Look Into My Eyes
Lana Wilson’s documentary approaches the world of psychics with an open spirit.
Documentarian Lana Wilson opens Look into My Eyes with a harrowing anecdote: a doctor telling a story about a significant encounter with death early in her career. Twenty years later, the doctor is still searching for answers about the heartbreak she can’t explain, which is why she’s come to a medium. She wants to know: How do I make sense of it all?
Leave your questions about whether psychics are frauds or true believers at the door. As with any group of people searching for answers—religious, scientific, or existential—there are as many different ways to practice the discipline of being a medium as there are mediums themselves. Lana Wilson’s documentary approaches the topic with an openness of spirit. She refuses to ask, Is this true? or How does this work? Instead, she explores the why of it all, from the perspective of her subjects. Why do they engage in this line of work? And what are they getting out of it?
The mediums themselves don’t always know the answers. They’re a varied group, each with their own methods and practices: numerology, cold reads, closed eyes, a steady gaze, different levels of confidence and curiosity and doubt. They are all united by their profession, and all of them are spiritual seekers. All of them are pulled toward the performing arts—though I’ll leave documentary viewers to find out precisely how. Each one is wounded, nursing some kind of pain of loss or regret, exploring unanswered questions of their own.
Wilson’s directing and Hannah Buck’s editing ensure that the film progresses on a steady, unsentimental keel. On a technical level, the film is about as nondescript as the Brooklyn offices where the mediums ply their trade. Sessions are shot in steady medium close-up, the reading depicted in a conversational shot/reverse shot. When the mediums explain themselves, it’s in their own homes via voiceover or direct address to the camera. The simplicity of the filmmaking allows the subject matter to speak entirely for itself: no distractions, nothing flashy, just wounded people searching for meaning.
This isn’t to say that the movie is entirely serious. People are inherently funny beings, full of hang-ups about family, money, or whether they should pursue esoteric pastimes like keeping chickens. Wilson’s approach allows for breathing room in the silence between medium and client, inviting contemplation, sorrow, and surprising humor.
Wilson leaves herself entirely out of the documentary process, preferring to speak through the structure of the film itself. For the most part, we’re flies on the wall during each session. When one of the mediums breaks a session to directly address Wilson with a question, his attention is focused in the direction of the camera and by extension those of us in the audience as well.
The film builds layer on layer: first a reading, then a conversation with the medium that illuminates the reading we just saw, then another reading that delves deeper into that particular medium’s practice. Then we proceed to the next medium, the next approach, the next pain, each of them unique and yet intertwined by their choice of profession and the pain that comes with being a human being in a broken world. Each successive layer clarifies that the psychic/client relationship is not a one-way transaction but a two-way street. These sessions can be just as illuminating—or even therapeutic—for the mediums as they are for their clients.
By nature of the client/medium relationship, clients don’t know what we in the audience do: that sometimes the medium is giving the client advice that they themselves wish they’d been given in the past. As these layers build, so gradually that it’s difficult to pinpoint the exact turn, the film transforms into an exploration of the two-way relationship between filmmaker and audience, with the movie acting as both literal and figurative medium between the two. Moviegoers bring their own baggage to the movies they watch: the meaning—and the meaningfulness—of the movie depends partly on the viewer’s background, their willingness to engage with a movie on its terms, and the experiences they bring to the viewing.
The prospect of being seen well enough to be understood by a complete stranger is a frightening one. Look into My Eyes demonstrates a level of emotional and spiritual vulnerability that is uncomfortable to contemplate, let alone witness. Some of the mediums could be seen as opportunistic, channeling their clients’ own pain into a form of healing for themselves. Wilson presents their work without judgment, fear, or animus. The method doesn’t matter as much as the connection. One medium goes so far as to say that they don’t know if the things they say are true, but “if it resonates, it doesn’t … matter.” The same could be said for fiction storytelling in general and filmmaking in particular. It’s all made up, and it’s also a lifeline: a source of answers and encouragement. I don’t know whether that’s right, necessarily, but I do know that the question of the practice’s value is worthy of careful consideration.—Sarah Welch-Larson
★★★★
Look Into My Eyes is in limited release now.