Main Cast: Gigi Buffington, David Solomon, Maria Silvermann, Patricia Donegan, Alix Pearlstein
Release Year: 2003
Country: US
Run Time: 96 minutes
Plot
Drama and documentary merge in this independent feature which uses the framework of a investigative report on psychoanalysis to explore not just psychology, but the nature of filmmaking and how films are perceived by their audience. Lia (Gigi Buffington) is a young actress and voice-over artist who is seeing an analyst who happens to be the subject of a documentary on the working methods of a handful of psychiatrists. As the film progresses, the primary focus shifts from the analysts to Lia, back to the analysts, and eventually stops along the way for a look at contemporary furniture design, and winds up with Lia hired to narrate the film about her own psychiatrist. Empathy was the first feature film from writer and director Amie Siegel, who previously distinguished herself as a poet. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Review
Playful, fascinating, but occasionally self-indulgent, Empathy is an original film that sometimes teeters on the brink of genius. Video artist Amie Siegel intelligently interrogates both psychoanalysis and filmmaking in terms of both form and content. Empathy begins with offscreen documentary footage of Siegel interviewing several older, white male analysts about what they do and their relationships with their patients. The therapists' (for the most part) measured responses are compelling as Siegel puts them on the defensive, asking if they lie to their patients, have sexual fantasies about them, and whether the empathy they feel for their patients is genuine or simply necessitated by the analysts' need to perform the job for which they're being paid. Clearly unprepared for the tone of the inquisition, the analysts are hilariously startled when Siegel compares their work to prostitution. These documentary segments would make for an interesting film in and of themselves, but Siegel intercuts the fictional story of Lia (Gigi Buffington), a voice-over actress who's seeing a psychiatrist (played by a real shrink, Dr. David Solomon), and then deconstructs this narrative, showing Buffington and several other actresses auditioning for roles in Empathy. At one point, Lia arrives in a studio to do a voice-over for a documentary, and the film switches paths again, showing us a short, but clever, doc (complete with computer models and talking heads) on the relationship between psychoanalysis and modernist design. The film doesn't quite cohere, and some of the dramatizations are a bit stilted, but Empathy is chock full of clever ideas and thought-provoking reflexive moments. ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide
