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the Stockholm syndrome 

With Olivier Bardin, with Janine Taxier and Jacques Taris, Angoulême, 2001 

In a small dark-walled bedroom, on the first floor of the house, some forty people, family and friends, 
take it in turns to answer the question : When did you feel like a child for the first time ? 
They are sitting on a small orange school chair. The answers are filmed. 
 

“This syndrome crops up among hostage victims, after their confinement, and is constructed on the basis 
of three criteria: the development of a sense of confidence in or even sympathy for their kidnappers 
by the hostages ; the reciprocal development of a positive feeling on the part of the kidnappers 
for their hostages ; and the appearance of hostility in the victims towards the forces of order. 
So that this syndrome can come to the fore, the aggressor must be capable of an ideological conceptualization 
sufficient to be able to justify his act in the eyes of his victims; in addition, there must not be any ethnic 
antagonism, or racism, or any feeling of hatred in the aggressors for their hostages. Positive contacts 
may be established betweem kidnappers and hostages, who, together, live through an « exceptional situation ».” 
Dr. Eric Torres, Virginie Grenier-Boley. 
 

Claudine — A precise memory, a precise situation, I don’t see any. 
Annabel — Now perhaps ? 
— (laughter) Yes, but it’s not necessarily a good memory because I get the impression, 
  it’s quite hard… so, yes, it brings back situations… a bit… where I have to answer questions… 
  yes, account for things… there, but okay (silence). I’m boring you, aren’t I ? 
— Not at all ! 
— I’ve seized up… I’ve seized up ! 
— Sometimes you need time, too, it wasn’t obvious, it’s a matter of… 
— Yes, it’s true that… for me, it’s especially embarrassing !… (silence)
  But it’s not necessarily a happy moment ? 
— Yes, it’s not always nice being a child. 
— And if I can’t find one, what’ll we do ? 
— We’ll wait. 
— Do I absolutely have to find something ? […] If, in the end, when I’m in my garden in fact,
  it draws me to… The garden actually reminds me of the garden of my house… of my parents. 
  Yes. There, I was good, it’s true. […] Yes. There, that’s what we’ll say.