12 Jours review – a devastating glimpse into broken souls

Raymond Depardon’s documentary follows a judge who must decide whether psychiatric hospital patients can be allowed back into societyA young woman stares across a table at the judge who is reviewing her case. Her gaze is both searingly intense and curiously blank. Holding herself preternaturally still, muscles tensed against the turmoil of emotions, she pleads to see the two-year-old daughter who has been removed from her care. “Not all the time, I accept that. But just to change her