On the Adamant review – A hushed, human­is­tic, prize-win­ning doc

As the grand finale of her stint as head juror for the 2023 Berlin Inter­na­tion­al Film Fes­ti­val com­pe­ti­tion, Kris­ten Stew­art made the bold and increas­ing­ly com­mon deci­sion to award the top prize to a doc­u­men­tary. Yet as French vet­er­an doc­u­men­tar­i­an Nico­las Philib­ert saun­tered up the stage to col­lect his gong, many in the audi­ence were left a lit­tle puz­zled – what on earth is this movie? Did any­one actu­al­ly man­age to see it? And, more impor­tant­ly, can any­one affirm its greatness?

Well, out of the long, pale shad­ow of the lime­light, we can now say that this is and extreme­ly ten­der and poet­ic film which offers a care­worn utopi­an vision of mod­ern health­care in the form of L’Adamant – a decom­mis­sioned steamship which has been moored at the Quai de Rapée on the Seine since 2010. Fans of Philibert’s 2002 break­through film, Être et avoir, which chron­i­cles the dai­ly class­room activ­i­ties in a coun­try school, will find much to love in this new one, which adopts a sim­i­lar, decep­tive­ly ram­bling struc­ture and a tone of unapolo­getic, non-oppres­sive empa­thy with its subjects.

Though L’Adamant is classed as a hos­pi­tal, it more close­ly resem­bles a float­ing com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre where white lab coats are done away with and a home­ly type of equal­i­ty takes over. The vis­i­tors take things at their own pace, and there’s a focus on arts and crafts as the locus for not so much reha­bil­i­ta­tion, but as an activ­i­ty which engen­ders a lev­el of calm which, itself, allows peo­ple to open up about them­selves and their trou­bles. Though we can often deduce some sti­fled emo­tions through the art­works them­selves, such as one patient who draws a smi­ley pray­ing man­tis wear­ing a pink bowtie.

Philib­ert doesn’t spend too much time try­ing to give a sense of the rou­tine, or cre­ate a doc­u­ment of how this unique insti­tute func­tions. Instead he is more inter­est­ed in the peo­ple and, with his care­ful approach to his sub­jects, allows them to open up in a way that is nat­ur­al for them. And so rather than the cam­era act­ing as its own device for inter­ro­ga­tion, it is instead an eye for which the peo­ple can mere­ly sit and, if they so chose, just look at their own reflec­tions for a bit. Or, in the case of one chap, per­form an incred­i­ble song with lyrics that would’ve made Serge Gains­bourg jealous.

L’Adamant is not a new age exper­i­ment or a space to test out cut­ting-edge cura­tive tech­niques, it’s just a venue which val­ues secu­ri­ty, empow­er­ment and free­dom. As such, it’s clear that Philib­ert per­haps sees his film as a pos­i­tive adver­tise­ment for more rudi­men­ta­ry but human­is­tic meth­ods of health­care. The sense of respon­si­bil­i­ty that is stoked by every­one com­ing togeth­er and, say, mak­ing jam, or organ­is­ing a film fes­ti­val, seems, on this evi­dence, to offer a straighter path to contentment.

But what’s most impor­tant here is how Philib­ert cap­tures the patience of the nurs­es and atten­dants, who nev­er ever inter­rupt or talk down to the peo­ple whose con­di­tions and well­be­ing are L’Adamant’s rai­son d’être. For­mal­ly, this is not rein­vent­ing any wheels, but it’s more impres­sive for what its mak­er doesn’t do more than what he does.

Lit­tle White Lies is com­mit­ted to cham­pi­oning great movies and the tal­ent­ed peo­ple who make them.

By becom­ing a mem­ber you can sup­port our inde­pen­dent jour­nal­ism and receive exclu­sive essays, prints, week­ly film rec­om­men­da­tions and more.