[GOD KNOWS WHERE I AM
screened this past weekend at the Cleveland International Film Festival.]
Review by Bob Ignizio
Where do you draw the line between personal freedom and
making sure a mentally ill person gets the treatment they need? And who should
make those decisions – family members, doctors, judges? These questions and
more are raised by the excellent new documentary film GOD KNOWS WHERE I AM. The film doesn’t necessarily offer answers,
but it does at least provide a starting point for the conversation.
Rather than cast a wide net, co-directors Jedd and Todd
Wider focus on the single, heartbreaking case of Linda Bishop. By all accounts
an intelligent, capable, and outgoing woman who loved her friends and her
daughter, Bishop also suffered from schizophrenia. And like many
schizophrenics, she stopped taking her medication. The results were tragic.
Seeking to avoid the forces she believed were out to get
her, Bishop broke into an abandoned farmhouse in New Hampshire as Fall was
turning into winter. For a time, the apple trees on the property sustained her,
but as we know from the very beginning of this film, she would never leave the
house alive.
The Wider’s film has a bit of an Errol Morris feel to it,
combining the expected on camera interviews with Linda’s family, friends, and
other involved parties with more artistic passages utilizing the apples Linda
lived on as their primary motif. It’s the kind of thing that takes what was
already a compelling and informative film into the realm of art. 4 out of 4
stars.
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