From Adamant to “Averroès and Rosa Parks”, documentary filmmaker Nicolas Philibert continues his journey into psychiatry

After filming the daily life of the Adamant, a boat moored at the Quai de la Rapée in Paris, which welcomes people with psychiatric disorders during the day, Nicolas Philibert continues his work, this time placing his camera at the heart of psychiatry, between the walls of a hospital, in the Averroes and Rosa Parks care units of the Esquirol hospital in Saint-Maurice, in the Paris region, formerly called “Charenton asylum”.

In theaters March 20, Averroes and Rosa Parks is the second part of a triptych, which will close with the release on April 17, 2024 of The typewriter and other sources of hassle.

The film opens with an aerial shot, flying over well-aligned buildings. We come back to earth with patients who look at the images on the screen of a tablet presented to them by the doctor. They comment. Little moment of life. These moments of life are fewer than on Adamant.

Here, we are at the heart of psychiatric care, and it is essentially between the patient and his therapist that Nicolas Philibert discreetly slides his camera. “For me it was the opportunity to show another aspect of the same psychiatry, of this psychiatry which still tries, despite everything, despite everything that crushes it, to welcome the singular words of patients.” confides the documentary maker in a major interview.

“We live in our garden”

In the first interview, there are two of them, facing the patient, to make him a proposal: shared accommodation. They patiently explain how things could go, answer questions, refocus and exchange them without brutality when the patient engages in delusional speeches over and over again. A speech built around the practice of his religion, nourished by a chosen vocabulary, which he delivers with more or less agitation.

We feel his anxiety about leaving an environment that makes him feel secure, even if sometimes like others, he is fed up with psychiatry. “We are at war with ourselves, we ruminate, we need oxygen. Already outside for us it is unbreathable, so if in the hospital we cannot breathe, we are screwed! Even for the caregivers, It’s not good to hear about psychiatry all day either.”says Olivier during a “caregivers-patients” meeting.

“We live in our garden”. Sentences like this, enigmatic, poetic, charged with incompressible suffering, often spring unexpectedly from the mouths of these beings who readily quote philosophers.

“She has ears everywhere”

“I’m scared. She’s brutalizing me.”whispers Laurence in her hoarse voice, an old lady curled up in her chair, her face leaning towards that of the doctor, tilted and very close. “She has ears everywhere. I’m so scared that I want to die so I won’t suffer anymore”she adds.

Some of the patients have already been encountered on the Adamant. The sessions take place in an office, sometimes outside, on a bench. The patient speaks, the psychiatrist listens, prompts, tries to dig deeper, to reassure. “I have a scary face”says one of them, his huge and gentle eyes fixed on his interlocutor. “What makes you think that?” the young intern asks him, a Madonna-like face lit by the light coming from outside.

We also hear Mr. Clichy, who talks about suffering at work and who would like to pay taxes, for having “a social identity”. We hear François, already encountered on the Adamant, talking about his childhood dreams. He wanted to be a professional footballer, but his father didn’t want to know.

Later, two doctors listen to a burned-out professor. He says to himself “Jewish Buddhist”And “chameleon of metaphysics”and informs them of his reform projects for National Education. “I am well aware of being a complete megalomaniac,” he said. Between two interviews, images of the corridors, of the garden. A man walks on his hands, another plays the guitar.

“You’re not going to start bothering me with your reality.”

Olivier, who was seen drawing on Adamant, explains that he found his father, his grandfather, his grandmother, among the hospital patients. He also repeats that he wants to take care of his daughters. He has two, raised in two different families. The psychiatrist resumes, reformulates, tries to connect the speech to reality.

His mother is there, between Olivier and the therapist. “It’s logic”she blurted. “But that’s not reality.” she said gently to her son. “You’re not going to start bothering me with your reality,” replies the young man. The smile of this mother, full of tenderness, full of sadness, is enough in itself to express the dull pain of the families.

“We try to support patients towards what leads them to life”, explains a doctor during a meeting with patients. A work that Nicolas Philibert’s camera, much more discreet here than on Adamant, captures with respect. Respect for the places, respect for the caregivers, respect for the patients. The frames are fixed, often in medium shots. They become closer when the exchange tightens, faces filmed like tormented landscapes, or wider when you have to breathe.

“I want peace”

After On the Adamant, Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival in 2023, this second film in the trilogy sheds light on another aspect of psychiatry, that of care and a psychiatry which has not given up listening, within the hospital itself, to the patient’s words.

Even if he is further behind, Nicolas Philibert, whose presence we constantly feel off-camera, is there to accompany us on this journey. A presence which once again allows him to grasp, casually, and without disturbing, the quintessence of a battered, weakened humanity, full of questions, and to tread the strange lands of mental illness.

“Thank you for taking care of me.”ends up letting go of the old lady, frightened at the beginning. “I want peace”, she said, closing with these words the half-open door on madness, and through it on the state of the world and of men, through this captivating new documentary by Nicolas Philibert.

The sheet :

Gender : documentary
Director: Nicolas Philibert
Country : France
Duration : 2h23 min
Exit : March 20 2024
Distributer : Losange Films

Synopsis : Averroès and Rosa Parks: two units of the Esquirol hospital, which report – like Adamant – to the Paris-Centre psychiatric center. From individual interviews to “caregiver-patient” meetings, the filmmaker strives to show a certain psychiatry, which still strives to welcome and rehabilitate the words of patients. Little by little, each of them opens the door to their universe. In an increasingly exhausted health system, how can we reintegrate lonely beings into a shared world?