Stephen Fry: The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive

Manic depression or bipolarity has been an issue for many people for many decades; I myself suffer from Cyclothymia, a branch of bipolarity. Watching this documentary revealed how many people suffer from manic depression and the struggles they are going through, making me feel less alone in my problems.

Stephen Fry hosts this documentary, detailing his suicide attempt and subsequent diagnosis of bipolarity in 1995. Fry describes his massive highs and miserable lows and how they affected his life choices; how it is a double-edged sword, giving him the energy to be creative and the drive to be successful. He interviews various friends who have suffered or who have encountered those who have suffered from manic depression, giving intimate and revealing insights from celebrities on the real struggle they have been through.

I connected with many of the celebrities on a level I didn't think possible, with Fry and Carrie Fisher detailing how they are fighting the illness, but also the stigma associated with it. Many statistics were given in the documentary, the most harrowing of which being that two percent of the population suffer from manic depression and twenty percent of those people commit suicide. The point of these statistics was to give a mathematical basis to the prevalence of the issues discussed in the documentary. Whilst these statistics were useful, they did not distract from the emotional impact of the subject material itself.

Another difficulty revealed in the documentary was how difficult bipolarity is to diagnose and treat, with no brain test being conclusive and many treatments being subjective to each person. The subject matter is interesting and very personal to me. The obvious choices made in cinematography and the visual exposition of distressful times of those interviewed causes me to question the ethical issues in making documentaries where people are forced to recount and re - enact the times when they were at their worst. Overall, an incredibly enlightening and intimate documentary giving an in-depth look at a stigmatized issue in today's society, both heart-warming and harrowing. To me, the only slight let-down of this documentary is some of the cinematic choices made.