Dialogue between psychics and their subjects, the core dynamic of Lana Wilson’s documentary Look Into My Eyes, is heard before it’s seen in the opening scene. This choice serves as the first of many indications that Wilson’s interest doesn’t lie solely in a reality (or lack thereof) that’s capable of being established through sight alone. Rather, it’s the act of questioning—and the unexpected connections that form in the process—that moves this portrait of New York City’s mediums beyond a mere interrogation of their veracity.
Wilson begins the documentary proper with a series of tableaus in isolated portraiture to establish the client side of the conversation. These soul-searchers all need resolution to quell lingering doubts and demons within relationships where traditional means of interpersonal communication are no longer possible. More than a truthful answer, they seek an elusive sense of internal peace. And without chyrons to give them names or additional footage to provide further background, these concerns transcend their individual contexts and represent the wider existential angst of a city in the immediate wake of the pandemic.
The psychics profiled by Wilson in Look Into My Eyes seek to provide this spiritual balm by drawing on an unexpected skill set: acting. The mediums all share a background in the performing arts and use a variety of theatrical techniques from hearing voices to channeling the presence of an absent person to achieve the similar aim of satisfying their audience. But rather than see themselves as failed New York artists, as a more typical story might frame their newfound profession, they envision their work as a parallel occupation that fulfills a higher calling. Here, as with all other elements in the documentary, Wilson maintains an open mind and heart to acting and psychic reading operating on the same plane of creative expression.
Leave it to a documentarian to find subjects who profess a similar faith in the power of ecstatic rather than merely objective truth. At one point in Look Into My Eyes, one psychic pushes back against the classification of her work dipping into “imagination,” challenging that the concept itself is just a more energetic manner of transferring information. As they hope to become a vessel for something bigger than themselves, the documentary challenges the audience to make room in their interpretation of the sessions for elements beyond immediate comprehension. After all, the absence of knowledge doesn’t imply that it doesn’t exist at all.
It’s intriguing to observe the lives of psychics off the clock, though some of the more intimate glimpses at their homes and non-work activities begin to generate diminishing returns as they begin to accumulate in number. Ultimately, Wilson’s depictions prove more meaningful when showing how these practitioners create an unlikely community around their shared outsider status. These arrangements reflect the ultimate worth of their craft in forging connections by both channeling those absent and listening to the person present.
The work isn’t even a replacement for mainline spirituality for some subjects. Rather, their channeling allows them to tap into a set of complementary beliefs. But these contradictions rear their heads in moments of futility when the mediums confront performing divination without identifying a divine being. An earnest grappling with this tension would fall outside of the humanistic framework of Look Into My Eyes, though these hints of interrogating a higher power do suggest fruitful yet unexplored avenues within the material.
While it might seem reductive to depict an economic transaction of clairvoyant goods as a definitive look at two people’s lives, that’s the base unit of analysis within the documentary. Wilson’s empathetic gazes at these rapturous moments of rapport contain the film’s entire message. Because cinematographer Stephen Maing so keenly spots the humanity found in people’s faces and bodies as they sit opposite a table from one another, the camera serves to negate misgivings about their topic of discussion involving the supernatural.
Paradoxically, the corporeal elements of a psychic reading come to outweigh any spiritual sentiments expressed. Look Into My Eyes is at its best when revealing how psychic readings are not a one-way street but a worthwhile service for all parties involved. They aren’t value exchanges, Wilson demonstrates, so much as they are value-creating engines.
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