Delirium (1993)

Overview

Defiantly humorous in its tone, Delirium reflects Faber’s mother’s personal experience with what has been classified as “female hysteria.” While never reducing her mother’s condition to a single explanation, Delirium firmly and convincingly links her illness to the historically embattled position women hold in a patriarchal culture. The video layers haunting imagery and humorous iconoclasm, referencing everything from television episodes of I Love Lucy to Charcot’s 19th Century photos of female hysterics. Delirium contends that female mental illness must be understood within the political/social arena, and that in many instances women’s reactions of violence, anger, and depression are indeed sane reactions to abhorrent situations.