★ 5 / 10
William is a man who suffers from an
CinemaSerf
William is a man who suffers from an extreme form of electro-sensitivity that has has reduced his life to little more than that of a house-bound, constantly…
William is a man who suffers from an extreme form of electro-sensitivity that has has reduced his life to little more than that of a house-bound, constantly blanket-clad hermit. Unable to spend time outside, his home is covered in aluminium foil and other reflective materials and he wears a hat that consists copper wire to help shield his brain from the effects of this pervasive radiation. It is intimately filmed by Marie Lidén offering us quite a painful-to-watch glimpse of the man's existence that, intercut with some of his earlier, happier, home movie footage with his erstwhile girlfriend, tells a rather sad story. Now, here is my problem with this - and I fully expect to be shot down. Is it real? This man lives is Sweden. One of the most advanced economies in the world. Surely someone would have designed an actual hat, and/or a suit for him to wear that would have offered the same protection and greater mobility than him having to shuffle around attired like a man from an "Addams Family" movie. He is apparently one of three people from the same public library to have contracted this illness in quick succession - yet we don't hear from either of the others. Indeed one - his former partner - appears to have gone on to live a full and fruitful life. Is he just that much more susceptible? There are contributors - but aside from his family, they are lay-people who are unattributed onscreen. There are no medical or scientific personnel participating here to offer us any explanation as to just what "radiation" actually might be, or to put some context around this man's undoubtedly depressing predicament. It is an interesting watch, but as it progressed - the distinct lack of scientific and/or medical critique and/or validation led me to wonder if this could even be an hoax!
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★ 1 / 10
Uncritical trash.
jonathancanucklevine
This is an absolutely terrible film, and now joins that doc about the German "free diver" who crippled himself as one of the two worst documentaries I've ever…
This is an absolutely terrible film, and now joins that doc about the German "free diver" who crippled himself as one of the two worst documentaries I've ever seen.
It was made by, and with the participation, of people who are utterly credulous and unquestioning about this unfortunate young man's predicament. Imagine, if you will, exactly the same documentary being made about someone who claims to be terrorized by fairies that only he can see, and that the only way he can protect himself is to hide under a blanket. Would anyone make a deeply sympathetic film about him? Of course not. He'd be regarded as the mentally ill person he is, and urged to get psychiatric treatment. The two cases are exactly the same; the only difference is that, while most people agree that fairies do not exist, most people are also grossly ignorant about the science and engineering of what's broadly termed here "radiation". For example, the doctor who visits him compares the "old, natural radiation from the earth" to "modern radiation" as though they're of the same kind, clearly demonstrating that he doesn't understand the difference between ionizing radiation and electromagnetic radiation. So best not to take his word for anything.
And we are shown a number of inconsistencies that further indicate that our subject has failed to learn about the things that, were his malady real, he could do to further minimize his exposure. For example, why would he listen to music from CDs, when CD players contain high-speed digital circuitry used to read data from the disks and convert it back down into sound? His parents have a turntable, and listening "analog" to LPs would completely eliminate the CD player as a source of EMR. (Before you ask: The Fairport Convention and Lindisfarne CDs he listens to were both originally released on vinyl, and for anything that wasn't or isn't, playing a cassette tape copy of a CD would also eliminate the CD as an EMR source.) Also, at the end of the film, we learn that he now has a phone via optical fiber, and the same argument applies: A fiber-capable phone (interface) contains complex, high-speed digital circuitry... where an old-timey POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service) phone like your parents and grandparents had is a completely passive device that contains no active electronics generating high-frequency signals. Those are both dead giveaways that his sensitivity is imagined, because in both cases he's chosen the high-frequency-EMR-generating option over the one that isn't.
All of this means that the filmmaker ignored her responsibility as a documentarian to find the facts, opting instead for sympathetic agitprop with a lilting soundtrack. There is no evidence that "electrosensitivity" exists, and this is no different than any other paranormal phenomenon in that proving (or disproving) it via controlled experiments is a well-understood thing. So whaddaya got? A sick man who waves a little buzzing box around as "proof" that "there's something there"? Trust me, that means nothing. There are always hucksters and charlatans ready to cash in on people's gullibility and desperation, and being able to sell a little hokum meter for a thousand bucks is a strong motivation - no different, really, from those goofy Scientologists' E-meters.
So mark this down as a documentary that remains to be made by serious people who are ready to bring in scientists, engineers, psychiatrists, and paranormal debunkers to provide the background and expertise necessary to place the story in its proper context.
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83%
TOMATOMETER
· 6 reviews
83%
AUDIENCE
6.6/10
95
•••
Mental illness is a hell of a drug...