15/18 A Place to Heal review – heartfelt docu-realist study of a French teen psychiatric facility

Veteran French director Cédric Kahn brings us a movie in a classic French vein: a docu-realist study of an institution, in this case a state psychiatric facility for teenagers between 15 and 18; with scenes in treatment suites, recreation areas, dorms and interview rooms. It’s something to compare perhaps with Laurent Cantet’s The Class, or Nicolas Philibert’s On the Adamant, or Canadian film-maker Denis Côte’s That Kind of Summer.

Kahn’s film is powerful and committed, although sometimes the acting comes close to shouty improv youth theatre. The tone is of course one of compassion, combined with coolly detailed forensic scrutiny, though audiences might be intrigued at Kahn’s use of Purcell’s Funeral Sentences on the soundtrack, music notably used by Kubrick in A Clockwork Orange, a film in which delinquent youth are treated more roughly. Kahn himself plays one of the senior medical staff, part of the gallery of authority figures – doctors, nurses, orderlies, therapists and a nervous intern – who are almost as affected by the institutional drama as the troubled young people themselves.

There is a diverse ensemble cast of patients here, but a love-triangle of three is at the centre. Lucia (Malou Khebizi) is a defiantly sexualised wild child with a clear issue of abuse in her background, permanently at war with her mum, involved in chaotic abuse for which the term “sex work” is not entirely accurate. She immediately takes a shine to Enzo (Kenji Peyran), in custody for stabbing a social worker, and he in turn forms an intense though probably predatory and self-serving relationship with abuse survivor Eloïse (Zoé Monpart), who is quiet, and more likely to be submissively grateful for his repeated declarations of love, and to be a more reliable partner for his planned escape attempt.

This attempt effectively forms the final act of the film, taking it out of the enclosed institutional location in a way that challenges the genre, and which gives Eloïse a powerful final moment. It’s a heartfelt and high-minded film.