Kinda like reading "Magic Mtn"; a long, sometimes dull, but ultimately worthwhile tour through institutional hell, the institutions in question, medicine in the Mann novel and the church in Jessica Hausner's film, made all the more horrendous in that they masquerade as "healing". Film loses a bit of energy, though, to say nothing of credibility, once Christine experiences her temporary "cure". At that point Hausner abandons her heretofore effective tone of serio comic reality for one of allegory and kind of allows her hatred of humanity to overwhelm her. Still, a most impressive film from a director whose work has up to now been unknown to me and whose other movies I will assiduously seek. Give it a B plus.