Passion Of Mind Explained

Passion Of Mind

The movie Passion of Mind (2000) is a journey through looking in the mirror for us all. Directed by a Belgian, Alain Berliner, it is his first English-language film. Berliner is best known for the arthouse success Ma Vie en Rose Co-written by Donald Bass and David Field, with the premise being, what if you had two lives at once and you knew that one life took place only in your dreams, but you didn't know which life was real. The movie is a psychological romantic thriller where fantasy and reality become indistinguishable for Marty (Demi Moore) leading a double life in her dreams.

In one life, she is Marty a high-powered single literary agent in Manhattan. Through a business deal, Marty meets Aaron ( William Fitchner), an accountant. They fall in love. Marty confides in Aaron about her dreams and how vivid and real they seem to her. So much so, that she does not know what is her real life or what is her dream life. She is afraid she is losing her mind and fears he will want to run away and never see her again. He feels she uses the dream life to distance herself from getting closer to people. Marty's New York psychiatrist, Dr. Peters (Peter Riegert), thinks her high powered, lonely New York life has driven her to dreams of being a mother and wife, living a simple life elsewhere.

In another life she is Martha Marie (Demi Moore), a mother and widow with two daughters, Jennifer (Eloise Eonnet) and Serafine (Chaya Cuenot). Her oldest daughter has a constant boy companion, Jeanne Pierre, (Hadrian Dagannaud-Brouard). They live in Provence, France. They are frequently visited by Martha's older friend, Jessie (Sinead Cusack), who Martha confides in about her double life woes. Martha also meets and falls in love with a writer, William Granther (Stellan Skarsgard). Her French psychiatrist, Dr. Langer (Joss Ackland), feels she is wanting more than her drab home life raising children. She longs to write and lead a more exciting life working in New York.

Which life is the real life and which is the dream? Thus begins our characters quest of who and where she is.

In her New York life, she loses her mother when she is 11. We are not told what the cause of death is, but the story alludes to alcoholism. Marty was raised by her father, who we assume is also gone at this point. Marty is alone living in New York. She is lonely. Each time she meets a man, she keeps them at a distance by telling them of her dream world.

In her alternate life, France, she is a widower. Martha is a single mom raising two daughters, whom she and her friend Jessie keep insinuating are just like her. Jessie is an older friend who is more like a mother to her. Martha confides in her and receives advice.

Along the way, Marty and Martha find clues of each other's life in each world. Yet, the real, tangible things are always found in the New York world. Eventually, she realizes her New York Life is real. Her French life is a dream. The two girls are Marty when she was 7 and 11. Martha Marie is basically her, giving herself the mother she never had and also lost at age 11.

Jeanne-Pierre is a memory of a trusted childhood male friend she had during the years after her mother died, who comforted her. He kept her sane during the death of her mother and possible distance of her father.

We then learn the brandy toting friend, Jessie, is a memory of how she wishes her mother would have been, but never was, because she was an alcoholic. Marty finds her mother dead one morning. She makes Jessie someone she can talk to, confide in. Someone who would always be there when she needed her. Yet again, she realizes she can be her own mother and confidant, even though her own mother was not capable of doing that for her.

The man she is falling for in France, William, has the voice of her father, who we are never quite sure, if he abandoned her emotionally or physically or both after her mothers death or had passed on later in life after she was grown. We can see that she is looking for a man who can love her like her father should have, someone to love her unconditionally, accept her just as she is. What all the shrinks say we are looking for in a partner, someone to heal our relationship with our parents. Oddly, he is the one in the story who leaves her and does not accept her alternate dream world. She brings him back in her dreams, so she can see him one last time. Get what she needed from him in real life. She says a final goodbye to a father, letting him move on and out of her heart, leaving room for a new man to come in and love her, just as we all have to do.

Now we see that Marty has created this dream world in France to comfort herself in her loneliness and sense of loss. Since she never really had a loving caring mother, she herself is being a mother to her 7 and 11 year old self, giving them the love she never received in real life. Letting us all know that when we don't get what we need from others we can love the child in ourselves and repair the hurt we may feel.

Aaron, who is real and not in her dreams, is the man who helps her to let go of it all. He tells her that he hopes if he cannot be her great love, he would settle for being her very good friend. He says he will always be there and never leave, no matter how crazy she thinks she is. He will wait for her to realize just how much he loves her. Aaron helps her to heal and gives her the unconditional love and acceptance she has been looking for all her life. Now she can let go of her dream world. Marty created the love she needed, which in fact, was her love for herself. She, in fact, was protecting herself from anymore hurt, until Aaron shows her he will not hurt her, leave her, but will love her for the rest of their lives together.

I have read several reviews on this movie. I think most have missed the point all together. This is a very complicated movie in theory, but a great premise and story. Isn't this what most of us do? We hold others at a distance before we let them in. Maybe even create something to test their true devotion to us.

We have all been hurt. We have to protect those vulnerable places from being further damaged. We wait for that person(s) to come along and show us that we can trust them, open up and give our hearts to them, without fear of being hurt once again. And when we do, we can let go and let them be our soft place to fall in this world. What a wonderful thought!

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