We all remember Nawna (awarded a prize at FID 2007), shot in the Frozen
North of the Canadian Inuits. Nazim Djemaï, tuned into the difficult task of
handing things down through the generations, let the words he collected
melt into a snow-covered landscape that was anything but a background.
Here, once again, we have Nature, with clearly demarcated seasons this
time, here once again we have words of most diverse kinds which provide
the substance of his latest film. This time attention is focused on La Borde,
the clinic famous for its site in the middle of the country with a castle in 40
hectares of woodland, with ponds, allotments, a greenhouse and a chicken
coup. It is, however, even more well-known because of the choice made by
its founder, the doctor Jean Oury, in 1953, to radically challenge psychiatric
practice and also the relationships and hierarchy of access to knowledge
between patients and carers.
To describe this unusual landscape, shaped as much by places as people,
Nazim Djemaï simply rolls out a series of portraits, long sequences of fixed
shots, with each protagonist choosing the setting, sometimes rather odd
ones (such as when the young man stands next to a machine that almost
drowns out his words), where he wants to express himself. Through this
succession of speeches, ranging from a flood of words to silence, from
patients and members of the care-team, surprise, emotion, gravity and
occasionally comedy single out so clearly each of the individuals ‘facing
the extreme solitude of illness’ (N. Djemaï) that the anticipated distribution
of roles is turned on its head. (JPR)