The cover art was very unsettling to me. I knew absolutely nothing about the film besides the actress and the director and I watched because I thought it was a horror / psychological horror based on the cover art. It was great. Very unsettling from start to finish. Poor lady won’t ever get help because she’s now in a cult :/
This movie showcases depresession in the most accurate way i have seen so far. Beeing told that you are sick and believing it. Searching for medical solutions for an unexplainable and urational problem. That is violent when the problem is loneliness, sadness and internalised anger. Fighting that takes a lot of energy and strength. That is the drama about this movie i think, someone profitting from people who actually try to change things and lock them into something equally as unhealthy wich will also take a lot of energy to get out of.
So this is awkward... I only watched this video after stumbling upon the movie a year after being diagnosed with Multiple Chemical Sensitivity which is the condition Carol has in the film. This is a very real medical condition that impacts people from all walks of life - not just yuppies and the science has now been settled for over 10 years that it's not 'all in your head'. If you go back and re-watch the film actually does a excellent job of showing how she got sick and how the 'fad diet' caused her to be mis-diagnosed first by herself and by a male doctor which is very common - medicine has a bad history of not believing women and thinking its mental issues. By the time she got to a allergy specialist her condition had gotten so bad that it was life threatening - at which point there was only avoidance, faith healing, psudoscience and isolation as a cure. The actual message is that the danger was obvious, it had a clear cause and effect between chemical exposure and sickness - but because the main character lacks a clear voice people don't believe her and ignore the others also in unsafe situations like the dryclean worker. If I hadn't ended up in a ambulance unable to breath within a week of being exposed to a certain chemical I also might have thought she was depressed and unfulfilled with her life but if you pay attention she's not, she's sick from the very first moment we see her and struggling the entire film and this is true of many MCS patients. In my case I was lucky, I had a clear-cut case of chemical exposure that went from fine/happy to in a ambulance unable to breath in less then a week. Even then it took 5 months for a diagnosis and 8 months for testing to confirm it was a chemical allergy. My condition isn't as bad as Carol but the process she went though is very similar - except that I was lucky to have tests that didn't exist in the 80s, doctors who knew what the condition was. Sadly in the real world they cannot turn it on/off like a switch - if your lucky they can figure out the chemicals and the 'drops' can offset the symptoms but there's no wellness retreats and no cure..instead the actual cure - regulation on chemicals and actual scientific study into treatment/cures is dismissed by everyone except the people with the condition who are then told it's 'all in your head' or too isolated to be visible to the rest of society who go on using the chemicals unaware of the harm it caused.
Nope, it was chemicals. MCS is a real condition. The real issue is that since 2010 the situation of the science is 'this is a real condition, its not in their heads because there's been enough science to disprove that but we don't know why some people are sensitive to chemicals and we need to do more studies'...and nothing has changed. There's still no treatment, no cure and most people don't think it's real. In Australia approx 1 million people have been diagnosed with MCS and approx 25% of people are sensitive to some chemicals with fragrance being the most common. The problem for people like me who actually have it for real is that people don't understand it because most people think of allergies as just food or 'contact' allergies and ignore that lots of products actually have warnings about the dangers of breathing them in - while some like fragrances should! But because the chemical industry is so big they've been able to get away with minimal regulation/disclosure which is why its so hard to pinpoint MCS to a single source..in a way its like a peanut allergy - except that in this case your allergic to the chemicals in peanuts which might also be in a bunch of other things like perfume, hairspray, car exharst etc. Its like a buffet where anything might have peanuts and being told that when you get sick its just you being sensitive...
@@ether4211 I am so sorry to hear of your condition. I did not mean to imply there is no such thing as mcs. I know there is and I am sympathetic to anyone suffering from an illness most people do not understand. I am such a person. I just meant to that in her quest for 'safety' she is deciding to stop living. I do not see how this is any kind of life. I hope you are well and understand that I was not trying to ridicule people with this illness in any way
It’s strange you decide to just take one side and say it’s all in her head. The film takes many, many pains to make sure any intelligent viewer would not think this: her bloody nose, seizures, rashes, all of which are not at all caused by the anxiety you suggest. I think the ambiguity of this film is its best part, although it does not fit into your simplistic reading of it just being about “self-hatred” or mental illness
Feel the same way. If the theme of Carol's illness is meant to reflect that of AIDS in the Reagan era, then I'm inclined to believe that she very much does have a real underlying illness, but one which she is helpless to diagnose or treat due to clinical incompetence and neglect. She is swept under the rug because it is convenient to do so. Neither the medical professionals nor the quacks were able to provide Carol the true answers, but at least the quacks showed the barest amount of sympathy for her. It's just a shame they, in their desperate reaction to the society that failed them, twisted their own sub-society into a cult of toxic positivity and paranoid thinking.
@@Enuchful I love your comment and think you've totally nailed it. At the end of the movie, Carol recognizes that she is being failed by a lot of people around her, but she also learns to love herself and speak out, which includes advocating for practical measures that keep her safe.
A brilliant film that doesn’t bombard you with a ‘message’ but lay things out to different interpretations.
The cover art was very unsettling to me. I knew absolutely nothing about the film besides the actress and the director and I watched because I thought it was a horror / psychological horror based on the cover art. It was great. Very unsettling from start to finish. Poor lady won’t ever get help because she’s now in a cult :/
This movie showcases depresession in the most accurate way i have seen so far. Beeing told that you are sick and believing it. Searching for medical solutions for an unexplainable and urational problem. That is violent when the problem is loneliness, sadness and internalised anger. Fighting that takes a lot of energy and strength. That is the drama about this movie i think, someone profitting from people who actually try to change things and lock them into something equally as unhealthy wich will also take a lot of energy to get out of.
