French Documentary ‘On the Adamant’ Wins Golden Bear at Berlin
variety.comGuy Lodge Film Critic Veteran French docmaker Nicolas Philibert was the surprise winner of the Golden Bear at this year’s Berlin Film Festival, taking the prize for his film “On the Adamant,” a poignant observational study of a Paris mental health care facility.
He received the award from jury president Kristen Stewart, after the star offered an extended and plainly heartfelt ode to the film’s humanity and simplicity: “People have gone in circles for thousands of years trying to pin down what can be deemed art, who’s allowed to do it and what determines its value,” she said, citing the boundary-pushing nature of the festival, and namechecking such opposing philosophers on the matter as Aristotle, Barthes, Sontag and Beavis & Butthead, before concluding, “For all of us, you just know it when you see it.” It was an apt way to introduce a film that stood out in this year’s Competition lineup for its emotional directness and lack of formal fuss.
Candidly and sometimes humorously surveying the daily routines of The Adamant, a waterborne day-care facility for people with a variety of mental disorders, it speaks not just to cinephiles but to anyone: Like Philibert’s 2002 arthouse hit “Être et Avoir,” a similarly touching, unadorned study of a rural school, it centers on universal values of care and empathy.
Describing it as “a warm reminder of Philbert’s perceptive gifts,” Variety‘s critic noted that the film’s “human subjects are both expressive and highly vulnerable, open to the low-key, non-invasive presence of the camera.” Visibly stunned, the 72-year-old Frenchman was slightly less lyrical than Stewart when accepting his award: “Are you crazy or what?” he addressed the jury, which also included filmmakers Radu Jude,
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