Close your eyes.
Think about your body.
Think about your plexus,
about your pelvis,
about your legs,
about your neck.
Your body is heavy
and warm.
Picture a river,
flowing, slowly.
The wind, in the leaves of trees.
A light breeze
on your skin.
Picture gas
which you fail to turn off,
and you come back.
Picture that girl,
fucking,
and you come back.
Picture that child,
whom you are afraid of hitting,
and you come back.
How was it?
When can we do the next session?
THE GREAT ORDINARY
I'm 13 years old.
My desk must press against the wall in a specific way.
Pressing too heavily is wrong, pressing too lightly is also wrong.
So I fold bits of paper many times
and stuck these wedges between the desk and the wall.
Then, with my pelvis, I hit the desk's corners,
pointing at them whilst counting to 5.
If the wedge is too thin, the desk presses too heavily.
If it's too thick, the desk presses too lightly.
Recently, we emptied the house and sold it.
I went to help with the moving out.
At the end I went to my room, the desk was still there.
and so were the wedges, behind it.
They were so deeply wedged in that they stuck to the wall.
Behind each wedge, a hole.
I'm 16 years old.
One, two... Fuck.
One, two, three, screwed. 1, 2, 3, 4...
When I fill up my moped,
I'm scared that the fuel may come up the thread of the cap,
ooze out and burn me.
One, two, three, four, five...
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, screwed.
I keep screwing and unscrewing the cap
to prove to myself it's safe.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, screwed.
But in doing that, I'm scared of damaging the bike,
that my parents payed for.
When I fill up my moped, I feel I must choose
between dying and disappointing my parents.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, screwed.
I'm 18, I work in Auchan, in the audio-visual department.
All day long, I feel as if my stomach is on fire.
The only way to counter it
is to sort, recite, archive
the last 5, 10 or 15 actions that occurred around me.
Each look, each personal interaction, each sale and each move.
mmm, good.
1, 2, 3, 4 , 5, presses fine.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, fuck!
Come on, fucking do it.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, good.
1, 2, fuck.
I'm 20 years old.
I feel like I'm living two parallel lives.
In theory, I'm what is called a young man with a future.
In practice, I'm like an empty shell busy honoring the OCD god, all day.
One, one...
I have no space left to eat, to give or to act.
Even to think is painful.
I feel punished.
The only way to ease the pain
is to repeatedly recite, repeat and check,
as if to be forgiven.
I discover feelings I didn't think possible
and, progressively, hidden levels of sadness.
...fuck, shit.
Shitty bitch. Shut up! Stop it.
Bitch. Quiet. Stop. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, off.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, off...
Cunt. Bitch. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5...
1,2,3... Shut up the fuck up you cunt.
...Ugly, with their fucking shit kid, their shit dog.
Shut up. Cunt. Bitch.
Shit. Bitch. Shut up. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5...
Listen.
Do you hear that?
It's the story of a...
of two people.
They are told, look:
Here you have a path, full of brambles,
and here another path, of fine sand.
Which one do you choose?
The one who chooses the path with brambles
gleefully discovers that the path ends in fine sands,
and the one who chooses the path with the fine sands
what a dismay, the path ends in brambles.
Voilà.
That story makes me uneasy because...
It's like in The Matrix, you know.
He offers him two pills of different colours, and tells him:
One pill won't be nice but shows the reality,
the other one will be nice but it's fake, it's shit.
Yeah.
I feel that humanity has the illusion that there is a choice,
whereas actually, we take the brambly path
because it's there anyway,
and we just hope for fine sands.
Maybe some are able to start with the sandy path,
but I don't know how they do it.
I see.
In your story, people choose, that's what troubles me.
Yes.
This story doesn't work, this way.
It's too simple.
It misses something.
- Shall we change and go that way? - Yes.
Last time, we came this way.
Maybe we can go near the water, across the fields.
- As you wish. - OK.
Is it heavy?
Yes a bit, but it's fine.
I'm in the library, studying.
I go to the bathroom.
On my way back, I have a doubt.
Did my penis touch the toilet bowl?
Then, another one:
Did that infect me with AIDS?
If put there, it didn't touch
I chase the thought away,
but it comes back.
