2024-01-23 19:10:00
In Arnaud des Pallières’ sensual feature film, supported by a fabulous cast, Mélanie Thierry tries to find her mother among the women interned at Salpêtrière.
Tight shots, a moving, shoulder-mounted camera that captures the texture of all kinds of exclusively feminine skin, harsh, unprepared, without digital filter. Skin like you never see in the cinema, and certainly not in any fiction. And among these faces, an observant look, determined and a little frightened, which cuts through: that of Fanni, fantastically played by Mélanie Thierry. Where are we? Caught in the crowd, in the noise, the spectator nevertheless becomes aware that Fanni is being interned at the Salpêtrière, in the ward of 500 more or less “quiet” patients, says Jabotte, chief steward (Josiane Balasko, brilliant, to whom he All it takes is a lowering of the corners of the lips to reveal a panic of thoughts). Fanni, therefore, infiltrates this maze with precise although unknown rules in the hope of finding her mother, perhaps one of them, and getting her out. His quest only appears in its precision gradually, through economical, sharp dialogues, which distil the essential from nothing, without ever seeming utilitarian, thus freeing the film, its image and its editing from a narrative thread. unique.
Intertwining and consistency
An event agitates everyone and in particular Jabotte who must receive a decoration for the occasion: the imminence of the annual ball, nicknamed “the ball of the crazy” which authorizes the opening of the doors to all kinds of notables. Opening the doors raises the hope of escape for those who have the means. “We, outside, we’re afraid, we’re hungry, we never know where to sleep,” will whisper Emilie, played by Dominique Frot, explosive, who never stops inventing and populating the film, even off-camera, with her vocal incantations. . The purpose of the asylum is also to hide poverty.
The extraordinary nature of the film by Arnaud des Pallières, who is here making his eighth feature film (including the memorable Michael Kohlhaas based on Kleist in 2013), is largely due to the commitment of the actresses who each develop a universe, bringing to life an obsession, exist fully even when they are not on screen. Each explodes the very notion of supporting roles thanks to the interweaving and consistency of all the microfictions to which they give substance.
Character shrouded in an enigma
Among them, a little apart, Hersilie Rouÿ (fabulous Carole Bouquet), automatically interned by her brothers to capture her inheritance, claimed spinster, fallen queen among the poor, who does not let herself be fooled and who is responsible for to teach his peers the quadrille. Obstinacy of the one who is determined to assert her rights, to find paper, to write, to pass her mail, well placed to know that here, in the immense Salpêtrière park, false mad people like her but who become so by dint of confinement, are legion. Arnaud des Pallières, who co-wrote the screenplay with Christelle Berthevas, reinvented it thanks to his memoirs published after fifteen years of seclusion, and which were at the origin of a modification of the law of internment by third parties. And Marina Foïs, Customs, the nurse who sadizes the recluses? She excels at terrifying, while imbuing her character with an enigma. At the antipodes, Camille (Yolande Moreau), known as Chamomile, locked in a dream, whom Fanni wants to identify as her mother. But Camille did not have children…
Another of the keys to the success of Captives lies in the way of filming the era as if it were the present, the heatwave as if it were yesterday, thanks to certain codes generally dedicated to documentary – David Chizallet’s camera seems free to capture the unexpected. We have to go back to Van Gogh by Maurice Pialat in 1991 to find a costume film to this carnal point, on which the reconstruction, specific to the genre, weighs the weight of a feather.
Captives by Arnaud des Pallières with Mélanie Thierry, Josiane Balasko, Marina Foïs, Carole Bouquet, Yolande Moreau… 1h51.
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