REVIEWED
..::Dissociative December - A Cold Month Of Mind Control::..
“Do you trust me George.... you are going to have a dream I suggest to you. It will be a good dream George, an effective dream.” - Dr. William Haber (Kevin Conway)
Audaciously over the top, imaginative science fiction TV movie, that truly shoots for the moon. George Orr believes his dreams have the ability to change situations in real life. He goes to a famed oneirologist (a sleep psychiatrist) Dr. Haber in the hope he can somehow have the dreams suppressed. Only Haber uses Georges unique ability to at first gain better furniture for his profession but steady progresses to change human development into his own grey utopia, one with no over population, no wars, no racial prejudice and no threats from beyond the stars.
The Lathe of Heaven based on a novel by Ursula K. Le Guin, is an enjoyable hippie fantasy, thats undeniably a little hokey at times, but in a good way. Directors Fred Barzyk & David R. Loxton who clearly had limited resources with it being a PBS production, use futuristic looking buildings and rudimentary effects well, to create a solid unsettling atmosphere. Both central performances by Bruce Davison as dreamer George and Kevin Conway as headshrink Haber are fantastic, a real cut above the dross you usually find in TV sci-fi films of the era, recommended.
[Personal Reasons For OBEYING]
Another that I had to shoehorn into my Mind Control month, but I enjoyed it so much so its staying. It does contain a quack who puts his subject into hypnosis to control his dreams, if thats not a form of mind control then I don't know what is.
[x] The most basic form of mind control is repetition - you are feeling sleepy, sleep George, sleep, sleep
[x] Use of cypher trigger - ANTWERP. Writer Le Guin claims it had no external meaning, was just a random odd sounding word in English.
Haber claims a first that George is possibly an Intelectual
[x] George questioning his sanity - “Look, I know I'm not insane!, it drives me insane.”
[x] erm Turtle like aliens from the darkside of the moon?
[x] Lots of surreal apparatus to put George into his dreamstate including sonic beeps, sea crashing on shore rocks and flashing/swirling lights.
Originally taken from Letterboxd
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