“Hello Asylum”, a remedy against the madness of the world

Hello Asylum **

by Judith Davis

French film, 1 h 49

In 2019, Judith Davis burst onto the film scene with All That I Have Left of the Revolution, inspired by a show created several years earlier with her collective of actors called The Advantage of the Doubt. This film mixed autobiographical elements and reflections on the times in a funny and lively comedy about the loss of ideals in which she played the main role. It was while working with her troupe on a new show Encore plus, partout, tout le temps that she had the idea for this new film in which she mocks with great derision our anxieties or our blindness, depending on your point of view, in the face of environmental catastrophe.

She plays Jeanne, a young urbanite and community activist from Montreuil who goes to meet her friend Elisa for a few days, who has moved to the countryside with her husband and children to live in accordance with her ecological convictions. But in the countryside as in the city, Elisa bears the entire mental burden of the household and does not have a minute to devote to her friend. Out of spite, Jeanne will claim lodging in a neighboring third place, installed in an old manor. For his part, Amaury, a real estate developer who seeks to conform at all costs to the model of success of his industrialist in-laws, wants to transform the place into a luxury hotel.

All these people will converge on this unusual place, called HP (for permanent hospitality), and, under the benevolent leadership of its inhabitants, become aware of "the madness of the world" and its submission to the dictates of the time. It's completely crazy, sometimes hilarious, sometimes a bit crazy as the actors sometimes seem to be freewheeling. Like Nadir Legrand in the role of Amaury (his real name is Didier), who doesn't hesitate to load up his character's boat, or Mélanie Bestel as a hysterical heiress obsessed with her body.

But Judith Davis leads the story at a cracking pace and sketches our contemporary neuroses with great humor, mocking both the lifestyle of neo-rurals and those who continue to build concrete without complexes under the pretext of living an experience "in harmony with nature". The passage through the HP, a sort of small-scale ZAD, will make them reconnect with their childlike soul and allow them to find serenity through a form of collective utopia.