“August”: a film about psychological damage in a self-destructive family

The family is the socializing instrument that mediates between the individual and the rest of the world.. It will be the first model that we take to begin to relate: a social starting point that in many cases has influence beyond childhood. In this sense, August It is a film that captures a reality very far from the idyllic, but that is repeated more than we like to admit.

It is a model family environment for the outside, but only those who experience it from the inside know what is brewed in each house. Characters who are torn between brotherly love towards the people who have given them life and the desolate panorama of an environment where frustration, envy and competitiveness are projected…instead of love and protection.

August: synopsis

After the death by suicide of the father of the family, his wife He calls his three daughters to return to the family home and attend the funeral. For each of the daughters, this visit is a reunion with the conflicts and resentments of the past.

The father had been taking refuge in alcohol for years and the mother is addicted to drugs. The marriage maintains a very destructive relationship which is basically limited to satisfying her demands and complaints. The woman does not believe she receives the treatment she deserves. She punishes her husband with impunity for an infidelity committed many years ago from which a child was born. Both hide the fact as the great family secret.

They both come from a marginal environment of poverty and abuse from their parents.. Tough people who were used to the inclemencies of life. Both are proud of having emerged from that environment lacking opportunities and having succeeded thanks to sacrifice and hard work.

They have projected their own desires for success onto their daughters, but none of them seem to have met their expectations. The mother feels deep contempt for the three and does not miss an opportunity to question his lifestyle.

A passive-aggressive mother

The character of the mother in August It has some narcissistic elements, but above all it defines the passive-aggressive personality well. It focuses solely on the mistakes made by her daughters. She reproaches them for having had opportunities that she did not have. It is manipulative and excessively theatrical and dramatic when her tricks don’t work the way she wants.

He feels in competition with everyone. Any information she obtains from her daughters is used as a weapon against them. Constantly use the double binding message (negative-positive-negative comment).

It is the role of the sick woman who dominates the world. She feels attacked because her daughters made their lives. He does whatever it takes to get them to come back and remind them of “their obligations to her.” She keeps telling them how little she had and how much they have had.

The eldest daughter

The older sister has been always assigned the role of mediator and restorer of order in family crises, both with his younger sisters and with his own parents. She has developed a more controlling character and this has caused her numerous problems with her own husband, who has divorced her. Fact that her entire family is still unaware of.

Despite the love that her husband and daughter feel for her, they find it insufferable that she does not allow herself to relax for even a moment with them. There is an internal struggle within her for the generational non-repetition of patterns.

The middle sister

In traditional families there is always a daughter who is assigned the role of parental caretaker. This is the case of the middle daughter in the film. She has not married nor has she done much with her life other than taking care of her parents and this has caused her to accumulate a lot of resentment towards them and towards her sisters. She has a very strange relationship with a half-cousin, but no one knows.

Her mother has no problem with this daughter developing the role assigned to her to perfection, but she does not value it or admit it at all. She has hidden her guilt by attacking her daughter constantly.

He reproaches her for not starting her own family because of her unfeminine appearance. He even dares to compete in this regard to mock her. This daughter has serious problems relating to others and appears to have developed an avoidant personality.

The little sister

The little daughter is totally lost. She is a very childish and fragile woman who she just wants to please everyone to be accepted. She has spent her entire adult life jumping from one relationship to another, each one worse, taking risks with men who don’t treat her well.

However, for her all her relationships are final. She is a very emotionally dependent person. She goes to great lengths to show her mother how happy she is and how perfect and idyllic her current relationship, whatever it may be. For others, her partners are just “this year’s boyfriend.” It’s hard to say with the data shown in the film, but well We could be talking about a borderline personality.

Recognizing patterns

The three daughters have grown up in a authoritarian educational style. Her parents have never shown any kind of affection for them and have exercised rigid control over their lives. There is a disorganized attachment in all of them, although each has dealt with this in different ways.

Even so, When crises appear in the family, the first strategy they use is denial. This makes it easy for them to maintain a false family homeostasis and each one has developed different defense mechanisms to survive this family unit.

Definitely, It is a “normal” family environment to the outsider’s eye, but tremendously dysfunctional. from within, where a multitude of triangulations occur.

August It is just a film, but it has managed to capture many of the roles that are automatically assigned to the members of a family and captures the amount of problems that these roles can cause in the future in the form of frustrated and denied desires. The film takes place in the month of August, with stifling heat. A suffocation that can be felt in its characters.

A few months ago, the Provincial Hospital of Castellón presented a brilliant analysis of the film August in one of its meta-training seminars that delves into each of these topics from a therapeutic perspective. They are roles in which many people can see themselves reflected and it is a phenomenon that should be reviewed for the psychological well-being of those who suffer from these environments and of the people around them in adulthood.

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