L'Ordre - Jean Daniel Pollet (1973)

In Spinalonga, an island along Creta, a group of ill people were enclosed for many years in order for them to die away from the gaze of the healthy people. Afterwards, the leprous were transferred to a hospital near Athens. Listening to the story of the one of the ill who speaks without any rancour and rage, the camera enters the halls, the corridors, and the ruins of the abandoned prisons while a voice over comments to the second person singular the phenomena of social exclusion: «The leprous of doctors is order».

Jean-Daniel Pollet was born the 20th of June 1936 at La Madellaine (Lille). At the age of 19 during military service, he shot Pourvu qu'on ait l'ivresse in a popular dance room in the outskirts of Paris by himself, where he met Claude Melki, a non professional actor discovered by chance, who would become essential for Pollet's work. During the University years, he encountered Philippe Sollers, Jean Thibaudeau and other writers of the Nouveau Roman and the Tel Quel group, all sharing the same admiration for Francis Ponge. Ponge's The voice of things expresses the aesthetical belief of Pollet all throughout his work, arriving to the direct homage represented in Dieu sait quoi (1992-93). In 1959 he makes La Ligne de mire by which he will be considered the cadet of Nouvelle Vague. In 1963 travelling through the Mediterranean he will get inspiration for the following films Bassae, Une balle au coeur, Tu imagines Robinson, L'Ordre e Trois jours en Gréce. The second tendency of the "Melki line" after Pourvu qu'on ait l'ivresse, is followed by Gala and the episode from Paris vu par (Rue Saint-Denis), to finish with L'Amour c'est gai, l'amour c'est triste (shot after May 68), and L'Acrobate (1975). Survival in a railway accident, and remaining disabled, his house becomes the set where he creates his masterpiece Dieu sait quoi.