Anorexia nervosa is a mental illness that is quite common today. It seems to patients (most often pathology occurs in girls and women) that they are far from the ideal of harmony, although in fact their weight can often be classified as insufficient. They refuse food and bring themselves to an extreme degree of exhaustion. If you do not provide timely assistance to patients, the result will be a fatal outcome.
This problem, as we see, is really serious, therefore cinematographers could not but touch upon it in their work. What films about anorexia exist today? A list of the best will be presented below.
“Superstar: The Story of Karen Carpenter” (1988)
Karen Carpenter is a wonderful, kind and talented girl. As a child, she fell into the marching drummer’s orchestra and realized that music was the meaning of her whole life. Brother Karen Richard helped the girl discover another talent in herself - a beautiful voice. So she became the vocalist of the world famous band Carpenters.
Karen got married, but was not happy in the marriage. Perhaps this was one of the reasons that the girl began to exhaust herself with diets. A few years later she was gone. Karen Carpenter became the first woman to die from anorexia.
This film is classified as documentary. He talks about life, illness and death Karen openly and truthfully, vividly depicting her portrait at the beginning of her career and while sitting on endless diets. What other documentaries about anorexia are worth watching? Their list is below.
“For the Love of Nancy” (1994)
Nancy Walsh just graduated from high school. Now she has an adult life and college ahead, but there is one serious problem - anorexia. The girl begins to actively engage in sports and at the same time refuses to eat. Parents are trying to establish custody of Nancy, who has already come of age, in order to send her daughter for compulsory treatment to the clinic and preserve her health and life.
"The Perfect Figure" (1997)
Anorexia films often tell stories of girls who could be very successful if not for this mental disorder. “Ideal figure” - a tape about a young athlete. One day, the coach tells the girl that she could achieve better results in competitions, if she was in better physical shape. And the young gymnast begins to lose weight. She plays sports and eats almost nothing, while the weight goes off rapidly, but the thin girl still does not feel.
Hunger (2003)
Sometimes the fate of children is broken by parents. It happened to two sisters - Frannie and Shelley. Their mother was a cute fat woman in her youth, her friends often called her "a bun." The girl worked on herself and was able to lose weight, but in her mind the stereotype that in order to be happy you need to be thin was forever entrenched. That is what she said to her two daughters from childhood. Unfortunately, her instructions had the opposite effect: girls developed food dependence and anorexia nervosa. But Franny and Shelley are aware of what is happening to them, and they are ready to fight for their own lives.
Anorexia (2006)
This documentary was shot by female photographer Lauren Greenfield. Before starting work on the project, she herself did not understand how serious this disease was and how hard it was to recover from it. The heroine of the tape were four American girls who want to get rid of their psychological problems. All of them end up in a rehabilitation center, where they receive qualified assistance from specialists. But, unfortunately, to get rid of anorexia, it is not enough just to start eating. The fate of some of these girls is tragic.
“Beautiful” (2008)
This South Korean film tells the story of Yoon Young. She is a very beautiful girl, but in her case, the gift of attractiveness turns into a real curse. Once, a man who had liked a girl for a long time burst into Yoon's house and raped her. After the incident, Yoon becomes depressed and very worried. It seems to her that nothing would have happened if she had been ordinary. And then Yoon decides to change and at the same time launches a variety of ways of self-harm.
Russian documentaries
Almost all of the pictures described above show severe eating disorder and its danger on the example of American girls. All these films about anorexia in Russian are available for viewing on the Web, but in addition to Western films, there are also Russian films that also deserve attention.
The film "Weight", shown on Channel One in 2012, tells not only about anorexic girls, but also about bbw. It has vivid examples, sad and happy stories and destinies. It is worth seeing for everyone to understand the problem.
In 2013, the documentary “Battle for Beauty” was released. It also contains stories of girls who want to lose weight. Moreover, some of them managed to lose almost a hundred extra pounds. But at what cost did they achieve such a result? The film tells not only about anorexia, but also touches on other problems, raises truly burning topics.