You Are Not I

You Are Not I tunnels into the troubled yet alarmingly lucid mind of a schizophrenic. A young patient escapes from a mental hospital during the chaos of a nearby multiple-car accident. She is mistaken by a rescue volunteer who finds her trying to place a stone in a dead woman’s mouth. The volunteer drives her to her sister’s house. The sister is confused and angered by the sudden arrival of the psychotic Ethel.

Shooting in an expressionistic visual style, Driver maintains uncertainty throughout. With atmospheric black-and-white cinematography by Mr. Jarmusch and an ominous synthesizer score by Phil Kline, You Are Not I has been described as a female variation on David Lynch’s Eraserhead. Taking her cue from a short story by Paul Bowles, Driver shot her seminal debut in six days for $12,000. The film was long considered lost until a print was found among belongings of Bowles in Tangier, Morocco, in 2008.

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