Bellevue Inside Out

I can't say I actually enjoyed watching patients act out in this video look at “the country's most famous psychiatric institution," New York's Bellevue Hospital, but I can report that this harrowing behind-the-scenes documentary is riveting. In fact, Bellevue Inside Out so successfully places the viewer inside the alternate world of the mentally ill that the young man who loudly and obsessively repeats his complaints about the facility eventually becomes just part of the background, popping up at random to opine that the facility's treatment doesn't work (debatable) and that he has been there for seven years (definitely false). Agitated when they come in and personable when we see them after a few days, Bellevue's patients are society's unfortunates, many of them apparently deluded when not taking their medicine, but pleasant, lucid folks when they are (which leads them to believe they don't need the medicine, keeping many in a constant orbit in and out of facilities). The effects of laws insuring that many patients can legally sign themselves out against medical advice repeatedly comes into play as the Bellevue staff deals with recalcitrant patients and restrictions on what can and cannot be done for--and to--them. While sometimes difficult to watch (there's a certain voyeuristic discomfort inherent in viewing droves of psychiatric patients in confinement), this episode from the HBO-aired America Undercover series offers a revealing glimpse into the constant sad turmoil of a renowned psychiatric institution over the course of a year. Definitely recommended, and sure to be of interest, especially given the popular and critical success of Ron Howard's Oscar-nominated A Beautiful Mind. Aud: H, C, P. (M. Tribby)