St. Adolf II

The strange life and obsessive creativity of psychotic outsider artist Adolf Wölfli.

This revealing documentary explores the obsessive creativity of Swiss outsider artist Adolf Wölfli, who spent most of his adult life at the Waldau Clinic psychiatric hospital. His violent tendencies were mitigated by providing him with pencils and paper. He created odd autobiographical writing, drew artworks reflecting the obsessions of his multi-faceted schizophrenic personality, and composed music, idiosyncratically notated within his drawings.

In later life, Wölfli would perform his peculiar musical pieces on a paper trumpet. Adaptations of some of his compositions can be heard on the soundtrack of this film.