Great courage, physical and moral, is shown by the three principal interviewees in this heartbreaking French documentary. André, Michel and Daniel are former wards of the church-run Belle Étoile correctional school in the Savoie town of Mercury and, now in their 60s and 70s, they recount a barrage of abuse at the hands of Abbot Garin and his lackeys: beatings that inflicted permanent damage, sleep deprivation, cold-water baths, starvation, nocturnal molestation.
As director Clémence Davigo sits in on their long reminiscence sessions, the damage is clear. Michel weeps at the memory of his humiliations: deprived of a nurturing education, André became a career criminal, spending decades in prison; the alert-eyed Daniel, sexually abused and trapped in “hell”, speaks of later being emotionally crippled, unable to tell anyone he loves them. Michel and Daniel, an indefatigable chef and runner respectively, have found displacement activities, the means by which it is possible to empty their heads of the horror.
But the trio also talk of emptying in a different sense: to relieve themselves of this burden and seek restitution. Davigo’s attention shifts in the film’s second half to whether this is possible, and in what form. André and Michel disagree on whether the Catholic church as an institution is culpable – or just, as the latter believes, the specific individuals at the Belle Étoile. The two diocese counsellors they meet indicate that, in its willingness to acknowledge the wrongs done, the church is sorry. But when they finally meet the presiding archbishop, Philippe Ballot, he seems slow to commit to concrete actions.
Davigo keeps a steady, observant hand on the directorial tiller, her calm interludes letting metaphors emerge naturally. For example, Daniel slowly climbs a nearby mountain, a dragonfly sloughing off its old skin. The film isn’t a systematic inquest into institutional abuse, cover-ups and the feasibility of reform, which are certainly pertinent questions in France after the likes of the Abbé Pierre scandal. Rather, it participates intimately in the healing process by giving these men the platform to tell their truths – and is no less valuable for it.
