Raymond Depardon's quiet, riveting 12 DAYS gets U.S. theatrical premiere in NYC at AFA

Watching 12 DAYS -- a new documentary from France about people confined to a psychiatric hospital without their consent who, by French law, must be seen by a judge before a period of 12 days has ended -- your heart goes out to literally every person on view. These would be the patients themselves (we meet maybe a dozen of these in the course of the film) but also the judges, whose responsibility it is to treat these people fairly while protecting society from the possible danger they represent, and the attorneys or representatives of the incarcerated patients, who must keep the best interests of their clients in mind, even as it is often pretty clear that these clients have a somewhat tenuous grasp on reality (as most of us understand the term, at least).

While viewing this film, TrustMovies kept flashing back to an another documentary he had seen maybe a decade or more ago, taking place in a French courtroom. The two had so much in common that I felt certain they had been made by the same filmmaker. Sure enough: When I looked up the work of 12 Days' director, Raymond Depardon (shown at right), there on his IMDB resume was The 10th Judicial Court: Judicial Hearings, made in 2004, which I had seen via the late and greatly lamented DVD rental/movie information service Greencine (to which I had subscribed and for which, eventually, I began to write).

In his latest film, Depardon again (even more so this time) offers an almost shockingly humane look at French justice -- a simple, direct and yet hugely encompassing view of how certain important institutions and their attitudes influence our social, cultural, and private lives. This time the subject is mental health and the rights of the individual vs those of society.

Depardon's camera and viewpoint allows us to see and hear the institutionalized from their perspective, as well as from that of the judges (one of whom is shown above) and the lawyers who are present to assure the rights of those who are held against their will. In addition to the "interviews" that take place between judge, defendant and lawyer, we occasionally spend time viewing (from a discreet distance) certain inmates as they simply sit or pace.

One of these, if I am not mistaken, we see returning from buying (or maybe cadging) a cup of coffee then going on to her interview. In all cases, the POV and attitude we perceive via the filmmaker is one of non-judgmental viewing and, yes, caring. And yet Depardon allows us to experience and empathize with the viewpoints of literally everyone we meet. His stationary camera, along with his ability to know how much to give us and when to end a scene, ensures that we understand with surprising complexity what is going on and why the final judgment is decided as it is.

The cinematography (by Depardon and Simon Roche) editing (by Simon Jacquet) and really lovely musical score (from recent Oscar winner Alexandre Desplat) all contribute mightily to the overall effect of this film, which ends with a quiet and beautiful early morning look (above) at the hospital in a kind of blue-toned fog.

More than anything else, I suspect that thoughtful, concerned Americans will see this film as a knock in the head so far as how our own system of justice cares for the mentally disturbed and for society in general.  Every time I view a French film or television series -- either narrative (from Serial Killer 1 to Spiral) or documentary Depardon's work to that of Nicolas Philibert -- I am impressed anew with how much more genuinely caring and concerned with the public and private good is France, even with all its current problems, than is America. An attempt at democracy came to both countries around the same time over 200 years ago. What each has done with this idea seems shockingly (in the case of the USA, increasingly and appallingly) different.

From Distrib Films US and running a lean 87 minutes, 12 Days opens this Friday, March 16, in New York City at Anthology Film Archives for a week-long run. AFA is simultaneously hosting a retrospective of some of Depardon's work, which should be a must for documentary fans. The Depardon screenings run from Thursday, March 15 through Sunday, March 25. Click here (then scroll up and down) and here to see the complete schedule.  Note: Raymond Depardon and his longtime partner, collaborator, and producer Claudine Nougaret will be at AFA in person for opening night for a Q&A after the 7pm and then will introduce the 9pm screening!

At BAMcinemaFest: WALK AWAY RENÉE, Jonathan Caouette's follow-up to Tarnation

Some of us were not so pleased, back in 2004, with Jonathan Caouette's debut feature Tarnation because-- with its constant style-trumps-content and its consistent sense of me-me-me! oh-look-I'm-a-star! -- we felt it played not at all fair with his mother Renée Leblanc. We may have to eat crow now that his latest work, WALK AWAY RENÉE, is about to make its North American premiere -- at the BAMcinemaFest. (Fortunately, TrustMovies has a flock of crows who often fly right outside his Jackson Heights window -- they've even scared away the red-tailed hawk that had taken up residence -- and he'll be happy to get out his BB gun and share some lunch with fellow critics.)

Caouette's new film -- while it still offers mom (stylized, above, and simply vulnerable, below) as someone who can barely be lived with -- allows Renée to come across fully as as a human being worth our compassion, and even worth the caring she gets from her son Jonathan, his companion David, and Jonathan's son Joshua.

In this new film, we get the family history in a more solid, less fragmented manner than we did with Tarnation, and while the filmmaker still enjoys diddling with style, he's kept it more at the service of the story he wants to tell. When it's there, as it definitely is during a long, phantasmagorical light show around two-third of the way through the film, it arrives as almost a pleasurable respite from the turmoil that Caouette -- and the audience -- stews in throughout most of the rest of the movie.

Probably the most shocking visual element we see here (other than Renée's sad state) is how much and how badly Caouette appears to have aged in the years between films. This fellow, so full of energy, spirit and beauty in his younger days (at right), now looks so drained, tired and overweight (below) that it seems like some 28 years, rather than merely eight, have passed. But given what we see during the film's time line -- which takes us, zipping backward and forward, from Renée's early years, pre-Jonathan, to practically present-day -- this last decade in particular has been no picnic for anyone involved. In the first film, the movie-maker was happy to gaze at the camera 24/7; now he can barely bring himself to look directly at it.

