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Faces in the Crowd

2/25/2014

9 Comments

 
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A young woman miraculously survives a serial killer's attack only to be stricken with prosopagnosia, a disorder that prevents her from recognizing faces.

A young woman named Anna sees her world turned upside down when she becomes the sole witness to a murder and also suffers an injury that leaves her unable to recognize people by their faces, including the killer. Struggling with prosopagnosia, also known as "face blindness", Anna must learn how to navigate a world full of friends who look like strangers, and strangers who could be killers.  Can she see people for who they really are before the killer comes for her? 

Neuropsychological Review 
Face Blindness: Losing Others, Losing Yourself
Caitlin Potter


There is nothing so comforting as recognizing the face of a loved one amongst a veritable sea of strangers.  Imagine what life would be like if you lost the ability to recognize a friend, family member, and even yourself! ...    

This is the effect of prosopagnosia, or "face blindness", which is a distinct impairment in the ability to recognize faces (Ellis & Florence, 1990).  To those affected with face blindness, it is emotionally taxing and can cause a complete upheaval in sense of self and connection to others (Sacks, 1985).  In "Faces in the Crowd", Anna Merchant, played by Milla Jovovich, is a gifted teacher.  She's socially adept, having a close relationship with her two best friends, as well as a promising new relationship with her boyfriend, Bryce.  Anna's world is upended when she becomes an inadvertent witness to a sadistic murder.  The serial killer, known as Tearjerk Jack, attacks the witness Anna, and a brutal struggle ensues.  Anna ends up tumbling over the side of a bridge and violently hitting the back of her head on scaffolding before plummeting into the river below.  Upon waking up in the hospital, Anna cannot recognize Bryce or her best friends, Nina and Francine.  As a result of the head trauma, Anna is stricken with acquired prosopagnosia.  In addition to the harrowing difficulties of her new disorder, Tearjerk Jack is fixated on Anna, as only she has seen his face and lived.  As the killer closes in on her, Anna attempts to help Detective Kerrest track down a man whose face she cannot remember or recognize.  She must learn new methods to identify people and make sense of her new life, all while surviving murderous intent of Tearjerk Jack.

After the attack, Anna and Bryce consult Anna's doctor.  He shows her two photos and asks if she sees the same face in each; when she replies affirmatively, he tells her they're actually two different people.  The doctor says she's symptomatic of prosopagnosia, or "face blindness", and mentions that it is caused by a lesion on the temporal lobe.  The doctor doesn't describe Anna's brain damage specifically; he only offers the general cause.  He then points out the region on a lateral (or side-view) MRI scan of (what we must assume to be) Anna's brain.  Even though the doctor seems to point somewhat indiscriminately at the MRI, he does accurately indicate the general region of the temporal lobe.  In fact, the temporal lobe contains the Fusiform Face Area, a region of the brain which is specifically tuned to recognizing faces in particular (Gazzaniga, Ivry, & Mangun, 2009).  However, the doctor implies that the temporal lobe is solely responsible for facial recognition.  While surprisingly sufficient for a "whodunit" thriller, this is too general of an assertion.  In actuality, most cases of acquired prosopagnosia  result from trauma to the temporal, occipital, and even the parietal lobes of the brain and their underlying structures (Gazzinaga, Ivry, & Mangun, 2009). Throughout the movie, Anna remains a high-functioning person with no reported cognitive or health issues other than prosopagnosia.  While prosopagnosics can potentially maintain all other cognitive abilities, someone with a head trauma as severe as Anna's would most certainly have additional brain damage and symptoms in addition to face-blindness (Gazzaniga, Ivry, & Mangun, 2008).  Lastly, the doctor informs Anna and Bryce that confirmed cases of prosopagnosia are "extremely rare".  In reality, the disorder is much more common than originally thought, affecting 2.47% of the general population (Kennerknecht et al., 2006).

