The ship is actually a floating day heart the place psychiatric sufferers go to and take part in numerous types of artwork remedy that enable them to step by step work via their issues via actions starting from portray to bop to creating and programming their very own movie membership. These actions are overseen by caregivers who gently encourage the sufferers to debate the concepts driving their numerous creations as a means of serving to them to attach with their points. For many who don’t wish to take part in these actions, the barge merely presents a type of group the place they’ll go, have a cup of espresso and work together with different folks at their very own tempo with out worry of judgement.
In approaching his topics, Philibert makes use of an identical non-intrusive strategy that permits them to speak and specific themselves at their very own tempo and emphasizes how this system tries to eradicate the divide between the sufferers and the employees—typically, it’s laborious to inform who’s who till they start to talk. Because of this, he captures various extraordinary moments all through the movie. In a charming early sequence, one affected person sings the tune “La Bombe Humaine,” a 1979 hit for the French group Phone and though the tune itself is on the darkish aspect, he clearly receives some type of cathartic launch from his efficiency that’s laborious to disclaim. In one other, an older feminine affected person insists upon the concept she must be allowed to conduct a weekly dance class. The caregivers go about letting her have her say, respecting her intense emotions on the topic whereas gently making an attempt to recommend that this may not be the perfect of concepts.
Like this system it’s chronicling, the movie takes care to see its topics as folks versus a mere assortment of signs and so they in flip divulge heart’s contents to the cameras in methods which might be disarmingly uncooked and trustworthy with out ever coming throughout as exploitative. One of the crucial fascinating on show is Frederic, a bohemian sort who at first comes throughout like he may be one of many caregivers till he begins speaking at size about his perception that he’s a reincarnation of Vincent Van Gogh and that Wim Wenders used his life because the inspiration for “Paris, Texas,” utilizing the works of those artists as a means to assist him course of the experiences of his life. In an much more wrenching sequence, a lady talks in regards to the youngster that was taken away from her greater than a decade earlier and her present makes an attempt to rebuild that relationship. The aforementioned singer returns afterward and albeit admits that whereas the artwork therapies are undeniably useful, it’s the drugs that he takes that forestall him from leaping within the river.