Electric Malady (2022) User Reviews

A thought-provoking and unsettling documentary

[bob-the-movie-man · 8/10 · 18 February 2023]

I saw this as a preview and it is due for release on March 3rd.

Positives:

• A good documentary should shine a spotlight on a topic that you have no idea about, and "Electric Malady" did just that. Although I vaguely remember a lot of concern about holding mobile phones up to your head, way back when they first became mainstream, I was not aware of this as a 'condition'.

• William seems to be an extreme case, but you can't help but me moved by his plight: shuffling around his little remote cabin, blankets over his head looking like E. T. at Halloween; his poor parents trying to help in whatever way they can; his obvious despair that his once girlfriend Marie now has a new life, with a husband and kids. It's heartbreaking. And Marie Lidén catches all of that perfectly.

• The opening is cleverly done: the father showing a 'cage' he has built for his own son. Without knowledge of the background, you wonder if you are going to be watching "The Elephant Man" or something!

• At just 84 minutes - a novelty for most of the 'award films' this year! - the film doesn't outstay its welcome.

• It's artfully shot, with nice shots of the Swedish countryside and interesting uses of colour flashing on some of the edits. This is a talented female filmmaker, taking good subject matter and making it great through well-thought-through editing.

• A quote from the WHO in the closing moments is a jaw-dropper and well done.

• Loved the score by John Lemke, especially the quietly persistent piece over the end-titles.

Negatives:

• This is a factual representation of William's life, but it only goes that far. It left me with a lot more questions than answers. Above all, was this "real" in a physical sense? Or were his symptoms purely psychological? As a former scientist, it left me longing for some of the scientific background behind the claims - some talking science heads might have added more to the background. Or even some practical guinea-pig (or perhaps canary) research. I longed for one of the visitors to quietly turn on a wi-fi router inside his Faraday Cage to see if that really did make him feel pain. (By the way, post-watching I was doing some googling and papers seem to certainly suggest this is a real thing, affecting possibly millions of people around the world to a greater or lesser extent).

• Often when I watch a documentary like this, I think of Heisenberg's theory of observation. That is, where research involving measurement or observation directly alters the phenomenon under investigation. There are a few moments in the film - a car reversing out of a drive; the father walking up to the hut and then in through the door, etc. - where (assuming there was only one camera) you saw the filmmaker's camera set-ups. "OK sir - I'll film you coming up to the dooe. Then let me go in and I'll film you coming into the hut". (Echoes of William Hurt's single-camera teary interview in "Broadcast News"!).

Summary Thoughts on "Electric Malady": This is a cracking debut feature from Marie Lidén, and a well deserved BAFTA nomination. The film is unsettling and thought-provoking and makes you suddenly appreciate your health and freedom and fear for how quickly both can get ripped away from you.

(For the full graphical review, please check out One Mann's Movies at onemannsmovies dot com. Thanks. )

Electric Malady

[CinemaSerf · 6/10 · 9 February 2023]

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 lead me to wonder if this could even be an hoax!

Uncritical trash.

[jonathancanucklevine · 1/10 · 24 May 2023]

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.

Horrifying, emotional and eye-opening

[martinpersson97 · 10/10 · 26 April 2024]

This incredible, and award winning, documentary, is definitely a very unique, low key and in some ways somber, yet hopeful, piece of filmmaking.

It delves into issues most of us might not know that much about, and does it gracefully, opening up to the horrors and utter sadness of this horrible disease, and how to live with it. It is very emotional, very well paced and follows an intimate and poignant script, featuring a good blend of utter horror, some humour, and leaving it all on a note of some hope for the future.

Beautiful cutting an cinematography, very artistic and cinematic indeed.

As someone who is from around the same place this film takes place, and recognizes some of the players, it indeed opens up another dimension of sadness!

Highly recommended for anyone, truly eye-opening.