AllMovie

Dr. Egas Moniz was a highly respected Portugese neurologist who, while visiting England in the 1930s, was shown the results of an experiment in which a monkey with violent tendencies was made passive through the removal of part of her brain's frontal lobe. Moniz was impressed enough to attempt the same sort of experiment on human beings, and by 1949, the doctor had received a Nobel prize for his work in psychosurgery (among other things) and was performing lobotomies on up to 20 patients every year. However, Moniz's dream of psychosurgery as a quick and easy way to eliminate anti-social behavior came to a halt when he was shot by a former patient (Moniz is said to have told his assailant, "It wasn't you who shot me, but your illness"), and lobotomies became discredited within the medical and psychiatric communities. Monos Como Becky is a documentary that tells the story of Moniz's career and its legacy; included are interviews with patients who received lobotomies, and newsreel footage of Moniz performing the operations. As a framing device, directors Joaquin Jorda and Nuria Villazan observe a group of mental patients (being treated through medication for the same sort of symptoms Moniz dealt with through lobotomy) as they stage a play on the doctor's life and work. Incidentally, Joaquin Jorda himself was a mental patient who became a victim of psychosurgery.