A new film expos­es the emo­tion­al needs of going clean

An amaz­ing account of the emo­tion­al toll of liv­ing clean takes place 20 min­utes into Hele­na Trestíková’s 13-year-span­ning doc­u­men­tary. Mal­lo­ry, the ex-hero­in addict sub­ject, explains the cosy bub­ble of being high, the anx­i­eties of sobri­ety, and the long­ing the lat­ter breeds for the for­mer. She is sit­ting smok­ing at a street-side table in Prague – eight years clean and still bot­tom of the social bar­rel. Night has fall­en and her fea­tures are dim­ly vis­i­ble thanks to light from an off license across the road. She is cry­ing but her voice is deep, soul­ful and clear.

There is a myth that if you do the respon­si­ble thing and quit your sub­stance of choice, the gates to the promised land will open. Trestíková’s doc­u­men­tary shows that there is a whole line of domi­noes that need to fall for a func­tion­ing qual­i­ty of life to take the place of chaot­ic ani­mal instincts. Peo­ple don’t quit drugs and achieve imme­di­ate ele­va­tion. Peo­ple quit drugs and become reac­quaint­ed with gap­ing needs, which trig­gers long­ing for a quick fix they can’t have: the numb­ing salve of chem­i­cal escape.

When Mal­lo­ry cries, it’s out of frus­tra­tion. She’s liv­ing in her boyfriend’s car, her son is in care, she feels too infe­ri­or to talk to col­leagues in her under-the-counter ser­vice job and none of the bureau­crats in wel­fare are respond­ing to her pleas for accom­mo­da­tion. On top of that, she feels the shame and suf­fer­ing of her past and present to an almost crip­pling extent. You watch this scene and won­der how long her vul­ner­a­ble psy­che can sur­vive with­out a break. You watch it and ful­ly under­stand why she would now take hero­in, even while pray­ing that she won’t.

This is com­pas­sion­ate film­mak­ing at its most com­mit­ted and pow­er­ful. Mal­lo­ry lets the doc­u­men­tary go as deeply with­in her men­tal space as a nee­dle once pierced her phys­i­cal­ly. We – the view­ers – are in her blood­stream. Her recep­tive­ness to being invad­ed sug­gests that hav­ing the oppor­tu­ni­ty to artic­u­late her own nar­ra­tive is trans­mit­ting some strength.

The mir­a­cle of this film is in its apt ten­sion – the ​‘will she, won’t she’ go back on the junk ques­tion – cir­cles, some­times from a dis­tance, some­times dis­turbing­ly close. It will nev­er go away. Films that present addicts as tran­scen­dent of their past don’t under­stand addic­tion. Fear and anx­i­ety are con­stant but they are not the only emo­tion­al colours, for as the nar­ra­tive rolls out across years, a for­mi­da­ble and endear­ing char­ac­ter emerges. Mal­lo­ry is built like a prize fight­er. She is tall and broad-shoul­dered, to the point that she dwarfs the men in her life. Her fea­tures are at once sulky and sto­ic beneath a sweet­ly old-fash­ioned blonde mul­let. She increas­ing­ly has the air of a beast of bur­den will­ing her­self to trudge ever onwards.

A ben­e­fit of film­ing over a sig­nif­i­cant tranche of time is pat­terns emerge. Life goes in cycles. Humans suf­fer a tem­po­rary mad­ness when a spe­cif­ic low is a con­stant, as this oblit­er­ates a sense of progress. Mallory’s lows are the lone­li­ness that fol­lows break-ups with men that have used her. When we see Mal­lo­ry, ragged and dev­as­tat­ed, hav­ing bean beat­en by way of a good­bye from anoth­er waste­man, she is emo­tion­al­ly in pieces. Does this mean that she’s going to score? There is no social reward for an ex-addict for each time they resist the pull of past com­fort, but the judge­ment is intense when they suc­cumb. By bear­ing wit­ness, this doc­u­men­tary is a trib­ute to each act of endurance.

This film would be unbear­ably bleak if there was no mean­ing­ful progress and it is not unbear­ably bleak. To say more, would be to spoil the rev­e­la­tion of what Mal­lo­ry is able to achieve under her own steam, yet it is not in her char­ac­ter to be entire­ly free from out­side influ­ence. Peo­ple take the place of drugs as mood deter­min­ers. Build­ing her up (unsur­pris­ing­ly), are her son, Krystof, and (sur­pris­ing­ly) pop­u­lar Czech actor, Jiří Bar­toš­ka. Drag­ging her down are poor excus­es for male partners.

It’s made very clear that you can escape one dam­ag­ing depen­den­cy and replace it with anoth­er – because the pow­er of need and desire are a con­stant. ​“I loved hero­in as car­nal­ly as a woman can love a man,” says Mal­lo­ry, look­ing back. When she switch­es to flesh and blood love inter­ests, it’s not a rev­o­lu­tion­ary upgrade. You fear that Mallory’s search­ing heart means that she will per­sist in tak­ing in ungrate­ful strays who end up attack­ing her. But you also hope that even­tu­al­ly Mal­lo­ry will meet some­one who sees what this doc­u­men­tary sees, and that she will then pos­sess the emo­tion­al ful­fil­ment that she has always craved.

Mal­lo­ry screened recent­ly as part of Open City Doc­u­men­tary Fes­ti­val.