Errance ’86
Claude Othnin-Girard, Blaise Othnin-Girard, Danielle Bonniel
1998 - 100 min - Vidéo 8 - Couleur - France

Did this famous "lunatic asylum", set up and governed by the law of 1838, really exist ? It may well be about to disappear, but what kept it going for such a long time ? What kind of fascination and horror for madness and misery, what moral and humanitarian excuses kept patients, nurses and doctors behind some sort of strange jigsaw puzzle ?
Governed by a quasi-military hierarchy where shirts and uniforms march to the sound of whistles and bunches of keys, the asylum is overseen by a fastidious administration whose dark humour involves making the hospice cost-effective by cramming in a disparate population : children, the mentally ill, alcoholics, epileptics, the simple-minded, people with tuberculosis or manic disorders, the senile, etc.
Ten years ago, some film was shot in the confined units of the Mâcon departmental hospice. The scenes form a harsh testimony which enables us to witness the conditions of life endured by the residents.