Anna is referred to a neuropsychiatrist, Dr. Langenkamp, for a formal diagnosis.  During the first consultation, Dr. Langenkamp comes across as absurdly insensitive.  After observing an MRI scan of Anna's brain for several silent seconds, the doctor asks, "what was I supposed to see, exactly?", and we're left wondering if she's incompetent or just unprofessional.  Frustrated by the doctor's cryptic dialogue and unclear diagnosis, Anna leave the consultation.  Dr. Langenkamp warns Anna that she must get used to people's faces changing and that she shouldn't underestimate the seriousness of her condition.  While technically correct, Dr. Langenkamp seems a stereotypical portrayal of an eccentric, even pseudo-scientific psychiatrist.  As time passes, the stress of Anna's condition weighs on her; she even fails to recognize her own father, mistaking him for Tearjerk Jack.  Anna resigns herself to her new reality and returns to Dr. Langenkamp, who instructs Anna to use distinctive markers like tattoos, gait, or distinctive facial features to identify people.  This is sound advice, as face-blind individuals learn to use individual, distinctive facial features as well as the sound of a voice and even the sense of smell to identify and recognize people (Zillmer, Spiers, & Culbertson, 2008; Sacks, 1985). Therein lies a glaring short-coming plaguing the film: Anna consistently fails to recognize even her closest friends and family by their voices. Even her father and her love interests aren't vocally recognized.   In actuality, the voice is perhaps the most useful and distinctive marker to someone struggling with any blindness; Anna never sufficiently utilizes it.  Dr. Langenkamp offers Anna a bleak but realistically poignant explanation of the life a prosopagnosic should expect, claiming people will call her "rude, forgetful, stupid" and resent her for not recognizing them. This is unfortunately true for many face-blind people, some of whom shun interaction with friends and family to avoid inevitably offending them (Gauthier, Behrman, & Tarr, 1999).

Throughout the film, many allusions are made to faces and the emotional weight they carry.  There are repeated shots of Anna's Facebook profile littered with personal photographs of herself and her friends.  When Anna first awakens after the attack, the viewer is subjected to a similar sense of disorientation, as Bryce, Nina, and Francine are now portrayed by different actors.  Cinematically, this effectively evokes empathy for Anna and justifies her alarm.  The casting trick continues throughout the movie, and although it conveys the disorientation of face blindness, it grows confusing and tiresome.  Anna's different relationships represent the various levels of understanding and compassion fielded by those suffering from prosopagnosia.  Bryce becomes less and less sympathetic to Anna's struggles, ultimately dumping her after finding a journal with detailed descriptions of the ties he wore each day.  Anna's friends Nina and Francine downplay the severity of her condition.  Detective Kerrest is initially callous, yet becomes Anna's advocate and protector.  Eventually, Anna realizes that she has "regained" the ability to recognize only Kerrest's face.  This is used for dramatic effect to enhance the romantic connection, but it's an inaccurate portrayal of the progression of prosopagnosia.  While many face-blind people can exhibit unaffected functioning in all other cognitive areas, there is no aspect of the disorder that allows specific faces to be recognized while precluding others (Gazzaniga, Ivry, & Mangun, 2009; Kennerknect et al., 2006).  The film establishes a connection between Anna and Kerrest based on a very emotional love.  This doesn't mean that love can magically and selectively cure prosopagnosia, but there is evidence that the experience of strong emotion can cause prosopagnosics to subconsciously recognize certain faces (Barton, Cherkasova, & O'Connor, 2001).

Overall, despite the plot holes, the oversight of voice recognition, the hilariously stereotypical characters, and some less-than-stellar performances, this film offers a relatively accurate representation of prosopagnosia as a neurological disorder. While finer details about the cause of prosopagnosia were left out, the general descriptions of the symptoms and methods of coping are surprisingly accurate.  Many of the characters seemed shockingly, almost irritatingly ignorant to the difficulties someone suffering with "face blindness" endures, and Anna fails to use voices - the most telling marker - to identify people she knows.  This hackneyed plot wanes to a predictable conclusion.  Still, "Faces in the Crowd" does a serviceable job educating viewers on the dramatic emotional toll prosopagnosia can take.  (It contains violence and some sexual content.)

