Les Yeux verts, fantasy drama about resignation syndrome
A French film that blends politics, imagination and a little-known mental disorder affecting refugee children.
Les Yeux verts by Fanny Liatard and Jérémy Trouilh, released five years after Gagarine, immerses the viewer in the daily life of Chaya, a young refugee girl living in the Landes. When a return to Iraq threatens her brother Nour, he falls into a coma. Chaya discovers that the only way to wake him is to enter his dreams. The film introduces resignation syndrome, a real dissociative disorder that mainly affects asylum-seeking children. The directors learned of this phenomenon while viewing a photo exhibition by Tomek Kaczor, where two sisters had been asleep for several years. According to AlloCiné, this investigation uncovered hundreds of similar cases over the past twenty years.