Christine Pascal passed away suddenly at the age of 42 exactly twenty-five years ago in terrible circumstances. Actress at first and noticed in The Watchmaker of Saint-Paul by Bertrand Tavernier, she started directing at the end of the 1970s. She then signs Congratulations, in which played Dominique Laffin, deceased mother of politics Clémentine Autain. In this work, it is about a young woman who looks back on her young existence for an evening, while, not far from her, her brother is going to put an abrupt end to his life.
It will be necessary to wait until 1992 so that the one who is also a screenwriter obtains the recognition of her peers and the public with The little prince said. However, his demons remain present for years. In a 1984 interview in the form of a Proust questionnaire for the magazine First, she had slipped that she felt pessimistic and wished to die in herself”committing suicide when the time comes“Words that took on a brutal dimension from 1996…
In The Notebooks of the Cinemashe had also expressed her existential doubts during the promotion of the little prince said : “This film undoubtedly corresponds to my age, 39 years old, I have lost the carelessness of youth, I am beginning to live with the idea of death, of illness. And then, like everyone else, I have friends who are HIV-positive or who have cancer (…) We haven’t yet measured how much AIDS has destroyed our relationship to sexuality. Our generation fought for it, it was gay, no problem, and all of a sudden, to touch the other is to die. It’s terrifying, no society can live with it.” His latest feature film is Adultery, instructions for use, in which the leading role is played by Karin Viard and Richard Berry. The latter, very close to the filmmaker, had also filmed in The Bitch that her friend had made in 1984.
The drama of a night, the anger of a husband
During the month of August 1996, Christine Pascal was treated for psychiatric disorders at the Clinique du Château, in Garches. On the night of August 30 to 31, she then killed herself by defending herself. Her husband, producer Robert Boner, filed a complaint against the establishment, certain that the safety of the actress had not been sufficiently ensured during her stay at the clinic. After the investigation by the gendarmerie, an investigation was opened against the psychiatrist and the director of the establishment. The latter was released but the doctor received a one-year suspended prison sentence and a 10,000 euro fine. Christine Pascal now rests in the Père-Lachaise cemetery.