A lot of us know how important it is to talk about mental health. Talking about mental health as something significant is quite a necessity. These days, slowly people are trying their best to advocate about this.
If we need to make something to reach its significance to a large mass, at present social media plays a vital role to convince it. But, if you want to reach it to a larger mass without convincing them and make them to realize naturally, I feel like television series and movies plays an important role.
There are a number of directors and writers trying their best in storytelling certain issues and its importance beautifully. One such series I wanted to suggest you is Soul Mechanic/ Fix you. I know a lot of you sigh and say, ” Another Korean Series?”.
But, sorry to say this, a lot of us need to remember that in India we still watch movies where stalking is considered as romance and stalker characters are considered as protagonists. And we are still not watching stories that are relevant or relatable to us.
The reason I want to review this series is because a lot of us are still scared to visit psychologists, psychiatrist or go for counseling when things get difficult and while we are having breakdowns, thinking it would make us appear like we are insane in the eyes of society.
Soul Mechanic is a series which I watched last year(2020). With just 32 episodes it was full of warmth and comfort for wounded souls. It was underrated series. Trust me there are lot of underrated yet wonderful series still not caught many of your eyes as the casts are not well known internationally.
I have watched few of Jung So Min’s and Shin Ha Kyun’s works in the past, so I decided to go with it in the beginning but the story just struck me so hard that I still remember how I felt while watching it. Each and every episode reflects the difficulty faced by people who are struggling with mental issues and the way they heal also by helping others. The entire story flow with constant highs and lows to depict mental issues in a more humane context.
Various mental and emotional disorders such as post traumatic stress disorder, delusions, borderline personality disorder, addiction and so on, are showed to normalize them as something that need to be taken care of and empathized with.
Writer Lee Hyang Hee tried her best to show not only the difficulties faced by those people to carry out normal days but also the way these people are treated by others without empathy, the extreme it takes for them to heal and the time required to heal. Plus she also highlighted the ugly side of porn addiction and the impact it creates on the victim.
Each and every actor done their best to represent the condition of the people who are suffering from these issues. I was totally impressed by Jung So Min acting. She was quite extraordinary. The way she represented the struggle to control anger, her mood swings and the body language to reflect those emotions are just pro. She looked like a different person from her previous acting. I was in awe by her performance.
So is Shin Ha-Kyun, the protagonist, who gave depth to his character, an eccentric and talented psychiatrist with PTSD. The way he portrayed the character some times make you look at other character through his eyes which is quite fixating.
On the whole, as a viewer, to tell the truth, last year watching it comforted me a lot during the chaotic beginning of the pandemic. It was a story that lets you know you are not alone and definitely give you wonderful takeaways for your soul.
It reminds people mental does not mean “crazy”, it just means your mind and soul. When your mind is going through hard time all it need is fixing.
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