A Hungarian drama directed by János Szász, "Opium" (also known as "Opium: Diary of a Madwoman") is a very unusual film despite its superficially familiar subject matter. Kirsti Stubø plays a patient in an insane asylum who has a passionate love affair with a resident physician. But there is a twist. The doctor in question is a drug addict, while the woman is actually a very gifted writer. And this isn't the only unusual twist on the familiar "crazy-girl-helped-by-a-kind-doctor" formula of such classic melodramas as "Lilith", "The Three Faces of Eve" or "Suddenly Last Summer". Unlike those earlier films, "Opium" (set in 1913) is unflinching in its realistic portrayal of the realities of a mental-health institution where disturbed women are "cured" by primitive lobotomies that drive metal spikes through their eyeball into the brain. In its display of many strange medical paraphernalia of the period that suspiciously resemble instruments of torture, the film actually looks and feels more like a horror movie than a human drama. But a human drama it is, thanks in large part to Kirsti Stubø's unbelievably intense performance. Whether masturbating with a pencil, writhing uncontrollably under observation, or simply staring blankly into space, she perfectly captures the tragedy of a remarkable woman - intelligent and gifted, but also completely insane.