Just watched this today, incredible film definitely, the cinematography and the 80s from the 90s aesthetic looks so good.
So this is awkward... I only watched this video after stumbling upon the movie a year after being diagnosed with Multiple Chemical Sensitivity which is the condition Carol has in the film. This is a very real medical condition that impacts people from all walks of life - not just yuppies and the science has now been settled for over 10 years that it's not 'all in your head'. If you go back and re-watch the film actually does a excellent job of showing how she got sick and how the 'fad diet' caused her to be mis-diagnosed first by herself and by a male doctor which is very common - medicine has a bad history of not believing women and thinking its mental issues. By the time she got to a allergy specialist her condition had gotten so bad that it was life threatening - at which point there was only avoidance, faith healing, psudoscience and isolation as a cure. The actual message is that the danger was obvious, it had a clear cause and effect between chemical exposure and sickness - but because the main character lacks a clear voice people don't believe her and ignore the others also in unsafe situations like the dryclean worker. If I hadn't ended up in a ambulance unable to breath within a week of being exposed to a certain chemical I also might have thought she was depressed and unfulfilled with her life but if you pay attention she's not, she's sick from the very first moment we see her and struggling the entire film and this is true of many MCS patients. In my case I was lucky, I had a clear-cut case of chemical exposure that went from fine/happy to in a ambulance unable to breath in less then a week. Even then it took 5 months for a diagnosis and 8 months for testing to confirm it was a chemical allergy. My condition isn't as bad as Carol but the process she went though is very similar - except that I was lucky to have tests that didn't exist in the 80s, doctors who knew what the condition was. Sadly in the real world they cannot turn it on/off like a switch - if your lucky they can figure out the chemicals and the 'drops' can offset the symptoms but there's no wellness retreats and no cure..instead the actual cure - regulation on chemicals and actual scientific study into treatment/cures is dismissed by everyone except the people with the condition who are then told it's 'all in your head' or too isolated to be visible to the rest of society who go on using the chemicals unaware of the harm it caused.
damn. I was not even aware of this until this movie and your comment
The cover never seemed funny or quirky to me. I found it quite creepy and unnerving and the film lived up to that.
Good points, great insights!
great analysis
Her real illness was fear. She fears life, and many are going that route these days
Nope, it was chemicals. MCS is a real condition. The real issue is that since 2010 the situation of the science is 'this is a real condition, its not in their heads because there's been enough science to disprove that but we don't know why some people are sensitive to chemicals and we need to do more studies'...and nothing has changed. There's still no treatment, no cure and most people don't think it's real. In Australia approx 1 million people have been diagnosed with MCS and approx 25% of people are sensitive to some chemicals with fragrance being the most common. The problem for people like me who actually have it for real is that people don't understand it because most people think of allergies as just food or 'contact' allergies and ignore that lots of products actually have warnings about the dangers of breathing them in - while some like fragrances should! But because the chemical industry is so big they've been able to get away with minimal regulation/disclosure which is why its so hard to pinpoint MCS to a single source..in a way its like a peanut allergy - except that in this case your allergic to the chemicals in peanuts which might also be in a bunch of other things like perfume, hairspray, car exharst etc. Its like a buffet where anything might have peanuts and being told that when you get sick its just you being sensitive...
@@ether4211 I am so sorry to hear of your condition. I did not mean to imply there is no such thing as mcs. I know there is and I am sympathetic to anyone suffering from an illness most people do not understand. I am such a person. I just meant to that in her quest for 'safety' she is deciding to stop living. I do not see how this is any kind of life. I hope you are well and understand that I was not trying to ridicule people with this illness in any way
I feel more uncomfortable with the cover art, which is a similar feeling that I had while watching this movie.
Great analysis!
Nice video! You should change the title to have the right year like in the description (1995)
Saw it at work 10 minutes ago, was pleasant
Good review👍
So good
It’s strange you decide to just take one side and say it’s all in her head. The film takes many, many pains to make sure any intelligent viewer would not think this: her bloody nose, seizures, rashes, all of which are not at all caused by the anxiety you suggest. I think the ambiguity of this film is its best part, although it does not fit into your simplistic reading of it just being about “self-hatred” or mental illness
Feel the same way. If the theme of Carol's illness is meant to reflect that of AIDS in the Reagan era, then I'm inclined to believe that she very much does have a real underlying illness, but one which she is helpless to diagnose or treat due to clinical incompetence and neglect. She is swept under the rug because it is convenient to do so.
Neither the medical professionals nor the quacks were able to provide Carol the true answers, but at least the quacks showed the barest amount of sympathy for her. It's just a shame they, in their desperate reaction to the society that failed them, twisted their own sub-society into a cult of toxic positivity and paranoid thinking.
@@Enuchful I love your comment and think you've totally nailed it. At the end of the movie, Carol recognizes that she is being failed by a lot of people around her, but she also learns to love herself and speak out, which includes advocating for practical measures that keep her safe.
the cover is scary not at all funny. 😭😭
Pretty sure this is a film not a folm
😂
Rude
finally someone addressed the elephant in the room
Holy fuck,its FILM not PHULME