Director: János Szász Cinematography: Tibor Máté Production design: Tibor Lázár Concept Art and Design: Géza Szöllősi The movie Opium is set in a mental institution and it is about an affair between a morphine addict doctor and one of his patients. My task was to design machinery that could have possibly been used by doctors to assess and cure mental diseases in the 1912 in a women’s asylum. They wanted me to make devices that seem authentic yet fictional to give the movie a dark atmosphere. For example there was this scene in the script were Gizella, the main character, a mad women who is claimed to be possessed by the devil gets a “cold water treatment.” Out of a hoist a tank and a straight jacket I made a machine that the doctor uses to calm down the hysterical patient. I wanted to create something heavy. A visual, which seemed medically and historically accurate but was still fictional enough. Looking back at the machineries of the ‘20s, it looks staged since technology developed so fast in the past 80 years. The equipment I described previously was a fusion of the ideas of Henry Houdini, the famous escape artist’s water torture tank and the Japanese bondage. Beside the fact that it looks real, the objects also have an effect on the viewer’s subconscious. It puts more emphasis on the fact that psychology and technology was so backward in those days compared to how it is now and that people believed that insanity was a curable disease of the brain instead of what it truly is. Moral treatment was the most popular form of therapy. Patients were tortured and that sadistic view is also hidden in the objects. Participated in the preparation of my plans: Photography by Tamás Dobos, Krisztián Volmuth, Katalin Mészáros Props by György Katus, Zsolt Bödöcs, Boglárka Virág, Noémi Csergő, Györgya Karai and calligraphy by Zsuzsa Szász-Benczúr
Medical exam room (cinematography: Tibor Máté)
Face collection of personality types
Gizella as a phrenological statue (Sculpures: Gyรถrgy Katus, Krisztiรกn Volmuth)
+
Hidro theraphy set (plan was inspirated by Houdini and the photographer Araki...)
Hidro theraphy set (cinematography: Tibor MĂĄtĂŠ)
Women faces - psychological test
Force feeding chair (re-design)
Safety kugl to mentally ill people
Ride practice maschine
Octo theraphy set
Hipnosis wheel
Huge zootrope with 100 frames for animation
Diary of a Madwoman (calligraphy by Zsuzsa Szász-Beczúr)
Zootropes
Tatoo
Diary of a Madwoman (calligraphy by Zsuzsa Szász-Beczúr)
Shock set
Model of brain
Models of craniometry
Full-length patients card
Paper set - full-length patients card
General woman measuring set
Hidro theraphy set Iron box, scut...
Strait jacket (construction details and making: NoÊmi Csergő)
Spinning machine
Spinning machine
Graphic design: web site
Diaries (calligrapher: Zsuzsa Szász-enczúr)