Then I chase it away, and it comes back.
I take an HIV test, go to the doctor,
give weird phone calls to HIV helplines,
but nothing works.
... Here... Tac, didn't touch.
Four.
It didn't touch. Five.
Then, I fall in love, very much.
When I go over to hers, I feel happy.
So, it takes ages for me to lock the car.
As I climb the stairs,
I'm repeatedly terrified of not loving her anymore.
So I have to prove to myself that I still love her.
When we talk in the evening,
I often have to look in a dictionary, to check the spelling of words.
The worst is when we mention her exes.
The idea of her having slept with other men
is unbearable to me.
But I'm not jealous.
...She's the guilty one, it's bad.
Doing that is bad. No... Yes!
It doesn't matter. If they do it it's good... No!
Tac, he sits there, and touches her like that...
That's good. No, if she does that...
She smiled, this happened, she smiled first,
so she's guilty, it's bad...
At night, before bed,
I write many things in a small orange notebook.
Names of her exes, things about the toilet or AIDS...
In the form of equations prayers or recitation.
I'm going crazy.
Here, are we in the living room?
It's written there...
You’re on your own. I'm outside.
- You're outside of the living room? - I think so.
- So I'm alone. - Yes.
I'm in the... conservatory.
- The conservatory? - Yes.
That’s nice.
In the sun, it's the conservatory.
The shade is the inside of the house, the sun, the conservatory.
Have you been living here for a long time?
Yes, I've always lived here.
Always.
It must be quite challenging to welcome a stranger
into a space where you've always lived.
Well, listen...
The, they...
No.
It's not... It's not easy.
But in life, everything is in its own time.
A time for solace, a significant one,
to learn who one is, to meet oneself.
Then, it is also important to open the door to the other,
to another, a housemate...
A housemate.
Do you feel ready, now, to open the door?
Absolutely, that's why I put an ad...
in the Post office.
It's entertaining.
To be 2... or 3, or...
Is it just entertaining?
Yes.
Well, it allows you to look elsewhere.
I found over-the-counter sleeping pills
and others that I need prescription for.
I don't say anything to the doctor, and he never asks.
That's great.
Once I have the 2 drugs, I put 10 of each in a small box.
My kit.
One night, after work, with my Walkman on,
I walk to the bridge.
I hold the kit tight in my pocket. I wait.
I let obsessions bubble up, hoping they will be so unbearable
that I’ll swallow it all and jump.
But I can't do it.
On the 6th of December 2006, I’m studying in the library.
I discretely repeat sentences.
My head starts slightly rocking.
My hands move.
The more I do the ritual, the more I must do it again.
Back home, I spread the pills in front of me.
I'm in a frenzy.
I swallow a whole box of them, then I start to panic.
I get up and see a picture of my sister and me.
No, I can't do it.
I call an ambulance. I'm scared.
Ambulance, nurses, "Suicide attempt".
The hospital, its rows of lights, the coldness of people.
I feel stupid.
Antidepressants and adrenaline wreak havoc in my body.
My father, mother and sister project anger, sadness and shame.
The doctor says it's not serious.
He speaks fast but still asks me if I need some time in a quiet place.
Seeing my parents' faces, "Yes" is not an option.
I'd better get better quick.
At home, lettuce in a fake wood bowl,
and silence around the table.
We won't talk about that day ever again.
Of course they can't understand.
You can't require that from them.
Now that you are by yourself,
you'll be able to enter your own life.
It will be long, but you'll see:
Some day, you'll hardly remember any of this.
It will be like a scar.
Do you remember the first time you loved?
I remember, the first time
that love made me sad.
I'm not very good at experiencing negative feelings.
Nor positive, actually.
With emotions, generally, it's quite complicated.
But really, to say goodbye,
to end it,
to separate,
is something...
I've been told I do very badly.
I don't know why.
Because in goodbyes, there is like a...
There is loss at the same time as love.
It should be much simpler
for us, humans,
to separate.
To die, as well, should be...
Maybe not. Some say that animals cry,
when their animal friends die.
After a while, I requested a diagnosis from the shrink.
But diagnoses were not his thing.
