- For almost a month, Jean-Robert Viallet and Alice Odiot set up their cameras at the Baumettes.
- They released a punchy and uncompromising documentary about the conditions of detention in this remand center.
Edit: On the occasion of the national release of the documentary Des hommes, we are showing you this interview with the director Jean-Robert Viallet, written last October before a preview of the film in Marseille.
A dive of more than an hour, without voiceover, as if the spectator were himself an inmate of this prison pinned for its dilapidation and its "inhuman" living conditions. With Men, the winners of the Albert-London Prize Alice Odiot and Jean-Robert Viallet sign a shocking documentary on the Baumettes prison, the fruit of almost a month's immersion in the famous Marseilles prison. Jean-Robert Viallet returns for 20 Minutes on this film, screened in Cannes during the fortnight and which comes out this Wednesday in theaters.
Why did you want to shoot this documentary at Baumettes? From the start of the film, you specify that it took several years before obtaining filming permits ...
First, with Alice, we had followed for a year two women facing justice in two previous films for television. And these women had gone through the Baumettes and talked about it a lot. It already made us want to take a closer look, especially since we had just moved to Marseille. We were coming from Paris. And the Baumettes are a mythical place. In French prisons, there are Health, Fleury, Fresnes and Baumettes. Finally, there was the report of the controller of liberties and detention in 2012 who had mentioned the Baumettes as a place with inhuman conditions of detention. But it did take time, indeed. When we first approached the Ministry of Justice, he replied: “Ask us everything, except the Baumettes! It was too complicated, it is a prison which has serious problems and which they were in the process of remaking… And then, we wanted a authorization of a particular kind. We wanted time, to be able to film inside, in the simplest, the most raw, the most basic of what an immersion in detention is. And we wanted total freedom of movement inside.
Rarely, you film the words of the detainees, even within their cells. How did you choose them?
We didn't actually choose them. The whole prison knew we were there. And the guys move around the prison regularly, for a doctor's appointment, etc. We met them in the corridors, we exchanged glances, eight sentences, and they welcomed us into their cells. There was no casting. We wanted to film the prison like a belly, with those who are incarcerated, and also those who work there. And we gradually realized that in this place where we deprive people of part of their humanity, humanity can still arise, in the positive, but negative sense, in violence and relationships to others
A violence that you recall several times in the documentary, in particular by mentioning the murders of detainees by their fellow inmates ...
Violence in prison cannot be concealed. It would be rude. When you lock someone up in difficult conditions, inevitably, it increases psychological breakdowns and the level of violence, because people can no longer bear it. Especially since, in a city like Marseille, the war of small gangs outside the prison is instantly found inside the prison. Those who dominate outside dominate inside, and when the wind turns outside, that also changes at Baumettes.
It seems that you are looking through this documentary to open a debate on prison in France…
We wanted to make a film that was a strong cinematic gesture. A film that speaks politics all by itself without talking about the sequences of the characters and the film itself, and which takes the spectator inside. Afterwards, the prison does the job that is asked of it with the means it has. She recovers what the judges send them with the means at hand, in dramatic conditions like those of the Baumettes. Next, I have an opinion on the punitive policy of the courts in France, which is extremely harsh compared to other countries. Some inmates, however, may be more deserving of training or treatment rather than in a chemical straitjacket. However, the remand center is the most difficult thing in prison. At Baumettes, at the time of filming, it was a 1.5 hour walk per day. The rest of the time, the detainees live 10:30 p.m. on 24 in their 9 m2 cells. So when you come out of Baumettes, what do you do?
Society
The Baumettes prison historic site opens its gates before its destruction
Society
A LREM deputy visits the Baumettes prison and finds that "there is no photo" with the old building
- Video
- Marseilles
- Documentary
- Jail
- Baumettes