It's very telling when the most cheerful part of Ken Loach's "In Two Minds" happens to be the upbeat music of "The Wednesday Play" intro. After that it's all downhill.
"In Two Minds" is a film about anxiety of the worst kind, one whose early symptoms were caused by the very people that are supposed to bring the remedies: love, comfort and understanding. Again Ken Loach knows how to start his movies, by a simple close-up on Kate Winter (Anna Cropper) who's speaking about her personality disorder, referring to a 'she' that is her mother and trying to articulate her thoughts.
There's a lot of talk in the film being a docudrama made of multiple interviews, but in the case of Kate, contrarily to the other speaking persons, it's not what she says that counts but the way she delivers it. The first thirty seconds shows her trying to process her thoughts about her mother and just when it makes sense (a little), a voice-over coming from her father starts covering her word as if it didn't matter whatever she'd say. Loach shows the conflicting parallel between the serenity of the man's voice and the escalating angst in Kate's voice. And in a masterstroke of timing exactitude, once the narration stops, Kate's gibberish is interrupted by a scream of terror that abruptly cuts to the father's interview.
For all I know, maybe the cut wasn't intentional but the effect haunted me for real and became one of my most memorable Loach moments. (You can find the film on Youtube check the first minute and you'll see what I mean) As an opening, it sets the tone, doesn't try to sugarcoat the horror and establishes the huge wall of incomprehension between the parents and their daughter. There's something about the incapability to go on rationalizing what you're going through and simply giving up and letting a simple organic cry speaks more words than any monologue would ever express. Ken Loach knows how to not to overuse these bursts of hysteria and so "In Two Minds" in less an exercice in voyeuristic sensationalism but a harrowing examination of the way a woman's personality has totally disintegrated because of parental pressure.
The parents constitue the worst case of persons being responsible for a tragedy and yet totally in denial. Mrs. Winter (Helen Booth) especially is quite striking, she knows how to trick the interviewer and dodge the difficult questions: about alcohol. Is the dad allowed to drink? Yes, he's a man. Does he get drunk? She could just say "no, he doesn't" (which we would believe given the father's type) but in a very defensive tone, she looks straight at the camera and insist on every syllable that 'no one drinks in the family", so it's obvious that she cares about the talk of the town, and sees the interview as an opportunity to clear her name than defend her daughter.
Mr. Winter (George A. Cooper) is an illustration of the henpecked husband so busy focussing on his daughter's "bad manners" toward her mother that he's incapable to realize the damages inflicted by his own wide. The film was made in 1968 and it's obvious the parents are from a sort of war-generation, with ideas and principles in contradiction with the evolution of society. Having lost the ability to change, they programmed their daughter not to change and conform to their own beings, it's interesting that the mother totally rebukes the word 'abortion' while she's obviously the one who convinced Kate to resort to it. Once we know what it's all about and we have a glimpse on the boyfriend, it's easy to put two and two together and separate Kate's two minds apart.
Loach remade the film in 1971, it was titled "Family Life" and in many ways it is a better film. But I can see why. The family members are more nuanced and have moments of apparent kindness. The scene with the sister is also one of the best in Ken Loach' filmography and is treated with more narrative density than the 1967 film. And as I said, there are times where the black-and-white gets too clinical and horrific and it gives a very unsettling feeling, it insists on the nightmarish aspect and makes it rather unpleasant to watch. It worked with "Cathy Come Home" because the film didn't get 'dramatic' until the middle act and they were truly happy moments.
I said in the first paragraph that the intro was the happiest part, I was partially right. If the ending credits doesn't leave much for optimism, there's still a thin light of hope from the questions asked by the medical students: asking finally the real questions about the parents' responsibility (the questions are intersected with the credits), that part wasn't kept in the remake. I wonder why.