He said I was experiencing a crisis,
that the problem was my way of being alive.
That's the way you are alive, which doesn't work anymore.
He wouldn't talk about disease.
But I needed to be told about disease because a disease can be cured.
I didn't link the flow of obsessions that wrecked my daily life
to the rituals of my childhood.
I didn't understand anything.
Upon my insisting, he said:
It's OCD based on a delusion of purity
and a lack of maturing experience.
I wanted a quick solution,
to get out of this as quickly as possible.
Do you have your medical card?
Taking drugs is integrating the very idea of madness.
It’s proof, a symptom and a talisman
about the fact that something's wrong.
Luckily I didn't physically suffer from the prescribed treatment.
It wasn't that strong.
Light doses of antidepressants and anti-psychotic drugs,
I hardly felt them.
However, from now on, they'd be with me.
The leaflet reads:
for those who think, see, or hear things that don't exist.
This hits like a punch in the face.
A part of you doesn't exist,
although you truly feel it.
On the other hand, the drug does open space
to take some distance and breathe a bit.
Now, alcohol gets you higher,
mornings are heavier
and shame appears,
especially when friends and family ask in a serious, awkward tone:
"You still take them? Maybe you could give them up?"
So, you hide to pop your pill.
- Recording? - Yes.
Making heaviness with lightness.
- Ready? - Yes.
Yes?
I forgot my keys.
- Hi, then! - Hi, how are you?
Fine. You told me you went to work, it's been 6 years!
Well, your head isn't working well, is it?
Yes! You said you were going... It was 6 years ago...
Then you come back just for your keys.
You'll be gone for another 6 years?
You're talking nonsense, I only left for 5 minutes.
That's not true, in my head it lasted 6 years.
I don't care about your head, it's no reason to shout at me.
Neither is it one to shout at me.
I'm out for 5 min, you think it's been 6 years...
There's something wrong with you! - Yes there is.
- Plus, I'm exhausted. - Where have you been?
I was at work! Toiling away!
- And I was alone... - Ha!
Just do something with your life.
Alright...
And you came back to be mean?
I hate being attacked when I've just come home.
Sorry. How was your 6-year day?
I'm so tired...
I'm exhausted.
I can't anymore.
I don't want to hear anyone, nobody, not a sound.
- But I… - Shhh, Shut up!
So, you? Yes?
You don't want us to talk?
I'll do it because I love you.
Alright.
- What could you do with your life? - I don't know.
This house needs a roof.
That's a good thing to do, for the next 6 years.
You'll leave again?
I'll rest a bit, and tomorrow... Yes.
I'll sleep in the bedroom.
Then again, like every...
When you come back I'll be 48.
Only in your head.
Everything looks so simple in your head.
Well, my head is normal.
Ouch the alarm clock! I have to go.
- I have to go to work. - Alright.
- I was happy to see you. - Me too.
- See you soon, maybe? - See you!
Alright.
Lucie?
- Do you exist or not? - Of course I don't!
Alright.
Have you gone?
Lucie?
At some point, you get into a routine of madness.
You're neither cured nor sick.
It comes and goes.
You find tricks to deal with it.
At parties, surrounded by so much pleasure and desire,
your mission is to hold on.
On your phone, and often in the toilet,
you list rituals, prayers,
hateful images and other insults.
You write them, you sort them.
Most importantly, you mustn't go home having neglected a ritual.
You live 2 parallel nights:
One is fun, the other studious.
A flirt or a joint are enough to double the quantity of notes,
or even force you to leave, when it becomes too much work.
You're known for two things:
Disappearing abruptly for no reason;
sending thousands of messages.
You become a master of dodging and anticipation.
If a departure from home looks stressful,
you anticipate beforehand the way you'll check the gas stove.
You often cook, in order to never do the washing-up
because you take ages
and always break things, scrubbing too much.
If, when tired, moved, or feeling pleasure,
you're not able to deal with the consequences,
you integrate the time lost.
Time spent ruminating, mimicking,
cleaning, writing notes,
using the magic wand and praying aloud.
Then you tell your friends:
I didn't do much, this weekend.
Imagine a ski accident, with a broken bone.
The bone mends itself, the scar closes itself.