References

Barton, J.J.S., Cherkasova, M., & O'Connor, M. (2001). Covert recognition in acquired and developmental prosopagnosia. Neurology, 57, 1161-1168.

Ellis, H.D., & Florence, M. (1990). Bodamer's (1947) paper on prosopagnosia. Cognitive Neuropsychology, 7, 81-105. doi: 10.1080/02643299008253437

Gauthier, I.L., Behrmann, M., & Tarr, M.J. (1999). Can face recognition really be dissociated from object recognition? Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 11, 349-370. doi:10.1162/089892999563472

Gazzaniga, M.S., Ivry, R.B., & Mangun, G.R. (2009). Cognitive Neuroscience: the Biology of the Mind. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Ltd.

Kennerknecht, I., Grueter, T., Welling, B., Wentzek, S., Horst, J., Edwards, S., & Grueter, M. (2006). “First report of prevalence of non-syndromic hereditary prosopagnosia (HPA).” American Journal of Medical Genetics, 140A, 1617-1622.

Sacks, O. (1985). The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, and Other Clinical Tales. New York: Summit Books.

Zillmer, E.A., Spiers, M.V., & Culbertson, W.C. (2008). Principles of Neuropsychology. California: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.

9 Comments
Lauren E
3/6/2014 11:41:38 am

Before watching this movie I didn’t know there was a neurological disease that caused a person to not recognize faces, and I feel like this movie did a great job portraying how hard it is to live with prosopagnosia (“proso") (Goldberg). The constant changing of actors was hard to keep up with, and confused me on who was who through out the movie.

A scene that stuck out the most was where Anna came home from a long day and went to the mirror to clean her face off, but when she looked into the mirror it was not her face she saw. She began to scrub and wipe off the stranger’s face, while the camera switched from her to the reflection, but was unsuccessful and began to breakdown. Sadly this is an over exaggeration of a person with proso, where it is very rare for them to not recognize their own face, but it is still a good representation of the severity of the disease (Goldberg).

I agree with the review that it was cheesy how the one person Anna could recognize was the one she ended up loving, but I liked how when he changed his facial hair she was unable to recognize him. At the end Kerrest had to make up a beard so she could tell him apart form Tearjerk Jack, and then when the rain-washed away his “beard” she was unable to recognize him again.

To add to the “most cases of acquired prosopagnosia result from trauma” comment, research suggests that most proso cases could come from genetics, rather than a serious brain injury (Goldberg). Where people who are born with proso are unaware of their condition. Another interesting note from the same article is that not only does proso affect the recognition of faces, but also the recognition of similar objects.

Goldberg, C. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.boston.com/yourlife/health/diseases/articles/2006/06/14/when_faces_have_no_name/

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Yuhao Rao link
3/7/2014 10:04:14 am

From this "Face in the Crowed" review and this movie, I've known that the Heroine who suffered from a injury that leaves her struggling with prosopagnosia,"face blindness", and I've found some reasons the review provided which can prove why she can't recognize people by their faces. in fact the Heroine, Anna actually hurt her Fusiform Face Area, a region of the brain which is specifically tuned to recognizing faces in particular of the temporal lobe.the doctor implies that the temporal lobe is solely responsible for facial recognition.While prosopagnosia can potentially maintain all other cognitive abilities, someone with a head trauma as severe as Anna's would most certainly have additional brain damage and symptoms in addition to face-blindness and it's fully explain why Anna can't recognize faces and sounds of anyone. and I've learned that Prosopagnosia is a cognitive disorder of face perception where the ability to recognize faces is impaired, while other aspects of visual processing and intellectual functioning remain intact.The specific brain area usually associated with prosopagnosia is the fusiform gyrus, which activates specifically in response to faces and there are two types of prosopagnosia: acquired and congenital, Acquired prosopagnosia results from occipito-temporal lobe damage and is most often found in adults.In congenital prosopagnosia, the individual never adequately develops the ability to recognize faces.

Reference

"Prosopagnosia. " Wikipedia, n.d. Web. 7 Mar. 2014. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosopagnosia>.

