Showing @ Filmhouse, Edinburgh, Fri 27 Jun

Wang Bing / Hong Kong/France/Japan / 2013 / 228 mins

Transport the mental hospital in this documentary from rural Yunnan to the UK and it could be the subject of a shocking Panorama-style exposé. The fact that Wang Bing has seemingly been allowed access to openly film this institution speaks disturbingly to the state of mental health care in China today.

‘Til Madness Do Us Part introduces a few patients but, like the “treatment” on offer, largely ignores their history. Inside the dirty, graffiti-scrawled walls, lie urine-puddled cement floors, stark corridors hemmed in by iron bars and dormitory rooms where fluorescent lights glow round the clock. Privacy is an alien concept. Staff administer drugs or punishments but there is little evidence of actual care.

The lengthy duration of this film is daunting, but crucially serves to draw audiences more fully into the patients’ world of monotony and isolation. It also highlights the precious moments of tenderness: a visiting wife whose teasing facade appears to hide real devotion or the patients’ nightly bed-hopping – less, it seems, in search of sexual gratification than a little human warmth.

If Nils Malmros‘ exquisite Sorrow and Joy offers the film festival‘s most compassionate portrayal of mental illness and health care, then ‘Til Madness Do Us Part documents the extremely dark other side of the same coin.

Showing as part of Edinburgh International Film Festival 2014