Then, in the sun, the scar pulls a bit,
but it doesn't mean that it's broken anew.
The problem is that he sees many people each week.
And although I feel that I often come with new questions,
I see that he often gives me the same answers.
Imagine
that you go skiing, you fall,
and break a bone.
Then it mends itself, it is fixed.
There remains a scar, that,
when exposed to the sun,
causes a slight pain on the skin.
However, it doesn't mean
that the bone inside is broken again.
Although repetition is reassuring,
when you notice the trick behind the magic,
you don't believe in it anymore.
Imagine that... You are skiing.
Suddenly, you ...
But we don't care about skiing!
I don't care about skiing!
What is important, for you to understand, is:
It's going to be alright.
It will be alright, it'll be fine.
Mathieu, what's happening, now? Do you like him or not?
I don't understand.
It's not black or white.
Sometimes his sentences help me feel better,
Sometimes, I'm under the weather...
Wait, I don't understand anything.
You stand up...
We link that to the previous scene.
I 'd like to suggest this:
Imagine you are a lion.
This is your cage, you pace nervously in it.
You say:"I don't get it, do you like this guy or not?"
Then, I reply.
We’ll film it, although we already got it.
And then we keep going.
Let's see how to do it.
I reply : "Blah blah, life is not black and white..."
then you say: "really, I don't get it.
What is it, about him?
You do the relaxations, you talk, but not much..."
With a few sentences, I situate
what "cognitive-behaviorism" is.
"There is relaxation
but also talking..."
In that sentence, I'll insert the word "suitcase".
Then you say : "Wait : What is this suitcase thing?"
You don't know anything about cognitive-behavioral therapy, do you?
If I say behavioral therapy...
Alright, alright...
So, we play on that.
You bring up that you don't know what it is,
with a question.
Yeah, ok.
- I must hear the term, first. - Yes of course.
Actually, let's do this :
"Life is not either black or white."
"Stop it, I don't understand anything."
You stand up and repeat that you don't understand.
"Are you blaming this guy?"
I explain the therapy.
In this scene, basically, you don't get it,
and I try to keep it short.
So, you’re a lion. These are the limits of your cage.
You are not allowed to step out.
You think you can limit me?
- Yes. - Ha!
I sit like that, like a director
and you paw around me.
- Do I get to bite you? - What?
Actors don't bite.
Are we happy? Let's go.
- We’ve got some adjustments to make. - OK.
Have I told you the story of a friend of mine,
who had to keep big cats of a friend of his?
Granny is Mum's mother.
She wishes we'd all love each other, and she loves us.
But her love harmed Mum so much,
that we decided not to see her again.
Mum is strong. She tries to drop the suitcase here
in order to protect herself, and us.
To protect us from Granny.
Granny dwells on many things,
especially on death.
Her small talk consists in listing people who recently got cancer.
As if talking about it was pleasurable.
Granny lives, but doesn't seem to like life.
She raised my Mum telling her she was born out of rape.
She pitted her 2 children one against the other.
She disrupts every conversation, especially when things seem fine.
She acts viciously, then denies it.
Michel, my uncle, bought a house opposite Granny's.
He's divorced and lives there.
He's no doing so well.
Nevertheless, I like him.
I don't know him that much but I feel close to him.
From her window, Granny sees her son's house.
Sometimes she sees that a woman visits my uncle.
With utter disgust and even hatred she tells anyone who listens:
"They must be fucking in there."
Step towards the target.
More.
One small step to the left.
Another.
Step back.
Step forward.
Good.
Sorry, one more to the left.
It's crazy how, in such moments,
The brain and the eyes photograph everything.
I vividly remember my friend and I,
how we sat, what we where doing...
Then, I remember the phone call.
My uncle had shot himself in the head.
I don't remember the rest.
Except that I wanted very strongly
as if I was rebelling,
that the day kept on normally,
and that it probably didn't work.
How is it, inside your house?
Which walls do you have?
Are they strong?
Is it enough, to be strong?
When we are strong...
...are we then hard?
and cold-hearted?
When we shed our illusions...
Can we still love?
Does it come...
...in cycles?
