, at a hospital in Topeka. The patient is Jimmy Picard, a Blackfoot Indian who is suffering from inexplicable dizzy spells, headaches and temporary blindness. The doctor is Georges Devereux, a Jew of Romanian origin working at the intersection of anthropology and psychoanalysis, and considered an insolent troublemaker by his peers.
Desplechin films the mutual progress of the doctor and his patient with a lyricism reminiscent of François Truffaut’s handling of his “wild child”. Between seemingly identical work sessions, each set apart by creative use of aerial shots, there are interludes. Notably, that of the psychoanalyst with a French mistress (Gina McKee, excellent), split between two men and two lives. Tender, sensual and nostalgic moments, used sparingly. Through them, we feel the film-maker’s taste for short-lived connections, whether of love or friendship. Nothing lasts, but this film is precisely an ode to the complicity that unites people and endures long after their physical separation. That connection of empathy is moving. That faith in the most mysterious and unsettling aspect of humanity: the power to help each other - if not love each other - over time. Arnaud Desplechin is a humanist. He is as at odds with this world as his heroes are, and that’s what makes him rare and precious.
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