trailer
excerpt
DOCTOR
But why did you separate? To this day I don’t know the reason, the real reason.
SERIEMA
I didn’t want the separation. It was Antonio who moved out. After the second miscarriage.
DOCTOR
There were two miscarriages.
SERIEMA
Yes. I lost a child twice. The second time, Antonio went crazy. He smashed everything in the house and disappeared. He asked a friend to come get what he needed, but he wouldn’t send any message. (Pause) I wanted him back. I waited for three months; nothing. I did everything possible to obtain a scholarship. I got it and packed my bags. I went far away, hoping he would change his mind. So far, nothing. (Pause) I need to find out why I’m alone… why I lost Antonio.
DOCTOR
You didn’t separate, you lost Antonio.
SERIEMA
(Pause) I also lost Brazil… I didn’t know what it means to be a foreigner. (Sarcastically) “Where are you from? What country?” And I never know if I’m speaking correctly. For the least little action in the past, French uses three words. (Pronouncing the words in French one by one) For “he ate,” il a mangé. For the simple number ninety, three words: quatre vingt dix. Here, I’m constantly translating from one language to the other, I’m forced to think all the time. In Brazil, the language thinks for me… Even having a Coke is complicated here. If you don’t say cocaaa instead of coca, and if you don’t change the definite article and say un coca instead of une coca, nobody understands.
synopsis
With realistic acumen and artistic expertise, ADIEU LACAN portrays the struggles of a young woman, Seriema, who is trying to understand why her path to motherhood has reached an unbearable impasse. Following two miscarriages and the possible loss of her marriage, Seriema travels to Paris in 1972 to undergo psychoanalytic treatment with the maverick French analyst, Jacques Lacan. Her analysis is an attempt to help her to disentangle the enigma of her question: why has motherhood become a seeming impossibility?
Inspired by the story of Betty Milan, a Brazilian psychoanalyst and writer, it follows closely her own actual psychoanalysis with Lacan. Based on her play “Goodbye, Doctor” and her novel “Lacan’s Parrot,” in which Milan recounts her analytic work, ADIEU LACAN offers an insightful and accurate account of an actual psychoanalytic cure.
Starring David Patrick Kelly in the role of Lacan and Ismenia Mendes in the role of Seriema
history
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opinion
critical reaction
Revisiting Lacan, Alexander Kalogerakis