ABSTRACT
Documentary films complicate the task of psychoanalytic film criticism; they are renderings of fact, not fiction. They try not to traffic in the realm of fantasy, except as a subject, as they strive to disturb the viewer with difficult truths. Yet their aesthetic effect is under the influence of their film-maker’s subjectivity. Conscious as well as unconscious identifications, transferences, countertransferences and resistances inevitably complicate the film-maker’s interpretation of events, and shape the presentation.
