18/02/2024 - BERLINALE 2024: With courage and poetry, Carmen Jaquier and Jan Gassmann tackle the theme of motherhood, both its darker sides and the consequences of decisions which society struggles to accept

Jointly directed by Carmen Jaquier, who made her name with the extraordinary work Thunder [+see also:
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trailer
interview: Carmen Jaquier
film profile] which has been selected to represent Switzerland at this year’s Oscars, and Jan Gassmann, who was selected for the ACID line-up via 99 Moons [+see also:
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interview: Carmen Jaquier & Jan Gassmann
film profile] - presented in a world premiere at the Solothurn Film Festival and selected for the 74th Berlinale’s Panorama section - is an unflinching movie, offering up a headstrong character who refuses to be forced into a role which clearly doesn’t suit her.

Following the birth of her daughter, Diane (Dorothée de Koon) can’t bring herself to hold her baby in her arms and fails to forge the maternal bond which society insists is innate. As a result, she makes an instinctive decision to abscond from the hospital and sets out on a journey without destination which takes her to Benidorm, a city on the Spanish coast reminiscent of Las Vegas. Paradises of Diane depicts a very particular time in Diane’s life, a moment suspended between reality and hallucinogenic dream where her body and mind let go, perhaps for the first time ever, reconnecting with a long-smothered truth. Accompanying her on this introspective journey is Rose (Aurore Clément), a mysterious woman whom Diane feels is shockingly similar to her. Jaquier and Gassmann’s movie opens a window onto Diane’s inner world, which is characterised by pain but also redemption, hope, anxiety and rebellion.

Society would have us believe that a body considered to be “feminine” is naturally predisposed to procreate, that nothing can undermine a “maternal” instinct essentially seen as innate. Jaquier and Gassmann rebel against these clichés, showing us just how socially constructed the concept of motherhood truly is and foregrounding the great pressure which is exerted on the bodies and minds of those who decide, consciously or not, to embark upon this complex and mysterious adventure. In this sense, Diane’s clothes are a kind of Joan of Arc-style armour which helps her commit to the fight without fear. Her coat, buckled tightly with a belt which pulls in around her waist, and her white roll-neck sweater, which encircles her throat like a noose, become instruments of penitence which induce the semi-mystical state experienced by medieval saints. Diane isn’t sorry to have run away; on the contrary, she didn’t have a choice and she feels this in her bones. The protagonist looks to punish her body. But what she actually does, over the course of various pilgrimages, is sublimate a sin which she knows she hasn’t committed.

The only guide helping the protagonist navigate the streets of Benidorm - populated by eccentric and liberated characters in glacial, mysterious and wintery climes - is her body which is now foreign to her, a body which she wants to repossess. And this tired but never defeated body speaks louder than words, rebelling against brutal changes it refuses to accept because it sees them as constraints. After she has given birth, society seeks to appropriate itself of Diane’s body, insisting she respect rules believed to be universal. But she disobeys, running off in search of a truth hidden just below the surface. The protagonist feels adoration for the state of ecstatic solitude which she has instinctively chosen for herself, a state which allows her to rewrite her own destiny.

Paradises of Diane is a hard to forget and radical film which successfully conveys the complex natures of characters who have chosen to look inside of themselves to the point of the abyss.

Paradises of Diane is produced by 2:1 Film GmbH in co-production with Paraíso Production and RTS Radio Télévision Suisse. The movie is sold worldwide by Dubai-based Cercamon.

(Translated from Italian)