Believing that those directly involved approved the final version of the film before it was presented to a wider audience, I can say that animation is the right form for showing what cannot be expressed with words”, Aleksander Zbirański from the LFF Media Group about “Psychonauts”. Patients of a psychiatric hospital were involved in the production.
The Croatian animation “Psychonauts” (2024, dir. Niko Radas) is a unique film. It defies easy classification into any established tradition of portraying its subject matter. A fact revealed to the viewer only at the very end does not make interpretation any easier – patients of the Vrapče psychiatric hospital worked on the film as part of their therapy. The information does not specify what exactly does this mean — whether they influenced the content or only the visual aspect. Was it their idea to show mental disorders in that way (both in terms of the general concept and the individual conditions), or maybe they shaped the film’s narrative?
The film has no plot. It is a panorama with close-ups of individual mental illnesses that have left their hosts and taken on anthropomorphic forms. They inhabit a small town built from medicine boxes and struggle with themselves. Every now and then, the viewer is given a glimpse into one of the three apartments whose inhabitant they will be observing. Each case study is enclosed in its own small world, intensifying the sense of loneliness. The exaggerated character designs further emphasise how each condition affects the patient’s functioning. Altogether, this creates a portrait of a life defined by illness. This is poignantly illustrated in the scene where the town flies off into space, which is a metaphorical representation of illness as a separate universe governed by its own laws.
One undeniable advantage of the lack of a traditional plot is the avoidance of the moralising tone often associated with this theme. The attention is focused on the struggle with the illness rather than on the misunderstanding environment. The short running time aids reception, as at any other length, the absence of a plot would become tiring. Believing that those directly involved approved the final version of the film before it was shown to the public, I can say that animation is the right form for expressing what cannot be conveyed through words. Individual experience translated into visual form becomes a subjectivity that can be communicated to those who have not lived it. Of course, we may debate for centuries whether understanding another person is truly possible, but we must certainly search for ways to achieve it to the greatest extent, even if it feels like creating an utopia.
To sum up, the film is difficult to evaluate. Its intriguing artistic concept, the construction of the represented world, and the conciseness of its narrative — capturing a life defined through medicalisation — deserve praise. I repeat: I do not know to what extent this is the director’s interpretation or patients’ experiences. However, the attempt to portray the perspective of those directly affected is undoubtedly the film’s greatest value, making it worth watching and reflecting on and experiencing.
We watched “Psychonauts”, awarded at Animafest in Zagreb, on the penultimate day of the Lublin Film Festival, as part of the “Animated World” screenings.