A trove of letters and diaries discovered in a basement in Switzerland in 1977 sparked a revival of interest in Sabina Spielrein, an important figure in the earliest days of psychoanalysis, both as doctor and patient. "My Name Was Sabina Spielrein" by the German-born director Elisabeth Márton uses Spielrien's words to narrate the story of her life. After a tumultuous childhood and adolescence plagued by the nervous disorder then known as hysteria, Spielrein (Eva Osterberg) became the first psychoanalytic patient of Carl Jung (Lasse Almeback).

Despite the warnings of his mentor, Sigmund Freud, about the dangers of countertransference, Jung, who was married, became romantically involved with Spielrein. When Jung broke off their affair, the anguished Spielrein began a correspondence with Freud, eventually becoming one of the first women to enroll in his Vienna Psychoanalytic Society after earning her degree in medicine. After years of working as a psychoanalyst in Russia, Spielrein, a Jew, was killed in a Nazi massacre in 1942 and buried in a mass grave.

"My Name Was Sabina Spielrein" is what might be called an epistolary film: an unusual hybrid of documentary and biopic in which readings from Spielrein's letters and diaries accompany largely silent re-enactments of scenes from her life, filmed in a pale, washed-out palette that recalls faded photographs. The story of Freud, Jung and Spielrein's three-way correspondence is indispensable lore to anyone interested in psychoanalysis, but it's a subject perhaps better suited to treatment in book form. However fascinating the source material, there's something less than cinematic about 90 minutes of watching people read letters in front of windows.

My Name Was Sabina Spielrein

Opens today in Manhattan.

Directed by Elisabeth Márton; written (in English and German, with English subtitles) by Ms. Márton, Signe Mahler and Yolande Knobel, based on an original script by Kristina Hjerten von Gedda; directors of photography, Robert Nordstrom and Sergej Jurisdizki; edited by Ms. Knobel; music by Vladimir Dikanski; art director, Jan Oqvist; released by Facets Multi-Media. At the Film Forum, 209 West Houston Street, west of Avenue of the Americas, South Village. Running time: 90 minutes. This film is not rated.

WITH: Eva Osterberg (Sabina Spielrein), Lasse Almeback (Carl Gustav Jung) and Mercedez Csampai (Sabina as a child).

[不愧是纽约时报,对德国电影的宣传真是惜墨如金.不过对我来说,这部片要比好莱坞的商业片更有吸引力]