Muristek
Young & Afraid review – raw and intimate study of young people’s mental health crisis
This hard-hitting film about young Norwegians struggling with suicidal ideation, addiction, abuse and self-harm is intense, but does it cross a line?
This scrappy, rough-around-the-edges documentary from Norway is directed by two friends and began after one of them, Petter Aaberg, attempted to kill himself. It’s a fly-on-the-wall study of Aaberg and four other young Norwegians struggling with their mental health. It is raw and intense, and also troubling in places: Aaberg and Kvamme keep the camera rolling on these vulnerable people in moments of crisis, testing the limits of documentary ethics.
One of their subjects is Monica, whose arms are horrifically scarred by self-harm. A sexual abuse survivor, she lives in a constant state of hyper-vigilance. We see her having a panic attack in the street after hearing a car backfire. Monica introduces the directors to Emma, her trans friend who is struggling with the agonisingly long wait for surgery. Another subject is heroin addict Cornelia, who is filmed injecting herself and being rushed to hospital, her umpteenth overdose. I wasn’t convinced that showing moments such as this, honest and hard-hittingly intimate as they are, take us any closer to understanding Monica, Emma or Cordelia.
Continue reading...