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Caroline H
2/19/2015 07:47:40 am

Prosopagnosia is a damage that is rare amongst humans. It refers to the incapability of being able to recognize familiar faces and often accompanies the impairment to recognize other things including place, car, and/or facial expressions. (Information About Prosopagnosia) In the movie “Faces in the Crowd”, the main character Anna is unable to recognize her own face after looking at a reflection in the mirror because she saw a “different” face instead. Because of this, Anna recognizes her family and friends through voice, smell, and distinctive facial features.
In the review by Caitlin Potter, Potter goes in depth about prosopagnosia and compares facts and information presented by the movie, to facts that she researched about. She comments on how stereotypical the movie is based on how the characters are portrayed. I feel that the movie only does this to show viewers how a person with prosopagnosia lives. Through this movie, I have learned how much a person with prosopagnosia struggles through in life, but more importantly, how much the individual can accomplish even with such a setback.

"Information About Prosopagnosia." Prosopagnosia Research. Web. 19 Feb.
2015. <http://prosopagnosiaresearch.org/index/information>.

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Daniel Tate
3/4/2016 04:47:05 pm

"Faces in the Crowd" is a thriller about Anna Merchant who lost the ability to recognize faces due to a head injury. This impairment is called prosopagnosia. I hadn't heard of this impairment until I saw the movie, and from my first impression, I thought it did a good job explaining the struggles. Caitlin Potter gave the readers information that was left out from the movie about the impairment. For example, prosopagnosia is known for face blindness, but it also can affect one's memory of places too. Another part that the movie left out that Caitlin explained was how Anna had no other difficulties or injuries from the fall besides prosopagnosia, which would not be the case in most scenarios.
As I looked into the impairment more, I found the movie to be quite accurate. To perceive and recognize a face, the brain relies on a neural network of at least three core regions that seem to contribute to different aspects of face processing. These regions are found in the occipital and temporal lobes of both the right and left hemispheres. The movie was pretty accurate when explaining the injury to the victim. People use different techniques to help pick different people out, like voice recognition and tattoos, which is what Anna did near the end of the movie.
Reference:
http://www.sciencefriday.com/articles/what-is-face-blindness/

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Michael
6/16/2016 10:44:44 am

I disagree with many of the comments. Putting the technical medical aspects of face blindness aside, and focusing mainly on the plot, I believe this is one of the most interesting who done it's I've seen in a while. At first, I fell into the trap that the damsel in distress was rescued by the Detective Kerrest, gave birth to his daughter, and lived happily ever after.

But after letting it sink in, I started wondering if that was the case.

I watched it twice more, paying close attention to subtleties. The trap that most who watched this movie fell into was to think that the Detective Kerrest was the good guy, and killed the supposed serial killer in the end. But after two additional views, I've come away with the damsel in distress was conned into giving birth to the serial killer's daughter, thereby giving him a living legacy.

Here's my observation, Detective Kerrest was right handed. The serial killer was right handed. The other cop, the supposed real serial killer, was left handed (held the pen, held the gun in the ending scenes, handled paper work, all left handed). All the slashiing was done right handed. Also, when Detective Kerrest shaved his face, he just happened to have a barbers straight-edge razor on hand in the hotel room. How many people even have one to their name, let alone know how to use it.

I haven't quite figured out how the "policeman's ball" comments play into helping decide who the real serial killer was. These were made twice during the movie by the same detective, midway and during the final scenes.

So in my mind there are two possible conclusions: First Detective Kerrest is the real serial killer. Or second they are BOTH serial killers and knowingly in competition with each other.

I disagree with all of the negative reviews that give very little credit for what may be a genius work of literary who done it. I think there are more interesting twists that left one wondering if the ending was as obvious as it appeared on the surface. Watch it again!

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Sarah
10/22/2016 04:37:20 pm

Thanks for all what youve said. Youve made me help understand more the twist of the story..and never realized it's may be both of em are the serial killers. All i know is the other cop was the real killer.

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Tom MacIntosh
9/9/2016 06:41:32 pm

JUst watched this show and have to correct the first individual, in the show we watched the doctor showed her pictures of the same person, Anna identified as them as different but they were the same one.

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