Lotje Sodderland has always loved filming the world around her, to keep track of it and be able to reread it whenever she wants, through her vision of the world; At the age of 34, she suffered a stroke that damaged her brain, deprived her of her ability to read and impaired her vision. My Beautiful Broken Brain, a Netflix documentary directed by herself and produced by David Lynch, traces this long and painful journey with her newly damaged brain. A fascinating sensory trip, which allows you to discover another facet of the disease as closely as possible.
Lotje Sodderland is 34 years old, she likes to read and create films, she likes to travel and talks a lot; but this Lodje, we do not know her, her personality was altered during her stroke, which damaged several brain connections, including those of language and vision. She now has trouble expressing herself, can't read, and has trouble seeing on the right side. My Beautiful Broken Brain follows her journey through different hospitals, psychiatric and rehabilitation wards, in selfie videos taken by Lotje herself, alternating with shots that try to recreate her new vision of the world, according to how she describes it.
Lotje was heavily influenced before her stroke by director David Lynch (Twin Peaks, Mulholland Drive), and she understands her worldview all the more since; the filmed images that try to recreate his vision of the world seem straight out of the films of the American director, who also met Lotje and produced his documentary. Whether through fiction or documentary, My Beautiful Broken Brain tackles with simplicity and tenderness the themes of the vision of another world, and reminds us that the truth does not exist anywhere, that everything is only a question of point of view. The world that Lotje sees is no less real or realistic than ours, it is only the result of another functioning of the brain which, even if it is not the same as all the others, nevertheless becomes close to the truth. The documentary thus traces a beautiful vision of hope for all those who may feel alienated from this world, and offers other perspectives on the vision of reality, by men, or by documentary and cinema; in this he is close to Lynch's whole vision and his way of exploring through his camera other space-times and dimensions.
After her stroke, Lotje had to relearn everything, including reading, in a painful exchange between what she was before and what she now knows how to assimilate; this impression of becoming a child again, of no longer finding the right words, and seeing language mix, finds in the documentary form a very powerful dimension: the images of Lotje and his vision become his new word, and his sentences are made of images and visual senses. The camera that tries to recreate her vision, even if it sometimes seems clumsy and looks more like a visual trip that tries in vain to represent indescribable impressions, testifies to this other world to which Lotje has access, and which she ends up making a strength.
My Beautiful Broken Brain is a rare documentary on a disease unfortunately so widespread (stroke is the leading cause of death for women in France), which deals with kindness and tenderness, but also with significant hindsight, a very personal experience that nevertheless wants to be universal. A precious testimony to the infinite possibilities of seeing and perceiving our world, destabilizing and fascinating. Watch now on Netflix.
