Review: Shock Head Soul

This Dutch-English production is a collection of various art forms; animation, documentary and drama, perfectly sewn together into one shocking, informative but also entertaining piece of work.

The documentary, which was shown at the London Film Festival and will also be screening at the Copenhagen’s documentary festival CPH:DOX next month, portrays a proud man with a beautiful mind who is slowly deteriorating due to the pressure of his work and upcoming promotion. 

Based on a true story we see the man, top notch lawyer Daniel Paul Schreber, being forced into an institution where shock tactics, normal in the 1900s, were used on him for a period of no less than 9 years.

During his confinement Schreber managed to write ‘Memoirs of my nervous illness’, a book that now in modern times is being used to educate on the views on, and treatment of, mental illnesses at the beginning of the century.

Like The Somnambulists, Shock Head Soul is no ordinary documentary but a “transmedia project” – bringing together a combination of a well-acted feature film, animation and real-live interviews which are shot in a beautiful way.

For more information on screenings and the trailer to this unusual, unnerving film, click here.