Algerian society has undergone profound upheavals over the last century. It started when colonisation brought two cultures into violent contact. Since 1962, and to an even greater extent over the past ten years, Algeria has continuously been affected by oppositions between tradition and modernity, and between religious values and democratic values-as though by so many sequels or continuations of this conflict between two cultures which, beyond decolonisation, is still going on today, what might be called the unavoidable opening up of each society to the goods and values of other societies.
Taking an interest in what is happening today in the psychiatric department of an Algerian hospital is a way of taking the pulse of this society, while turning away-as though to obtain the necessary perspective-from the dizzy whirl of events and their presentation in the media.
By showing Algerian psychiatrists who have to face up to the slow disintegration of a society, but who are also hurt by the isolation and incomprehension they come up against, the film tries to portray the dominant social malaise in Algeria, and the difficulties the country is facing in attempting to define its collective and national identity.
Directed by Malek Bensmaïl