Our Lucky Hours

Our Lucky Hours

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Status

Released

Release Date

Apr 20, 2022

Runtime

1h 17m

Genres

Documentary

User Score

50%

Original Title

Les Heures heureuses

Production Companies

Les Films du Tambour de soie

Director

Martine Deyres

Description

45,000 patients died in French psychiatric hospitals between 1939 and 1945. A single site escaped this carnage: the asylum in Saint-Alban, an isolated village in Lozère. What happened there for it to be an exception? Retracing several decades in the history of this important site of psychiatry, using precious archival films and the accounts of those who worked there, Martine Deyres answers this question and, in doing so, shows how the political courage and poetic audacity that were practised there contributed to changing medicine and society’s perception on madness. Intersecting in the crucible of this movement called “institutional psychotherapy” were members of the Resistance, artists, doctors and philosophers—including Paul Eluard, Tristan Tzara and Georges Canguilhem.