San Clemente

On the Venetian island of San Clemente, a beautifully located building has served as a psychiatric clinic for 150 years. In imitation of Frederick Wiseman (TITICUT FOLLIES), the French photographer and filmmaker Raymond Depardon (UN HOMME SANS L'OCCIDENT, PROFILS PAYSANS: L'APPROCHE, AFRIQUES: COMMENT ÇA VA AVEC LA DOULEUR?) followed a number of nurses, patients and their families in February 1980. With his agile camera, long shots without comment and quasi-ethnographic approach, he filmed the daily practice in cinéma vérité style. This portrays the patients as people and not as oppressed basket cases. Five years later, Depardon made URGENCES, concentrating more on the decisions psychiatric nurses must make than on the life within an institution. Depardon’s criticism on the institutions was part of an undercurrent that reformed psychiatry from the sixties. This wind of change led to the abolition of long admission periods and the implementation of a more humane approach, replacing the patients in a social environment.