a realistic and poignant dive into the daily life of schizophrenia

“I’m a pirate, you know?!” Pint of abbey beer in hand, Basile’s (Clément Roussier) whimsical story machine is running at full speed. His secret work in refineries, his legal escapades… Facing Basile, two strangers intrigued by his eccentric anecdotes, but gripped by his verve. He gets irritated. “You think I’m lying, is that it?” No time to stretch the night further with his crazy anecdotes, a brunette with tired dark circles challenges the strange storyteller. His sister Sarah (Marine Vacth) orders him: “We’re leaving”. Forced return to her apartment. Sarah confiscates the keys, then blows softly. “Your treatment will work Basil.”

This treatment, Basil takes it to stem his paranoid schizophrenia. And during the hour and a half of sun too close (in theaters September 28, and selected at the Cabourg film festival), the realistic and intense camera of Brieuc Carnaille reveals a daily life fractured by this disorder. For his first dramatic feature film, the director leads and jostles the spectator on this path of reintegration as tortuous for the patient as for his loved ones. Sometimes facetious, sometimes spectacular, often unpredictable, Basile fascinates as much as he intrigues. “I realized how little-known schizophrenia wasexplains Brieuc Carnaille for the press kit. To the point that it is misunderstood that a patient treated can behave normally.

His hallucinations made very visual on the big screen, his tender romantic encounter, his crises as lyrical as they are heartbreaking… The emotional lift of the main character embarks on its ups and downs. And constantly, this gaze of loved ones, sometimes loving, sometimes worried, catalyzes the viewer’s empathy and anxiety. “To confront the spectator with his relationship to this disease”, describes the director. All without ever forgetting to put in images and words the consequences of it. Professionally, medically, emotionally…

The incarnation of a mental disorder that cannot rely on any cinematographic artifice, much of the film’s realistic strength rests on the two shoulders of actor Clément Roussier. Alongside the luminous Diane Rouxel and the intense Marine Vacth, the interpreter of Basile dabs the viewer. His slender gestures, his versatile theatricality… Clément Roussier plays well. And fair. Even in the flamboyant scene where her epileptic dance in a red tracksuit makes her look like a rocket in the streets of Roubaix. “I wanted that in these moments, we want to be Basile, that we can envy him his freedom, his energysays Brieuc Carnaille. Even though his illness has a bad reputation.”

Gender : drama, romance
Director : Brieuc-Carnaille
Actresses and actors : Clement Roussier, Marine Vacth, Diane Rouxel
Country : France
Duration : 1h30
Exit : September 28, 2022
Distributer : Day2feast

Synopsis : On his release from a psychiatric hospital, Basile takes refuge with his sister Sarah. She is his only family and his greatest ally in rebuilding himself. As flamboyant as he is unstable, Basile manages to find work and meets Élodie, a young single mother: he begins to dream of a “normal” life…