Des morts entre les mains (2020)

• 82%
• 2020
• Camille Vidal-Naquet

A gigantic hangar located in Paris's 19th arrondissement could easily be mistaken for a firehouse. It is has emergency-response vehicles, a dining hall, a gym, locker rooms, etc. This place, however, is none other than the depot of the Services Funéraires de la Ville de Paris (the city of Paris's funeral unit). Porters employed by this public funeral home work in the hangar seven days a week. At any hour of the day, they set out to pick up and transport the dead. Our dead. In a society no longer willing to touch or even to see the dead, these workers in the shadows come in constant contact with dead bodies. Bodies in all states, bodies in situations that we cannot fathom. Day and night, in private and in public settings, these porters confront what we never see, that which we do not wish to see. And yet nothing diminishes their professionalism. Together, in teams, with unflagging solidarity, challenged by the high number of deaths in the capital, they steadfastly carry out their job with practically no oversight. A job "like any other job".