À l'infini

We are plunged into the enclosed world of the Maud Mannoni specialist care home—which, at the end of the 1960s, created an experimental structure intended for autistic and psychotic children or those with neuro-diversity—for adults affected by incurable mental disabilities. Each patient appears with their obsessions—such as Bernard, who constantly rips up his clothes—which are contained and channelled by the words and gestures of the carers. Edmond Carrère decided to tighten his framing to abolish the apparent equidistant neutrality between the patients and carers, which does not happen, here. Whilst focusing on the carers, A l'infini successfully seizes the proximity between bodies, often filmed in the same shot: in collaboration, in an almost choreographed movement rarely interrupted by images from “outside”, the only space for withdrawal, for respiration, before returning there. In the beginning, Carrère was supposed to call his film Après Sisyphe. One must, with the philosopher, “imagine him happy” for example, with the features of a carer, who, sometimes, brings a smile to the face of a man lost in his heart of hearts.