Filmmaker and UBC professor Antoine Bourges’ first feature film, Fail to Appear, is a striking commentary on the shortcomings of Canadian legal systems’ dehumanizing and disempowering approaches to the mental health crisis.
Eric Edwards (played by Nathan Roder) has been charged with theft under $500 and failure to make a court appearance. The film goes on to explore the relationship between Eric and his caseworker Isolde Maxwell (Deragh Campbell), creating a poignant commentary on the limits of empathy under a dehumanizing legal system.
In a dimly-lit, beige basement suite where slivers of midday sun seep through a window, Eric, eyes closed and body tense, dances his fingers along the neck of his violin. Bach’s Violin Partita No. 3 in E major fills the space. But, as quickly as it begins, the music ceases, and he returns to how the institution perceieves him: as a diagnosis, and as a court case.
Bourges is a master of realist cinema, blurring the distinction between documentary and fiction. Most of the cast, rather than being professional actors, have firsthand knowledge of the mental health system and its shortcomings. Bourges drew inspiration from coffee shop conversations he observed between caseworkers and their clients.
“[The conversations] seemed casual, like [between] friends, but actually there was something that felt a bit formal about it,” Bourges said after a screening. It played at a stunning closing night for Cinema Thinks the World, a free public film screening and discussion series at UBC’s Robson Square campus that brings scholars, filmmakers and cinephiles together. “I became very interested in the kind of relationship that exists between these people and the roles that guide that and where these relationships start.”
Fail to Appear pulls at the issue of distance, which is visible through Isolde’s and Eric’s interactions. In a busy coffee shop, Eric confides to Isolde why he left the electronics store without paying.
“I waited for a really long time [for assistance] and no one came,” Eric speaks slowly and with a glazed expression. Twiddling his hands, Eric delivers one of the most powerful lines of the film. “I thought if I left that they would notice, so … I left."
His caseworker Isolde is a failed literature major with an powerful drive to understand others, a purpose she hopes to fulfill in her new job. On the other end of the table, her mannerisms demonstrate an impulse to feel what Eric is feeling. But as his story unfolds, Isolde realizes that empathy cannot fill the emotional or situational distance between them.
The film’s structure and pace prompt viewers to ponder less about what is being said and more about what is not being said.When characters exist off-set or exit the scene, the camera stills a few seconds too long for comfort, panning to white noise and an empty setting .
Absence is a consistent theme that metaphorizes the systematic failure of individuals and organizations to meaningfully and empathetically show up for those in need when it counts.
What Isolde lacks is an ability to see Eric as a person rather than a case. Meanwhile, Eric’s character is fundamentally liberated from the institutionalized labels that undermines who he is.
At its core, Fail to Appear aims to break the stigma around mental health to promote more empathy in public institutions that is necessary for structural change.
The more we are addressed by our labels, the less we feel seen and heard, and the less we are likely to enter a room in the first place.