If Tarnation often seemed like self-love taken beyond even mastur-batory level, Walk Away Renée is more than mere penance. It puts us in the seat next to a person with bi-polar disorder (and then some). If you've ever spent time around this sort, as I have, that weird double response of helping another person coupled to your own self-protection will quickly kick in. (Personal note: I live with my companion of 20-odd years and his 98-year-old mother, who has lived with us for the past ten years. While I would not call this living arrangement easy, by comparison with what Caouette and his companion contend -- and now, it seems Caouette's own son lives with them, too -- I consider our immediate family to be lucky.)

Back and forth in time we go, as son tries to take mom by car from Texas to New York, in the process losing her meds (one wonders if she herself did not toss them out) and try desperately to cadge a refill, while filling viewers in on family history over four generations. By the 50-minute mark, we've come full circle. And then we move ahead toward... what?

I'd have liked to have learned more about the filmmaker's companion David, whom I'm sure viewers will imagine is some kind of saint. (People have referred to me in that way, too, because I've taken in the mother of my companion. They don't realize, of course, that it is easier to distance yourself when it is not your mother because you have none of that 30-, 40-, or -- for us -- 60-year baggage that must come along with any mother-child relationship.)

I hope Caouette will continue his story -- of Renée, of his life with David, of the progress of his son Joshua (above, left). This tale would seem to beg for a third chapter, if only to see mom put to rest, and the remaining lives put to other, less stressful, perhaps more normal -- if these people have a clue as to what that word might mean -- tests. Walk Away Renée, from Sundance Selects, screens tomorrow evening, Wednesday, June 27, at BAM, as part of the BAMcinemaFest. You can see the entire -- and pretty damn special -- BCF program here, and get directions to BAM here. As for the film itself, in addition to any theatrical showings, it can now be seen (starting Wednesday, June 27: I'm posting a tad early) on the new SundanceNow doc club, where it can be rented for a one-time charge of $6.99 -- or screened FREE for anyone who subscribes to the Doc Club.

At AFI Silverdocs: Jukka Kärkkäinen's & J-P Passi's crockbuster THE PUNK SYNDROME

We're always looking for something new, right? And these days documentaries seems to be dishing up nouvelle with alarming regularity. Still, I warrant you won't have seen anything quite like THE PUNK SYNDROME,(Kovasikajuttu in the original Finnish) a new film from Jukka Kärkkäinen and J-P Passi that has its U.S. premiere this coming week at the AFI Silverdocs festival.

OK: Punk bands are new to neither narrative nor documentary filmmaking. But this punk band? Decidedly. Our four fellows -- above, from left to right: Kari, Pertti, Sami and Toni -- are mentally and even, I think you could argue, physically disabled by Down Syndrome and other disabilities. And yet they make music (not being a fan of punk rock, I wouldn't quite call it that). But, hell -- they're as good as a lot of other skunk punk that I've encountered. Really, they don't sound half-bad, at least when the two elders in the group (Kari and Pertti, below) can remember how many choruses and verses there are in a particular song.

The filmmakers -- shown below: That's J-P Passi at left, with Jukka Kärkkäinen doing the pointing -- catch these guys in all sorts of activities, from composing lyrics ("How do you spell 'human being'," one asks the other) to the prelude to lovemakling ("Darling, you'll get some when they leave," Kari tells his girl, a propos the camera crew). Pertti's diary set to lyrics and music becomes something quite sad and wonderful. Soon after, however, Pertti is told that he smells like shit and asked if he has changed his underwear lately. (And so he does, in front of us -- which should send into rapture any guys or gals who have a thing for full-frontal nude seniors.)

While the music often sounds quite alike from song to song, as the film progresses and we hear more of it, there is indeed some noticeable difference, the band's lyrics -- which we can clearly understand because of the English subtitles -- are full of anger and sorrow. This is not unusual with punk bands, but in this case the anger is directed at society for reasons that are perhaps easier to understand and appreciate.

We've often been told about the link between genius and insanity. Now we seem to find one between disability and creativity. Along the way, Sami (above) helps a local politician with her election campaign, while Kari (below) tries to reschedule his pedicure. When he can't, he grows disproportionately angry -- but then offers the best song we've heard (so far, at least) to his pedicurist!

We spend some time with Toni, the band's drummer (below) and his parents, as they and others try to get him to move to a group home. Nothing doing. But then, when we see that home, and some of its occupants, particularly one young lady, Toni is all for it.

We're there soon after for the birth of a healthy baby -- not in Pertti's family, as I had originally imagined, but (as the film's PR person has pointed out) to Kalle, the social worker in whose cultural center the band was begun and where its members rehearse. We see what this birth means to our group (it leads Pertti, below, to speak about the death of his mother). I would have liked to have learned more about the group's patient and forbearing manager, Kalla Pajamaa -- who tells Pertti that playing in the band has made an old speech defect of his disappear. Instead, we stick close only to the band members themselves.

"One must take care of both business and women," notes Kari, at one point, and soon after the band leaves for its first trip across the water to Germany, where it scores something of a hit. And yet those disabilities remain, lending the band's actions and songs, as well as the movie itself, an almost constant slap of reality (in addition to the ever-present poignancy). One-of-a-kind and very much worth seeing, The Punk Syndrome deserves to be picked up for U.S. distribution in some manner or other: theatrical, DVD, VOD or streaming.

 At Silverdocs, the film will screen on Tuesday, June 19, 

at 10:45pm in the AFI Silver Theatre 3; 

on Wednesday, June 20, it will be shown 

at 4:45pm in AFI Silver Theatre 1. 

Co-director J-P Passi will be present at both screenings.