New documentary offers sharp glimpse of the life of world-famous Pichon-Rivière
“How to approach someone who introduced psychoanalysis and founded an original theory school called social psychology, a believer in the shared word, someone who didn’t have a penchant for writing and left no written testimony of his work?” wonders Argentine documentary maker Miguel Kohan (Salinas grandes, Café de los maestros) as he refers to the world-famous psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Enrique Pichon-Rivière, the subject of his sharp documentary El Francesito — Un documental (im)posible sobre Enrique Pichón- Rivière.
The answer to such a complex question is actually smartly developed along 85 minutes of insights, observations, testimonies, facts, archive footage, and interviews, all of it turning into an in depth look at the mind and soul of the man who many have wrongly called the Argentine Sigmund Freud. Wrongly because Pichon-Rivière was born to French parents in 1907 in Switzerland, was naturalized an Argentine and died in Buenos Aires in 1977. From his very early years to his golden years, the documentary sensitively focuses on some key aspects in the shaping of a personality that would leave an unparalleled humanistic and historical legacy.
To begin with, Pichon-Rivière’s parents embraced a modern lifestyle, had socialist ideals, deplored racism and sexism, rebelled against well-established cultural norms, and loved the works of Rimbaud and Baudelaire — much of this progressive imprint was to be found later on in the persona and work of Pichon-Rivière himself. When he was only three, his family fist moved to Buenos Aires, then to Santa Fe, and finally to the small town of Goya, in the province of Corrientes. So he spent his entire childhood under the strong influence of the Guarani indigenous culture, and learned to speak French first, then Guaraní, and finally Spanish.
He began his medical studies at age 24, first in Rosario and then in Buenos Aires. He was passionate about psychiatry and psychoanalysis as well, yet from a very free, non-standardized and interpersonal perspective. Which, among other things, meant he was constantly under attack from extreme right-wing groups while serving as chief of admissions at the Borda Mental Hospital. In the 1940s, he became one of the founding members of the Argentine Association of Psychoanalysis (APA) then in the 1950s he helped create the first private school of social psychology and the Argentine Institute of Social Studies (IADES).
Now you’d think that by knowing the facts, theories, and ideas regarding a man of science, you’d know what matters the most about such a man. In a sense, you would. But not entirely. For it’s in the human, more intimate side where the complexity of a person is to be found. Kohan is surely more than aware of this and so his interviews with those who knew Pichon-Rivière — from his son Joaquín Pichon Rivière to historian Horacio Carbone, psychologist Alfredo Moffatt, cinematographer Juan José Stagnaro, visual artist Guyla Kosice — primarily address those aspects you can’t know from reading textbooks. You can also think of the film as an inspired essay on Pichon-Rivière’s sense of ethics and you would be right.
Also, great attention is paid to the influence of the Guaraní culture during his childhood since matters of language, reality and representation are at play here. Kohan himself hotographed some dreamy images of the natural landscapes in Corrientes, which are soothing and slightly hypnotic at once. Images that ask you to draw a picture of a man of unique colours.
Production notes
El Francesito — Un documental (im)posible sobre Enrique Pichón-Riviere (Argentina, 2016). Written, directed and produced by Miguel Kohan. With Joaquín Pichon Rivière, Alfredo Moffatt, Ana Quiroga, Juan José Stagnaro, Estela Baistrocchi, Vicente Zito Lema, Kosice, Horacio Carbone. Cinematography: Miguel Kohan. Editing: Rosario Cervio. Running time: 85 minutes.
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