God Knows Where I Am

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The directors nicely unravel this tale of Linda Bishop and her mysterious death in an abandoned house. The natural sense of drama is enhanced by the solid pacing and interesting interview subjects, almost as intriguing as Bishop herself. What stops this from being a top doc is the feeling you get at the end that the directors are exploiting Bishop in the same callous manner as she has dealt with her adult life. The over-dramatic voice overs from Lori Singer put emotional emphasis and inflections where none should exist. Singer and the directors steal this poor woman's last bit of dignity to reward their own egos and artistic vision. And that is tragic and insulting. Couple this with the artistic shots of her final diary entries that are hard to read and you have an exploitative touch that demeans the poor subject of this doc when it should have been revealing of a tortured soul about to expire.

The subject matter has been well covered in other reviews, but I just want to mention that the film making's use of conventional documentary tropes such as re enactments, voice over, interviews, and pans over letters, are somehow woven together in a mesmerizing fashion with absolutely beautiful cinematography and lighting of the re enactments, which are shot in the actual house. The shots linger over beautifully lit and composed scenes, without feeling slow. The voice actress that plays the crazy lady is really good. The music is subtle but creepy and melancholy and really adds to the atmosphere. Almost every line is a description of the woman by another person who starts out with the word "she", which at times is almost overwhelming though i'm sure that was the point. "she was this, she was that, she was the other, she did this she did that," imagine hearing sentences starting with the word she at least 200 times. Anyways the production values here really elevate this over the way this type of story is usually handled.

A good biographical proof that our society is trained from birth to blame and demonize mentally ill people. The fact that the daughter appears so cold and annoyed and angry with her mother, who was clinically and very seriously ill, is extremely disheartening. She had schizophrenia. The daughter seemingly willingly forgot about what a model good mother she had been with her all the while she was growing up in the subsequent years she became ill. Good case of "get while the getting's good" and when it wasn't, she hightailed it out of there emotionally. I grew up with a girl whose mom was schizophrenic. She did embarrassing stuff too that she couldn't help...and school kids talked about it. Not once did this friend of mine behave like this woman's daughter. Not once did she behave embarrassed or cold inregard to her mother. Her mom was simply ill and couldn't help it.

There are no words to explain how real and heart wrenching this story is; for Linda, and the ones that loved her, and those that discovered her. Her daughter is real too, a real "all about me" shrew. No compassion. The message of this film is enlightening: that the good, the capabilities of system, and the lack of compassion in our society are all, at the same time, very real.

The actual story of the woman is disturbing and sad, granted. First...Lori Singer...who narrates this documentary...absolutely horrid. So over theatrical, everything from whispering and over pronouncing words to dramatically draining the written words into something out of a Shakespeare play...Thank goodness for my mute button! If you can stomach Miss Singer, which I doubt, you have to watch everyone that was interviewed acting like they are going for an award. It seems that they were prompted to pause, hesitate, sigh, and drag their story out. What should have been an hour show on the documentary channel is drawn out terribly. Partly is because every time this poor woman writes certain words... snow, apples, food, that she is thinking of, we are treated repeatedly with lush photos of the objects, as if we didn't quite understand her writings! Just pitiful and a waste of a woman's story about her last days and a waste of the viewers time.

Even after she left psychiatric services, it was LINDA who went to be with their father since he was in ill health.. AND, she stopped taking her medications, because she mentioned to her sister that they made her so sleepy, she was afraid of not being able to hear her father throughout the night in case he needed help. And yet no one helped Linda.... Also a mention of the sister, Robin, wanting 100% of the inheritance money.. And the daughter was such an awful person - you can tell they omit a lot of important information. I wish I could have met Linda. She seemed like one of a few people interesting enough to meet.

This is the story of a mother who became mentally ill. She could not accept it, and would not take the medication which helped. She began acting on her delusions, and abandoned her daughter. Her illness led to homelessness, incarceration and institutionalization. A judge thought she was fine, because she was coherent for a few minutes in court. When she was finally released, she was allowed by state law to simply walk out the door with no money, or place to go. She broke into an empty farmhouse where she subsisted on apples for 3 months, writing an extensive journal. The apples ran out and she died several weeks later. This is a fascinating look into the mind of a psychotic person. Haunting. Unforgettable.