Crooked Beauty

California artist-activist Jacks Ashley McNamara combines narration with onscreen text in this unconventional documentary about mental illness, which criticizes standard psychiatric practices and explores the relationship between manic-depressive conditions and creativity. In her introductory comments, McNamara talks about a search for beauty in ugliness, which defines her approach to life. Director Ken Paul Rosenthal focuses on her face only briefly, after which he fills the screen with black-and-white San Francisco Bay Area images, enhanced by time-lapse photography and splashes of color—the intent being to present the region's unstable geology and weather patterns as analogous to the mercurial nature of the human mind. McNamara, who grew up in an abusive household, used Ritalin as an adolescent to keep up with her schoolwork, but it led to blackouts and exacerbated her thoughts of suicide. At 19, diagnosed with bipolar disorder, she entered a mental institution and starting taking lithium and other prescription drugs. McNamara feels that this sort of diagnosis “lets everybody off the hook” and questions whether some medications do more harm than good, preferring to acknowledge her traumas and sensitivities while trying to constructively incorporate them into her life and work. In addition to pursuing a career as a graphic artist, McNamara co-founded the Icarus Project, a website that allows visitors to share stories about their “madness,” or what she terms their “dangerous gift.” This combination of art and community has helped her emerge from solitude. Recommended. Aud: C, P. (K. Fennessy)