World famous for its Pineapplemonumental multicolored sculptures, and her performance works fired with rifles – the bullets punctured pockets of paint which spread on canvases – Niki de Saint Phalle (1930-2002) was raped by her father at the age of 11 years old. But she has no memory of it. Until married and mother of a little girl, she moved away from her family and America to settle in France. Recurring discomfort, inexplicable anxiety attacks and incoherent scenes from his childhood invade him.
Centered on this critical period, the delicate biopic devoted to it by Céline Sallette offers a striking clinical picture of the symptoms that can affect a victim of sexual violence. Installed in Paris, apparently happy, in love and fulfilled, the young woman surprises herself, for example, by running away in fear in front of certain paintings and statues during an innocuous visit to a museum. Gradually, in her everyday life, her stress level reaches such an extent that she begins to hide knives under her clothes. As if to defend oneself from invisible dangers. Under the mattress of the marital bed, there is even a whole arsenal that her husband will discover.
But Niki is not crazy. She knows it. And will repeat it several times, in particular to one of his therapists with questionable ethics. “What she feels, the symptoms that attack her, are the perfectly expected consequences after a trauma linked to sexual violence. His condition has nothing to do with madness,” comments Dr. Muriel Salmona. “It is also very consistent that memories linked to what she suffered, coming from her memory without her really having access to it, come back to her briefly, in flashes, precisely at the moment when she finally far from the attacker, from the places where the rape took place, and from the entire family context,” points out the psychiatrist.
If Niki is cut off from these memories, it is because she suffers from traumatic amnesia. “The child she was felt such violent stress, produced by her cerebral amygdala, and so recurrent, since she remained confronted with her incestuous father for years, that, to survive, her brain had no no other recourse than to cut all connection with the emotional circuit and with these famous memories. This is often the case when it comes to incest involving a child,” explains Muriel Salmona.
“This survival reaction of the brain of course has consequences: the victim is then in a traumatic dissociative state. And his body undoubtedly, at the time of the events, secreted powerful drugs, equivalent to morphine and ketamine, which could have aggravated the mental confusion overwhelming the children in such an inconceivable, unthinkable and frightening situation. But it is only thanks to this dissociation that they can survive such extreme stress. »
The “split screen”, a metaphor for on-screen dissociation
To illustrate the state of traumatic dissociation, Céline Sallette repeatedly uses the split screen or “split screen in two”. Sometimes a flashy gadget, this visual artifice has never been so relevant as in this film. On one side, Niki, with a domestic worker behind her who tries to comfort her. On the other, the rest of the little family and its toxic atmosphere. Or, on one side of the screen, the little girl rocking in her chair, and, on the other, a close-up of the father’s mouth eating, and who has in fact “devoured” his daughter.
When her brain is reconnecting to the emotions felt during the attack, she tries to cut them short and retraumatize herself to dissociate again.
After the rape, life continued, in the family unit, between an unaffectionate mother and her abusive father, very close to her, every day of her life. “Dissociation allows you not to die of stress, but you then live disconnected from your emotions. When they are victims of sexual violence, children generally seem to have not been affected, they continue to play, automatically, and those around them are reassured by this… While in reality they are extremely traumatized », recalls Muriel Salmona. Among the Saint Phalles, the mother is especially annoyed by certain tics and oddities of her daughter. Especially when she covers the penises of Greek statues with lipstick. And finds herself excluded from her school.
About ten years later, in Paris, in the new family universe that the young woman had created for herself, the symptoms exploded. She is cold all the time, gives incongruous and powerful groans, increases the number of panic attacks or tremors. Sometimes she asks her husband to “crush her” by lying on top of her with all his weight. “She wants this physical crushing of her body by that of her husband, this restraint, to end up anesthetizing her. It is a risky dissociative behavior which generally allows a victim to calm down, temporarily, because the flashes and other reminiscences which assail them cause them too much pain. His brain is in fact reconnecting with the emotions felt during the attack. To cut it short, she often tries to retraumatize herself in order to dissociate again,” explains the psychiatrist.
With this art of odds and ends, pieces of broken pots and makeshift adhesives, she tries to put the pieces of her childhood back together.
“And indeed,” she continues, “it works, at the time. But it doesn’t cure. » Just like the electroshock sessions that Niki underwent around ten times in the psychiatric hospital where she was interned at the age of 22. “Again, this has the effect of redissociating the patients, and they seem to get better for a while. You can also shake them or put them under a cold shower. But, most of the time, these methods are mainly used to satisfy those around them who thus find peace… On the patient’s side, this only worsens their condition since they are retraumatized, because of the shocks. »
Interned in the hospital for several weeks, idle and lost, she discovers that she can create and tackles it with strength because she… needs it. With this art of odds and ends, pieces of broken pots and makeshift adhesives, she tries to put the pieces of her childhood back together. Without this making it possible to completely stop reminiscences and risky dissociative behavior. So, after a nightmare in which she sees her father again, this time at the precise location of the attack, she screams and hits her head violently, to chase away these intrusive thoughts.
The moment when we reconnect with ourselves
“The reminiscences are an incredible suffering for the victims because they make them relive the violence suffered as if they were happening again. And yet, these manifestations are the first sign that patients are reconnecting with themselves and regaining their footing. If they are properly taken care of by a therapist at that time, it is possible to do remarkable and rapid work with them, because many elements come back to them and we can relate them to their hitherto incomprehensible symptoms. comments Muriel Salmona. In the 1950s, Niki de Saint Phalle would not have this opportunity.
Like most female victims of rape, the young artist directed the violence of her risky dissociative behavior against herself. “She did not become an aggressor in her turn, as is on average more frequently the case among men in similar situations,” comments the psychiatrist. Was it art that allowed him to free himself from trauma, as we so often hear? The idea is attractive, but undoubtedly reductive. Because there is a key element in Niki de Saint Phalle’s life which was decisive in helping her understand what had happened to her, decipher the facts, escape from traumatic amnesia and find a more peaceful life. Proof, which many child victims have never had the chance to have. And that we will let you discover in this luminous biopic.
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