It takes bravery these days to talk about a serious and stigmatized mental illness like bipolar disorder. In the rural prairie of the 1950s, it took a courageous spirit and audacity I can’t even begin to fathom. The short film Something Went Click, created by Caryn Cline, uses as its centerpiece an interview with her mother about the onset of her bipolar disorder during this singular time and setting. “Something went click” for her mother one day, and she immediately thought about killing herself.
Something Went Click stands out as having a unique look even amongst other experimental shorts we’ve screened in the festival. It was rephotographed from a singular gesture from a video interview with the filmmaker’s mother onto high con film (Kodak 3378), then she developed cyanotypes and optically-printed (including direct bi-packing with leaves) those sequences onto Kodak 50D. The use of the stuttering image, the captions setting the scene for the sparse countryside population, and the haunting recorded voice-over are all evocative of both the confusion of such a momentous breakdown and the dismissive attitude of the community at the time, culminating in an hours-long drive to see a psychiatrist who just gave the advice, which I’ll always remember now, to “take more naps.”
Watch Something Went Click for FREE in Shorts Block No. 2 of the virtual festival, streaming until 11/3!
https://watch.eventive.org/mentalfilmness2024/play/66f084de37280200a77ffdfc
