Mrs. Dalloway Film

     Towards the beginning of the film, Mrs. Dalloway, Septimus and Rezia are sitting in the park and Septimus begins to act up. He has visions of war and explosions. This sort of choice by the director leads us to believe that he has some psychological issues and that they might have an impact on the storyline of the movie. I thought this was intriguing, especially because I was questioning why Rezia would walk away from him when he was going through these flashbacks instead of trying to help him. In addition, I thought this scene was very different from any other pieces we have looked at in this course. In other works, women have been portrayed as more of the caregiver and had motherly traits whereas Rezia just walked away when Septimus was needing help. This is very different from the dynamics of the relationships we have seen in other readings and films. 

    Throughout the film, and specifically at the end, we are also shown that Clarissa also has some sort of mental illness when she is contemplating suicide. In this, the film has an ongoing theme and message about how serious mental illness is. I think that the way that the director had her having these thoughts and then switching right over to acting like she was fine and loved life was an indication that mental health isn’t always obvious to other people and that you never know the types of thoughts someone is having, regardless of whether they have a smile on their face. I personally think it is also sort of a foreshadow to life now since unfortunately suicide seems to be happening more now than it was in the past.