The Friern Barnet hospital was once the largest mental institution in Europe. Now it’s reopening as Princess Park Manor, a gated community offering luxurious accomodation to the affluent. An elegiac meditation on mental illness and our common longing for sanctuary.
Shortlisted for a Mental Health in the Media award 1999
Director – Rebecca Frayn
Producers – Madeleine French and Kate Isles
“The documentary genre this week soared higher up Olympus. Cutting Edge’s outstanding Asylum... What was perfect about this exquisite piece of work was the balance between its documentary content and its artistic ambition. There was a succession of painterly images underpinned by Nick Bicat’s hauntingly sad musical score. This artistry reinforced our fellow feeling for all involved. Rebecca Frayn has joined the very top division of the Queen’s Own Documentary Makers.”
Stephen Pile - The Telegraph
““Rebecca Frayn’s beautiful, schematic film.... Subtle and engaging stories, backed with Nick Bicat’s haunting score. A remarkable piece of work.”
Jane Shilling - Mail on Sunday
“Another impressive and visually stylish documentary from director Rebecca Frayn. A snapshot of humanity. Frayn builds an emotive picture of hopes, fears and frailty. Her use of music and symbolism reinforces the exploration of themes such as community versus isolation, freedom versus security and whether buildings absorb something of the lives of their inhabitants.”
Elaine Patterson - Time Out
“Thoughtful and sensitive.”
Sandy Smithies - Guardian Preview
“Rebecca Frayn’s beautifully made film.”
Desmond Christy - The Guardian
“Rebecca Frayn’s acute and beautifully made documentary asks two relatively simple questions... In doing so she elicits a wealth of fascinating insights into lives past and present.”
Gerard O’Donovan - Daily Telegraph Preview
“Rebecca Frayn’s clever, poignant film for Cutting Edge.”
Brian Viner - The Independent On Sunday
“Cutting Edge mixed former patients and new residents to rewarding - and remarkable - effect. But Rebecca Frayn’s film wasn’t simply a criss-cross of odd emotional connections. It went deeper than that, into an exploration of the way that spirits seem to cling to a place and to draw in like spirits. By the end you almost felt as if the building was playing a part in shaping its own future. Pah! What nonsense. Yes, of course... Yet somehow it didn’t seem too dotty at the time.”
John Preston - The Sunday Telegraph
“Exquisitely crafted... The evocative camerawork portrays the hospital/manor as a place of shadows and memories.”
Nick Griffiths - The Daily Mail