12 jours réal. by Raymond Depardon (review)

In 2013, France enacted legislation whereby, twelve days after being involuntarily interned in a psychiatric facility, patients appear with legal counsel before a "liberty and detention"judge and state their desire to leave or remain in the hospital. Informed by the patients' testimony, doctors' input, and medical charts, the judge determines the appropriate course of action. Depardon's documentary provides access to the heartbreaking hearings of ten patients (whose names have been changed to protect their privacy) interned in a psychiatric facility in Lyon. After an intertitle describes the aforementioned recent changes made to French mental health law, the film begins with a painfully slow three-minute tracking shot down the facility's corridors, seemingly replicating the sensation of entering the facility on a hospital gurney. Contrasted with subsequent similar scenes of (the monotony of) daily life in the facility, the hearings provide the most dynamic moments of the film. As the patients plead their case, hope fills the screen since most of them argue that they are fit to leave the facility. Quite swiftly, as the patients describe their current state and respond to the judge's pointed questions, it becomes apparent that, on the contrary, they are not healthy enough to return to the"outside world." Some patients argue that they should leave because a family member can care for them. Others reveal insight into their delusional thinking by making impossible claims. One patient believes he has political supporters waiting for him to organize his party, while another is sure he will become a famous soccer player. Occasionally, mental health aides accompany the patients. When the latter contribute to the hearings, it is invariably to emphasize the patient's need to remain in the facility. The film, with its consistent use of three cameras during each hearing (one on the patient, one on the judge, and one of the hearing room), does not necessarily pass judgment on the new legal procedure, but instead encourages humanization of these individuals confined against their will as well as reflection on the power struggles inherent to the hearings. Whose voice is to be trusted? That of the (most likely heavily medicated) patient? Legal counsel? Doctors and aides? The judge? With each denial of a patient's request to be discharged, it is hard not to see the hearings as a formality, created to appease patients' desire to have a say in their treatment. Alternatively, given the disturbing nature of what is revealed in the majority of the hearings, it is hard to imagine lives for the patients beyond the walls of the facility. What percentage of these hearings end with the patient afforded the right to leave? Can options other than internment or freedom be imagined? Although 12 jours inspires more questions than it answers regarding recent changes to the French mental health care system, without doubt, spectators will be hard-pressed to forget this haunting portrayal of the ways in which modern society grapples with mental illness and its victims.