Have we wiped everything, cleared everything,
all the brambles,
to build, arrange things and have fun,
only to trash it all,
to start all over again?
I don't get how my family story becomes, to me, a disease.
A disease in a big dictionary and consecrated by a treatment.
Can a story be cured?
Sure, in my OCD, I read the hatred for women,
that my mother struggled not to pass on to me.
I also read the ubiquity of death.
I meet my uncle, always omnipresent in my obsessions and ruminations.
And I continuously struggle with the impossibility of pleasure.
The matrix of my OCD is not that far from comprehension.
Freudian articles even say
that OCD is the reaction of someone who,
feeling excessively constrained, creates an even stronger constraint
to preserve one's mastery over oneself.
I get lost.
There is the small story, and the big story.
The small story...
...is you: your family, birth,
the first days of school,
teenage, first loves, marriage,
work, death...
The big story...
The big story consists in fundamental images,
that could be described as colours.
Darkness,
fire,
emptyness,
the blue of the sky,
white, immaculate...
Where the two stories meet,
the small story unfolds according to the images of the big story.
And everyone, stands here.
At the intersection.
At the intersection, which way do we go?
What are we doing there?
Imagine that you fall, whilst skiing,
and break a bone.
- IF SOME ADJUSTEMENTS NEED... - The bone repairs itself...
- WE ARE QUITE IN A HURRY - The scar closes itself.
but if the suns shines on it
it can cause some small pulling,
like a light pain around the scar.
- It doesn't mean a new fracture. - OK, JORDIE?
It's a pain that comes back to your memory,
like moves involving a limb broken in the past,
and can, when it rains, be painful.
but this pain is not a new fracture.
It's like, if you go to the swimming pool.
and slip on the wet floor, and get injured,
well, it happens.
So far, there has been no fall.
It all depends on where one falls from.
Maybe we're only in danger of falling from the pavement.
Maybe I only risk falling from the pavement,
but you're in danger of tumbling down the cliff.
We might fall together from the pavement
or from the cliff,
when we reach the wall.
Why do you think about that?
This is my secret. My own private thoughts.
Thoughts I don't tell you
for fear of tearing holes.
Holes in trust, holes in desire,
holes in imagination.
Or maybe you'll say: "that's crazy, me too...
I don't know why I do that, well, I want to do it but...
Sometimes I'm a little scared, actually.
Scared of falling."
You always tell me that there are things to protect ourselves.
Markers on the motorway,
a roof on the bedroom,
swords in the forest,
magic wands on the path...
You always tell me about it.
You may be much more scared than me but I don't know what you think.
I don't know what it's like, in your head.
You made a bramble crown... It must be painful?
- Want to try it on? - No, it suits you.
I made it for you.
I thought that if I came with it on, you wouldn't want...
Yes I do.
So?
Have I told you about my son?
He has been quite eventful...
We thought he'd have a regular life.
Overnight, he went to Malaysia.
He's a translator, there.
He's got 2 children.
Really?
When I was a student, I was an activist, somewhat like you.
Protests, meetings...
Sleeping bags in lecture halls...
Those were good years.
During these good years,
did you also meet so many women who had been assaulted by men?
You know,
I'm not proud to be a man either.
Cut!
It's the first time, because I'm tired after 7 retakes,
it's the first time that I had to imagine the other doctor
facing me in order to act
but it wasn't possible anymore, he had become "the shrink",
It wasn't him anymore...
How do you feel, playing the psychiatrist?
I like it, because I make a mix
in which I integrate what you told me about yours
and the 2 ones I know, who are very different.
I feel like I'm making my own mix of them.
One was always behind you on the couch,
Very analytical.
With the other one, we always ended up laughing like hyenas.
The weird thing is that we acted some sentences today
which were, in my head, like magical mantras.
For example when he says: "I'm not proud to be a man."
When he used to say that, in my head, the lights would dim,
he would climb on an altar, and pronounce it...
By staging it as something to act, I realised
that the most effective was the representation I had of it.
He actually only said : "Yes, some men are stupid",
not much more...
It demystified several things.
So, by rewriting him...
you distanced him from you.
and even yourself from your projection of him at the time.
Now, he'll wear this shirt, it will all blend somehow.
