'Til Madness Do Us Part

'TIL MADNESS DO US PART

FENG AI

by Wang Bing

China, France, Hong Kong, Japan, 2013, DCP, 228', colour, original version with French subtitles

In a mental hospital in Yunnan Province, Wang Bing films the men's section. His camera follows various patients, including a dumb man who has been there for only a short while, another who has been there for 12 years, and another who arrived two years ago. Even through a few nurses make an occasional appearance, patients are mostly left to their own devices. They are bodies who wait, rebel in whatever ways they can, and invent strategies for resistance. A man is given permission to go home to his parents for a short time.

"As is his way, Wang Bing follows closely behind his subject, patiently examining each repeated gesture that could designate the place of a ritual or an obsession in this life in a madhouse. He lets himself be guided, questioned and often forgotten by those whose torments he records – and is only rarely shaken off. He observes this barrack-room life where the inmates are summoned to live together as though in an anarchic chain of visual and sound phenomena."

Julien Gester, Libération, September 2013

An exceptional preview as part of European Museum Night

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