• Film

Last year, the round-up of medical humanities-related films at the London Film Festival (LFF) centred on the theme of old age. This year, to synchronise with Mental Health Day (which fell on 10 October 2013, the second of the 12 days of the LFF), the mind and its mishaps serve as our cluster-point.

Le Paz, directed by Argentinian Santiago Loza, follows Liso, a young man recently discharged from a psychiatric hospital back to his family’s house. While he was safe in hospital, he is now confused by facing his family and friends, and they are clueless as to how to deal with him—as a patient or as his old lively self. The difficulty of building a new life after a mental breakdown is closely observed, without any judgments passed on the patient or his circle of family and friends.

The French film Camille Claudel 1915 (director: Bruno Dumont) tells the story of the eponymous French sculptor (played superbly by Juliette Binoche) after her illicit love affair with fellow sculptor Rodin comes to an abrupt end. She is admitted to a …