San Clemente

In 1980, Depardon visited San Clemente, a psychiatric clinic he had been to previously to shoot a series of photos. This time he brought his movie camera. Over ten days, he filmed daily life within the asylum shortly before it was closed down and created a unique piece of cinema, a reference point in the field of documentaries, which offers us an insight into a world that is normally closed to us. As a filmmaker, Depardon’s usual method of disappearing like a chameleon in the landscape doesn’t work here. He and his camera become an active part of the film as the inmates meet him with either aggression or indifference. Through long takes and without explanatory commentary, San Clemente shows the preparations for life in freedom from the patients’ perspective.