Some of these things…are almost exactly like the other one…

The Divided Brain which makes its Canadian premiere tomorrow at the Isabel Bader Theatre in advance of its launch on the Documentary channel this summer does get a little dry in parts but is ultimately a fascinating look at the brain and how fragile its overall chemistry truly is.

The Divided Brain is an odyssey about one man’s quest to prove a growing imbalance in our brains, and to help us understand how this makes us increasingly unable to grapple with critical economic, environmental and social issues; ones that shape our very future as a species.

The film follows Dr. Iain McGilchrist on a journey of discovery as he travels to meet his champions and critics and defends his vision on the implications of his theory as he may have uncovered an insidious problem with the way our brains function. He believes that one half of our brain – the left hemisphere – is slowly taking power, and that we in the Western world are simultaneously feeding its ambitions.  He asks the question if society on a whole has been hijacked by one side of our brains?

A film like this lives and dies on the strength of its subject and with The Divided Brain they certainly have a good one with Dr. Iain McGlichrist.  Director Manfred Becker does a solid job of taking us through the ins and outs inside the human brain as there are certainly more then we’d ever expected giving us glimpses into fascinating struggles that people with brain disorders have had.

Yeah there are some dry moments as you’d expect in a documentary like this but where The Divided Brain actually manages to succeed is that it shows us the real world applications and results of being either a left-hemisphere or right-hemisphere thinker.

While there’s hardly any clear cut answers in the film, it gives us a lot to think about which is really the whole point anyway.

For more details on tomorrow’s premiere screening with special guests please visit their website right here.