If I could give this 11/10 I would. A quite staggeringly engaging, moving, profound and above all, discussable documentary, beautifully shot. A day centre for people with various psychiatric problems, housed on a barge - and what a barge, the most beautiful barge you have ever seen - on the Seine, in the middle of Paris and yet sheltered from the city. Those who attend are encouraged to participate in art classes, poetry writing, movement, and music, and some of their work, particularly the musical performances, are quite outstanding. Many of them talk directly to the camera about themselves and their lives, not with focused intensity but with life on the barge going on in the background, the figures blurred and the sounds muted, but always there. We never find out exactly why any of them are there, but that is the point - they are there, and taking part in the life of this remarkable, and remarkably humane, place, which feels like a model for what psychiatry should be. Bravo.
Review of On the Adamant
