Every life matters in this remarkable documentary set in a Paris psychiatric centre
By Tom Ryan
Veteran French documentary director Nicolas Philibert says he doesn’t make films “about” people, but “with” them. “The nuance is very important,” he insists. And it’s been that way ever since he made Christophe (1985), whose director credit includes the 28-minute film’s mountain-climbing subject, Christophe Profit.
It clearly lies at the compassionate heart of On the Adamant (2022), the major award winner at the 2023 Berlinale. The film deals with a psychiatric daycare centre located on a beautifully converted barge which is moored in serene surroundings on the bank of the Seine in central Paris, right alongside the Charles de Gaulle Bridge.
The Adamant is a barge that has been converted into a daycare centre for psychiatric patients.Credit: Docplay
Not only does Philibert share his opening credit with an acknowledgement of the contributions of clinical psychologist Linda de Zitter, but he also lists at the end all of the 100 or so “crew and passengers” who appear in the film, whether or not they have speaking parts.
The Adamant is a day centre for the Esquirol Psychiatric Service, a branch of the Saint-Maurice Hospital network. Its program has been designed by caregivers in consultation with the “passengers”, who’ve been referred there by their doctors or the hospital and who are free to come and go as they wish. Sometimes it’s hard to distinguish between them not only because they all dress casually but also because they’re all active participants in the process they’re sharing.
Shot over seven months in 2021, Philibert’s film belongs to that realm of documentary best described as “observational”. It sits back and watches. The camera and the sound equipment aren’t hidden, but Philibert and his crew try to be as unobtrusive as possible. As he puts it: “The idea is that when filming we always hope not to disturb, and we hope that the camera won’t change things too much.”
Those aboard clearly know they’re being filmed. And Philibert allows them to go their own way. “If someone looks at the camera, I don’t care. I never say, ‘Don’t look at the camera.’ Why would I say that? I’m not making a fiction film, you know. You can look at the camera if you want. It’s not a problem for me. We are not trying to hide.”
Director Nicolas Philibert.Credit: Michel Crotto
His working principle is that those behind the camera should become part of the scenery. “Rather than trying to be invisible, I wanted to be accepted there,” he says, “which is absolutely different. To be accepted means to be trusted, and that’s fragile. You have to build it day after day.”
Set in the coffee shop that is a regular meeting spot for those on the barge, the film’s attention-grabbing opening sequence plunges us into a terrific single-take performance of a song by one of the passengers. It subsequently emerges that his name is François (nobody is identified via caption); the song is the French band Téléphone’s Bombe Humaine.
The theatrical aspect of how the passengers relate to the camera pervades the film and François is clearly conscious of his audience, made up of other passengers and those recording his performance (although he never looks at the camera). And the lyrics of the riveting song not only distill the philosophy underlying the agenda of the Adamant’s therapeutic program, but also embody the humanist impulse behind Philibert’s methods. Which, essentially, is an embrace of the value of collaboration in a world where – to borrow from the closing caption – “singularity is stifled”.
François delivers the song with a fist-pumping urgency. “If you let anyone take over your destiny/It’s the end/My father can’t sleep without his tranquillisers/Mum can’t work without her uppers/Someone always sells them what they need to keep going/I’m an electron bombarded by protons/The rhythm of the city is my true boss.”
Philibert acknowledges that the act of making a film is to exercise control. “Filming this is not filming that,” he points out. “Putting your camera here is excluding other views. Editing is renouncing.” But he’s also at pains to ensure that those who appear in his films are an active part of the process. Their responses to the filmmakers’ presence guide the shape of the film.
“Are you filming me?” asks Pascal, one of the passengers, sitting in the coffee shop. “I didn’t shave this morning,” he continues, rubbing his chin by way of apology with a bit of take-me-as-I-am tossed into the mix.
Then, relishing the attention, he begins to riff to those behind the camera about the morning coffee and croissant his local bakery gives him every day and about the actors he remembers from a childhood filled with filmgoing: “Jean Gabin, Bourvil, Louis de Funès, and so on. Lino Ventura … I know them all. And, what’s his name, Michel Constantin.” Looking around with a mischievous grin, he adds, “You have actors here who don’t realise they’re actors … People say it’s the medicine they’re on. It isn’t. They’re actors without realising.”
Sometimes, the tables are turned and the filmmakers find themselves being interviewed. Muriel is sitting alone on the deck in medium close-up, looking out over the Seine, a blue COVID mask around her chin, colourful flowers alongside, the door to the coffee shop behind her, people moving back and forth through it. She turns, looking past the camera, and initiates a conversation. “I’m eager to see the doctor,” she explains. “I’m going to unleash all my … what’s the word? ... My anxieties. Doctors are damn good at listening to people’s anxieties.”
Director Nicolas Philibert wanted those who appear in On The Adamant to play an active part in the filmmaking process.Credit: Docplay
A cut and she shifts tack. “So what are your names?” she asks, taking full charge of the conversation, pointing upwards past the camera. “Ah, Erik [sound recordist, Erik Menard].” She turns to the director, also out of frame – “And you?” – before bestowing on him a maternal encouragement: “Nicolas. That’s a nice name.” Philibert’s humble off-camera “Thank you” is a joy. Menard’s “And Erik is not?” is hilarious. Muriel reassures him before going on to quiz them about their equipment and how they manage to lug it all around.
It’s the little things that matter in Philibert’s work, the way people reveal themselves through the minutiae of their lives. One of his earlier films – about the residents and caregivers of the La Borde psychiatric clinic putting on a play – is even entitled Every Little Thing (1996). It’s another film in which the everyday and the theatrical become virtually indistinguishable.
“I consider that small events can be very important and ordinary lives are full of important moments,” Philibert explains. “So cinema can be made from these small things and not only from great stories and big subjects.”
His methods are in sharp contrast to those governing documentaries that openly insist that viewers get their point. “My approach isn’t pedagogical or didactic. When a documentary is working like that, as a viewer you become a consumer. You are not thinking on your own. My way of making films is to let viewers think a little by themselves and not to tell them what they have to think.”
Nonetheless, few will be able to watch On the Adamant without being deeply moved and inspired by what they see. Until now, Philibert has been best known Down Under for his superb To Be and to Have (2002, DocPlay), about a composite classroom in rural France. This film is bound to change that. A wonderful illustration of why, and how, everybody’s life matters, it leaves you wanting to know more about everyone who appears in it. And the good news is that there is more to come.
It’s the first part of a triptych Philibert has made about France’s public healthcare system. Part two, At Averroès & Rosa Parks, which premiered at this year’s Berlinale, turns its attention to the work of two psychiatric clinics at Esquirol where some of the Adamant’s visitors are primarily based. And part three, which opened in Europe last month, The Typewriter and Other Headaches (2024), revisits them inside their homes.
On The Adamant is on Docplay.
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