People in White

People in White was the most artsy films that I watched during the festival. I missed the director's introduction of the film, which could have potentially helped better prepare me for the film that I was about to watch. It's not that the premise was difficult to understand, it was just the style and pacing that was different from typical documentaries that kind of made me confused. It was almost feature film-esque in its approach.
So, the director wanted to hear from clients of mental health care facilities about their experiences. And of course, given the topic it was a little heavy. And of course, keep in mind that basically all of the films that I'd seen in the festival so far were comedies and/or uplifting.
The film was a series of vignettes acting out memories of the patients, interspersed with them sitting in a circle (like they were sitting in a circle sharing their memories) starting and ending the narrations of their memories. The vignettes were acted out in a mental health care facility and the sharing sessions took place there as well.
My biggest confusion was who was playing what role. Some vignettes seemed to have another participant acting out the narrator's experiences as the patient him/herself and then the narrator would act out the role of the mental health care worker. Other times, it was two participants that would act out the scene and then the narrator would be separate. At the beginning, you're not introduced to who's who in the film, so I wasn't actually sure if maybe it was the filmmakers who were playing the mental health care professionals and the participants were acting our their own memories. And there were moments that different professionals would do mini-soliloquies. So I was confused.
The end credits are great though. I don't want to tell you about them, because I'm hoping that you'll watch the film.
I think the premise of the film was interesting, but I have to say that I didn't learn much from the film. Usually, I think of documentaries as educational films of sorts and this one really just seemed like a feature film version of true story. Does that even make sense?
I think the film was a little too bizarre for me. It was cool to see and I don't regret watching it, but I don't think that it's my favorite movie of all time.

- picture courtesy of www.hotdocs.ca