Her Name is Sabine (dir. Sandrine Bonnaire)

I watched Her Name is Sabine fairly recently and was reminded of it again when I saw The Devil And Daniel Johnston. Sabine is autistic and her sister (a famous French actress) decided to make a documentary about her using old family Super 8 footage of life at home and on holidays and new footage of her in an institution where she now resides. Like the footage of Daniel when he was young, Sabine seems full of life and creativity but through being institutionalised and on heavy quantities of medication, both are now really overweight , slack-jawed and vacant looking. Both documentaries are careful to explain that because they each became increasingly violent and delusional, there was no other option than these treatments at the time. However, knowing that your sister has been isolated and in a straightjacket must have caused some feelings of guilt. Sabine is now in a much better care home but the damage caused by the years in the institution and the drugs have caused irreparable damage. Her sister, who made the film, is lobbying politicians to provide a different and better kind of care for people with conditions such as autism. For a first-time documentary maker, it was a good, well-structured film. It had some great moments of humour which for an emotional and troubling film like this, especially when the maker is so close to the subject, is a difficult thing to achieve. I like that it focused so closely on Sabine and her immediate surroundings and day to day life, of those who care for her and the other people in the home and, at least within the film, they are not used as fodder for a national debate.