Autumn child
| TV movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | Autumn child |
| Country of production | Germany |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 2012 |
| length | 89 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Petra K. Wagner |
| script |
Ariela Bogenberger , Petra K. Wagner |
| production | Bea Schmidt for Bavaria-Film |
| music | Helmut Zerlett |
| camera | Peter Polsak |
| cut | Vera van Appeldorn |
| occupation | |
| |
Autumn child is a German television - drama from the year 2012 with the theme after the birth of a child occurring mental stress states. In the film and in its description on the website of the broadcaster ARD, the mental disorder of the child's mother was named as postpartum depression . Katharina Wackernagel plays the leading role in the film produced for Bayerischer Rundfunk .
action
Pregnant midwife Emilia Schneider and her husband and child's father Christoph Schneider go on a mountain tour in the Bavarian foothills. The tour begins in the fog, on the sunny summit, Emilia says, looking down the abyss: "If you fall down there, nobody will find you." Her husband's answer: "I can."
The child's delivery, which is Emilia's first, was planned as a home birth, but has to take place in the hospital due to complications. The previously confident and happy Emilia is beginning to change. Her immediate surroundings and especially the child appear increasingly strange to her. This process began in the hospital and continues after you return home. Emila is withdrawing more and more. During the day she draws the curtains and gradually begins to neglect the household, her husband and her child. Then, on the other hand, she is overly afraid for her sleeping child and thinks it is dead.
Christoph continues to devote himself to his activities as a music teacher, partly now at home, but does not notice the seriousness of the situation, but instead rules on his wife because of her misconduct. Only when Emilia's colleague Hannah expresses the suspicion of depression , Emilia and Christoph go to a psychiatrist. But initially nothing changes until Emilia, incited by Christoph's cautious criticism, collects laundry in a basket throughout the house, including the children's room, to put in the washing machine. At the last moment, Christoph takes the child out of that laundry basket.
One day when Christoph is looking for his wife, while the baby is being looked after by Grandpa, he finds Emilia on the aforementioned Alpine summit. She lies in shock, completely confused on the rock floor, near the abyss. Now the doctor urges Emilia to go to inpatient therapy. However, she agrees to the alternative of twice-weekly talk therapy and taking antidepressants . In addition, Emilia's father and her mother-in-law help relieve the burden and take care of the child. Under the impression of the talk therapy, Emilia asks her father about her birth. It turns out that immediately after the birth, Emilia was separated from her mother, who in turn was exhausted from the birth, for several weeks because of a hospital stay. Emilia heals and turns back to life and the role of mother.
background
In the film, Emilia's colleague clearly mentions the diagnosis of postpartum depression . An almost carried out suicide attempt and an award taking place hazardous handling of the mother with the child - escalating in the scene of the baby in the clothes hamper, are part of the film plot and confirm the diagnosis of postpartum -Depression. When suicide and the endangerment of children come together to form the symptoms of this depression, a serious course of the disease takes place, as it is shown conclusively in the film.
Depression is an illness with an increased risk of relapse. Inpatient mother-child therapies lasting several weeks are offered by various clinics for patients suffering from postpartum depression. Treating mother and child together is not without reason, because the already disturbed mother-child relationship is not further forced by a separation. In such therapies, for example, so-called interaction videos of mother and child are made, in which the mothers can then become aware of their disease-specific behavior in conversations. With midwives, new behaviors are practiced in care training.
criticism
“'Herbstkind' doesn't just want to be a gloomy family drama, but also an enlightening film about the psychological phenomenon. That is why the author has invented two more expectant mothers, in which Katharina Wackernagel can reflect and break her figure: There is the rebel Sandrina, who at first doesn't expect much from her motherhood, but then has a happy birth experience. And then there is the underage Tini, who wants an abortion even less than the child.
Director Petra K. Wagner gives these two subplots enough space so that they can become small islands of hope for the viewer. Because the desperation at the center of the drama is sometimes so intense that it may be difficult to bear for the faint of heart. Katharina Wackernagel skillfully doses her game to the bare minimum, she neither plays out the depression to the full, nor do the rare moments of euphoria get too exuberant. "
“One is surprised that the midwife of all people is apparently alien to the phenomenon of postpartum depression, but Wackernagel's play and Wagner's staging clearly convey the extent of this disease: The baby feels like an alien to Emilia, she has no relation whatsoever to this little creature. Everyone else is beside themselves with joy; But the mother of all people feels more and more like a stranger in her own life. "
“Embedded in format-appropriate television entertainment, the director Petra K. Wagner and the screenwriter Ariela Bogenberger give the viewer a lesson on a repressed topic. Anyone who believes in automatic motherly happiness or disgusts these women as wicked mothers makes it all too easy. "
Web links
- Autumn child in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Herbstkind ( memento from October 26, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) at DasErste.de with protocol for the chat ( memento from October 27, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) after the broadcast
Individual evidence
- ↑ Prof. Hans-Peter Hartmann In: Spiegel TV magazine "Mother misfortune: When depression comes with the baby" Spiegel Verlag, Hamburg. 2012. The mirror
- ↑ Intense desperation instead of baby happiness at http://www.fr-online.de
- ↑ Herbstkind on http://www.tittelbach.tv
- ↑ Depression: When women unintentionally become wicked mothers on http://www.t-online.de