I don't feel this film can be divorced from Jane Arden's evolution in to radical feminism and R. D Laing's 'Anti-Psychiatry' movement of the 60's. It is more than a film, it is a jarring polemic. Jane Arden and Jack Bond made 3 of the most unique 'art films' of British cinema: 'Separation', 'The other side of underneath' and 'Anti-Clock' (in which they experimented with and pioneered video techniques). Not a trilogy more a triptych on the sense of self, it's disintegration and the internal and external influences on that process. Where as 'Separation' can be humorous and 'Ant-Clock' dream like. 'The other side of underneath' is a dark night of the soul, the nightmare that lingers when you wake. All beyond narrative description. Caveat Inspectoris (I have never studied Latin please don't be harsh)

Apparently the only British film directed solely by a woman (Jane Arden) in the 1970s, The Other Side of Underneath is quite harrowing and claustrophobic, taking us into the minds of female psychiatric patients in Wales, with discordant screeching sounds and strange searing and hallucinatory images. It seems to subvert not only polite society but also the repression of sexuality; late in the film we have a relative, almost idyllic sense of freedom, with an open air coupling. There's something of Max Ernst and Edvard Munch about the film, but this is very much from a female perspective, implying that society for too long has damagingly frowned on female sexual feelings as unclean. Scenes with Romanies and a few black children are telling, underlining the shared status of unwanted powerless outsiders. Alongside almost infernal visions, the film also questions attitudes to religion and neglect of a more natural life.

Maybe wretchedly self-indulgent, relentless and disgusting to some, for me it's a serious, persuasive and emotion-churning examination of "mental illness", one of the boldest films to emerge from the UK, but one from which i was relieved to step out into the warm sunlight.

Being the only film of 1972 solely written & directed by a woman who would tragically commit suicide 10 years later at the age of 55 would, surely, cancel out any impact a gratuitously experimental and excruciating experience like this one might have to offer. But Jane Arden's linear-free schizo-mental health examination remains brain numbing hard work for anyone with the courage & patience to sit through it.

Beginning with images & ambiance similar to that found in the previous year's Lets Scare Jessica To Death (itself an exploration of a woman losing her marbles),TOSOTU Starts promisingly but quickly buckles under the weight of a too-much-too-soon dosage prescribed by the heavy-handed Dr Arden.

A young lady pulled from a lake in an undisclosed part of the Welsh countryside winds up in what can only be described as an all female funny farm for avant-garde theatre performance artists. There is no plot or characters so to speak of, only a bloody-minded desire on behalf of the filmmaker to set her creative co-ordinates to eleven on the launch pad and blast off into the solar system for the best part of two hours before crash-landing somewhere in the region of Zeta Reticuli. One can only assume by that point the coffers must have run dry for film stock.

There is certainly no question of the director's earnest sincerity broaching the weighty subject matter. But the ruthless disregard for linear dynamics disallows any point of entry other than to smirk or guffaw at the serious-as-a-heart-attack images of women sharing beds with sheep whilst taunted by Mr Punch's ugly sister or, birthday suited nymphs flanking cellos in the Green Green Grass of Home (at least composer Sally Minford's oppressive string arrangements hit the vulnerable dark spot).

I find it hard to believe that even back then this was considered fresh and challenging, especially considering the likes of Ken Russell had been there, seen it and vommed on the t-shirt with this sort of visual excess a million times before already. Meanwhile, over at the BBC, the Monty Python gang were running full throttle dropping raspberry stink- bombs on targets like Arden's school of pretension with devastating precision. Their merciless lampooning of the great King Ken's work in the 'Gardening Club' sketch should give you a good idea of what you're letting yourself in for.

Whilst I do have a big appetite for seeking out the more cutting edge offerings to be found hidden away in the dead-letter-office of secret cinema, this is one I feel has not stood the test of time and would've preferred to have left under lock and key.