Urgences

Depardon shot in the emergency room of the Hôtel Dieu in Paris, capturing admission interviews, psychiatric sessions and dramas of people in acute mental distress. This is a harrowing yet tender portrait of people who cannot or can hardly hold out in the cold, anonymous big city. is one of the films that Depardon devoted to important institutions: the police, the court, psychiatric institutes, politics and the media. " deals with a world I don't know very well, but the subject had been in my head for quite some time: I wanted to make a film about something that surfaces during psychoanalysis, in a debate, between someone who listens and someone who talks - something involving trust. Therefore, I did not [as in the case of , for example] make a photo report in advance, because I wanted to maintain a pristine view." (Raymond Depardon)