Nicolas Philibert: The Typewriter and Other Headaches
Of course there is a film by Nicolas Philibert at CPH:DOX. And of course it is placed in the category “Highlights”. This time the third of the triptych that started with “On The Adamant” followed by “Averos & Rosy Parks” with protagonists, who have a relationship to the Adamant, the great psychiatric place on the Seine. In this film a couple working for Adamant pays visits to some of the patients, who have problems with things. The poet and his typewriter, the woman and her cd that does not function – and she wants to hear Janis Joplin! – the piano player and his friend with printer-problems and the painter, who lives in a one room flat. The caregivers talk so well with the hosts, solve their problems and create an atmosphere that is warm. Because of the man behind the camera, who always has respect and understanding for the people he films. You sense that and you sense that the protagonists trust him.
”Constantly looking for beauty… my work consists of creating the conditions for something to happen, he said once, this great filmmaker, who masters the art of listening to the other. I am a documentarian and not a fiction filmmaker, I do not want people to play roles. Maybe I ask them to repeat something or ask if I can be present on a special occasion but they are themselves.”
There is not so much more to say about this – one more – masterpiece of Nicolas Philibert. The last of the five in the film, the painter, showed the visiting woman paintings from sunshined buildings in rue Saint-Antoine in Paris and of Jim Morrison and his Pamela – he goes to rest on his couch in the corner of the room and you expect Doors-music. No a LP is set to play with birds singing. The sun was shining when we left the cinema. Merci beaucoup!
France, 2024, 72 mins.