My images don't come from nowhere.
My racist thoughts don't come from nowhere.
My misogynistic insults don't come from nowhere.
My homophobic conjurations don't come from nowhere.
Facing the suffering that comes with them,
means deconstructing, understanding them.
This is not just a symptom to fix,
it's the manifestation of the big story,
the deep inquiry into the fake bottom of the suitcase.
This is not about blaming society for the OCD,
It's rather that society speaks through the OCD,
and that its breath stinks.
Freud says your life will be poor, diminished and rigid.
I see richness
in browsing my OCD like all the books
I wish I could have read.
I long believed that counting to 5
could confine dangers and questions.
Once I learned to use it less often,
I felt like I was standing next to the world,
and that going back to normality would be betraying oneself.
To forsake the ugliness I met in nonsense
would be betraying myself.
It's about holding on.
- Careful, let's step back, now... - Do you want a lighter?
- ... keep the fuel far away... - Yes.
Are we far enough?
- Are you ready to film? - Yes, recording.
Recording? It'll be beautiful...
- Can we do another take? - That’s going to be tricky.
Fuck, it's so nice and beautiful.
You know they used to burn witches?
- Sorry? - They used to burn witches.
Do you see a witch in there?
If there really was one, she'd be in a lot of pain.
I see her in the middle. Can you see?
Yes, we can see her.
One rarely speaks about sorcerers,
but I think you'd have been one.
Why?
Because you’re a weirdo…
I think you also would have been a witch.
Maybe, but I'm hiding as a…
…caregiver.
Caregivers have found the trick not to get burned.
That's true.
We spent a week talking about it, but I don't know...
I feel there remains something unresolved:
When you are burning, It doesn't mean I'm burning too.
And when I'm burning, you're not necessarily burning too.
We spent a week searching each other, but I don't know if we burn together.
Actually, nowadays, you are burning more than I am,
I don't know If I can live up to it.
I'm not sure what it means, to care for someone.
It's hard to care for more than oneself.
I invited you here this week, because I needed you,
but I don't know if there was a space for you.
It's a fucking challenge, almost a crusade,
a total utopia, to make space for the other.
I wish there was space for you.
I'd like to make space for you...
But where?
I totally have my own space.
I don't need you.
Maybe you're right.
Space must be made for...
...for you.
We'll have to close this space.
Maybe the voice in the head never stops.
2 people together, mustn't give everything away.
We must keep a cleared space,
and a space still with the brambles.
You don't exist yet, you haven't even started.
However, you are truly present in both our heads.
I've read that OCD could be partly hereditary.
I didn't need to read to notice
that a thread of anxiety runs through the family.
Your potential mother also has issues.
She's had 3 acute psychotic episodes.
Enough, for some shrinks, to prove schizophrenia.
Sometimes we joke and imagine that you'll think you're the messiah
and that your main power will be counting to 5.
Sometimes, less jokingly, I fear that at 18, you come crying to tell me
that you constantly think about the same things.
My only certainty is that
having been loved even too much or awkwardly,
enables me, in turn, to love today.
So we promise you triple rations of love, support and understanding.
whether you have OCD, schizophrenia,
none of it, all of it, or anything else.
Even if we can't protect you from everything,
we'll always help you go through your own madness.
Shut up!
Shut up. shut up fucking fag.
Fuck. Shit... Shut up!
You're shit, bitch. Shut up!
Fucking bitch. Shit. shut up!
Shit. Bitch.
You cunt, shut up.
Cunt. Fuck. You bitch.
Shut up! Dirty old shit.
Bitch, shut up. Bitch, shut up.
Shut up, you shit.
Eat shit. Cunt. Bitch.
You shit cunt. Black shit. shut up!
Cunt. Ugly with their fucking shit kid and shit dog.
Shut up. Bitch.
Of course. Fuck. Shit.
Christmas tree bag, dirty bitch bag...
Shut up!
Mathieu stop, stop... Shut up!
Hello. Cunt. Bitch.
Stop...
THE GREAT ORDINARY
You black shit, just piss off!
Piss off you all, bitch, piss off!
Shit bitch... Shut up, stop it!
Stop it. These guys they...
Bitch. Whore...