“What are we going to do Jacques?”, On Arte: terrible combat inner of a schizophrenic

Marie Garel-Weiss gives body, as rarely on the screen, to a person with psychic disorders, very precisely interpreted by Vincent Deniard.

by

“Jacques, it’s a full-time job.” A constraint, a ball, that’s how Fabien sees his brother, milf reaches schizophrenic disorders, while with his two sisters, Louise and Estelle, They find themselves in the family house. The death – strange and sweet – of their father brutally compels them to confront this reality that the paternal dedication for this child, sensitive and different, had allowed them to occult until then. Jacques, after the death of their mother, has always been overprotected and pampered.

This scenario is an opportunity to invite the viewer to do the same and to apprehend through Jacques this complex pathology of schizophrenia, in this fair and upsetting telefilm. After the drug addicts of a detoxification center in the party is over (2018), the director Marie Garel-Weiss gives a body to another population of the population little visible on the screen, schizophrenics, sometimes interned but most often alive free in a society not informed about their “difference”. After a suicide attempt on the day of the burial, Jacques returns the family home, refusing to go to an institution.

The plans, long, the rhythm, slow, install the atmosphere. Blagtes with windows, cloves in an ashtray, beers everywhere and clothes in bulk … In this morna winter decor, the two sisters and the brother embody the three dominant reactions in the face of such a situation: the dedicated (Louise) , Selfish (Estelle, even if she has the excuse to soon have a child with her companion) and panicked (Fabien). In short, the family in all its horror.

Ordinary Phobies

If all the actors are just sounding, Vincent Deniard (the cloud, Just Philippot, in 2021) impresses with his game and his soft and penetrating look, mixture of Christophe Lambert in Greystoke, the legend of Tarzan (1984) and of Jack Nicholson in Shining (1980). The role has earned him the price of the best male interpretation at the Rochelle Fiction Festival in September 2021. All in restraint, Samir Guesmi (Laurent, the ideal companion of Louise) is also remarkable.

Over the minutes, we do not wonder what Fabien, Louise and Estelle will make Jacques but how Jacques does to support his inner voices that terrorize it: “They are so bad (…) In my world, I Should fight all day. And I’m tired. “He drinks and smokes, a lot. And, when that is not enough, Jacques gets off – the medical profession, however, remains absent from the movie.

 from left to right: Louise (Maud Wyler), Fabien (Pascal Rénéric) and Estelle (Claude Perron) in

We find Jacques at his exit, ready to move to the vacant apartment of Louise. We then discover with it the ordinary phobias of Jacques, like taking a shower – “I have the impression of melting.”

Jacques Cry. Jacques Rit. Jacques is scary when he manies an imposing chainsaw while Louise approaches frail and barefoot. Jacques likes to extend the linen with a front lamp. According to the brain institute, 600,000 people have schizophrenia in France.

/Media reports.