Plaisir en France
Bitter irony of language… Les Petits Prés (small meadows) in Plaisir (pleasure) in the Yvelines department, is the name of a long-term stay institution for people of twenty, forty or sixty with no place to go – former inmates of childrens’homes, people suffering from mental or social handicaps. For the majority, entering the hospital means a life sentence. There’s no escape once you are in. Christian Laurent, brought here by his mother at the age of seventeen, describes the emptiness and despair in a place where he only awaits death. Only three couples formerly in the institution, manage to encounter the world outside : Jean-Claude, Marie-Louise and the others learn to take their lives in charge : tenderness and love gave them back a taste for life. But they have not forgotten the terrible years spent in the Petits Prés.
Né en 1935, mort en 1995, Bernard Cuau a été avocat, écrivain, homme de théâtre, journaliste, critique de cinéma, enseignant. Il a travaillé avec Pierre Schaeffer au Service de la Recherche de l’ORTF.
Il a réalisé :
– Nanterre un jour
– La Saisie, 1983
– Paroles d’homme, 1984
– Mais les mots comptent beaucoup, 1985
– L’Affaire Riesmann, 1989
– C’est un homme qui n’a jamais existé, 1991
– Slansky, 1994
– Les mots et la mort, 1995
CNRS Images; Bernard Cuau; Fémis
Eva Houdova
Dominique Lambert; Jean-Luc Audy
Jozef Ort-Šnep; Jérôme Blumberg