States of Mind (2007)

A nurse and three mental patients take turns playing the lead roles in four stories told over four seasons. Their world within the rooms and hallways of the psychiatric clinic is at once brutally honest, tragic, and poetic. Moving through summer, autumn, winter, and spring, we are presented with the stories of four individuals moving through crisis, waiting, normalization, and adjustment. Elements of their previous lives and of their current daily adventures are told with the lightness of a fairy tale or the playfulness of a game, but without omitting the harshest and most melancholic aspects of their existence. Melodies performed on violins, accordions, and wind instruments shift between themes of childhood nostalgia and sombre laments, while long contemplative shots of time spent in their institutional environment are contrasted with open and direct confessions of their darkest doubts and their most intimate desires. Each character is presented alongside his or her compatriots in the institution: fellow patients, caseworkers and nurses. States of Mind transforms the usual formula of the film on social marginalization into a delicate and ironic story in which the protagonists seem to be more like circus personalities than mental patients: lion tamers, clowns, ballerinas and acrobats.