But what often holds the viewer is the dream-like drift of transmuted imagery, shimmering waters in a motel swimming pool, the framing of a hand, highway lights against the dawn, a girl swaying as heavy seas crash on a windy pier. Towards the end, the cultural historian Marina Warner appears in the hinterlands of Heathrow Airport, discussing the mythology of twins, the myth of the Double, a doppelganger created by the replication of word and image. As such it overstrains the connections between the different strands and weakens the overall credibility of the archetypal narrative. But Asylum attempts to transcend genre limitations and challenge received ideas about production values. It is also open about its own ambiguities.
TV is absence.
Asylum is an animated version of one of those chalk outlines drawn on a sticky pavement around the body of an imagined victim.