William Kurelek's The Maze (1969)

Original title

The Maze

Directed by

Robert Milton Young

Genre

documentary

Country

United States

Runtime

1h

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

This documentary follows painter William Kurelek as he opens up about his mental health struggles and his time in psychiatric hospitals. His artwork, especially the painting The Maze, becomes a way to show his inner turmoil, with the film using his own words and images to tell his story.

intimatereflectivesomberslow-pacedcandidpsychedelicvisually dense

What happens

William Kurelek's The Maze is a documentary film about the life of celebrated Canadian artist William Kurelek, "dramatically told through his paintings and his on-camera revelations." The film documents the artist's struggles with attempted suicide and what he called a "spiritual crisis." At the center of the film is Kurelek's work The Maze, which he describes in the film as "a painting of the inside of [his] skull which [he] painted while in England as a patient in Maudsley and Netherne psychiatric hospitals." This painting depicts a man's "unraveled head lying in a wheat field. A curled up laboratory rat, representing his spirit, is trapped inside a maze of unhappy thoughts and memories." (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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