The Adamant is both the setting and the star of the film that earned director Nicolas Philibert a surprise top prize at the Berlin film festival this year. But in his absorbing documentary, this institution – a floating daycare centre for people with mental health problems moored on the River Seine – somehow remains a bit of an enigma. Philibert’s slow, unassuming films don’t use narration, and in the absence of a contextualising voice you might assume that it’s a terrible idea to invite potentially vulnerable patients into a centre surrounded by water.
It’s only when you walk over the metal gangway and step into the ship-length reception area that the concept starts to make sense. Eric Piel, the psychiatrist who conceived of the Adamant and supervised its construction in 2010, insisted the centre should have as few walls as possible (the only doors I opened in my four hours there were to a therapist’s room and the toilet). The three-storey space feels surprisingly airy: sunlight bounces off the water and streams through the louvred windows, painting animated squiggles on to the wood-panelled walls. The screeching traffic on the three-lane Quai de la Rapée and the squabbling drunks under the Pont Charles-de-Gaulle sound far away. It’s a place that calms the nerves.
