Musings About a Clubfoot
What the French movie Ma mère, Dieu et Sylvie Vartan means to me
After asking myself whether I could handle the images in the film Ma mère, Dieu et Sylvie Vartan, which were supposed to show a clubfoot on screen—when since childhood I’ve struggled to read any text containing those two words and shiver when I hear them—I decided to go see it. To understand what goes on in the mind of a family where one of the children is born with this disability, how the medical community would treat the foot, and what consequences it would have for the child as they grow into adulthood.
Roland was born in 1963 into a Jewish family of Moroccan origin. In the delivery room, the mother learns what is now usually discovered through prenatal ultrasounds: her son has a deformity. His right foot is a clubfoot, meaning it is twisted inward and downward, in a position known in medical jargon as “equinovarus.” For a long time, I believed I had a clubfoot myself, as my own medical reports also mention “equinovarus.” I was mistaken. Our feet looked similar, but while clubfoot has no known origin, mine became equinovarus as a result of neuromuscular weakness.
This film, which portrays a mother’s struggle to help her son walk, sheds light on different strategies for dealing with disability.
Denying the Disability
Roland undergoes three surgeries at birth. In a housing project in the 13th arrondissement of Paris, he grows up crawling. His height is measured by how tall he sits on the floor. His parents carry him in their arms when going out. Against her husband’s advice, Esther refuses the orthotics recommended to help her son walk without worsening his deformity—even if it means depriving him of the schooling other children his age enjoy. Even if it harms the child’s development and exploration of the world, according to the social worker who pays the family frequent visits. Unconcerned by neighbors’ judgments. Because Esther is certain: Roland will walk and have a good life. She prays for a miracle. Hard to believe—religious beliefs aside—how can you begin a normal life (the word normal is not used in the film; by it, I refer to the most frequent social behaviors) in such an abnormal way?
Wholehearted, devoted, stubborn, the mother embodies an essential dilemma: does acknowledging a disability mean accepting it? She chooses denial—for example, when speaking to a doctor:
“– The shorter leg…
– What shorter leg?”
Throughout Roland’s life, she begs him not to talk about his “sick foot.” Esther signs him up for dance lessons and lashes out at the teacher who sees him as disabled. Allow me a grateful digression: when the former says to the latter, “you’re wasting our time,” what strength must she have instilled in her son for him to persist in his artistic path! It’s so easy to let those words enter our heads, hold us back, shame us—even when no one has actually said them out loud—when we’re different.
What’s interesting about Esther is that she doesn’t take the expected anti-victimhood stance. She doesn’t ask her son not to feel sorry for himself. The only people she lectures are outsiders meddling in the life of a boy she knows better than they do. She is driven by unyielding character and… hope.
Believing in Miracles
Life proves this woman right, as she continually prays to God that Roland will walk. Eventually, she hears of a bonesetter (“rebouteux”, according to the dictionary, “a person without medical training who claims to heal fractures, dislocations, and pain using empirical methods”) who has worked wonders on other children. She decides to try his method: a year and a half of immobilization for the six-year-old boy in a brace with splints connected to his foot by straps, meant to realign it.
Braces! That’s when I got confused. I thought Esther didn’t want orthotics. I wish I knew exactly which kind she had refused. As with several moments in the film, the technical details of Roland’s clubfoot are only hinted at—suggestive, yes, but vague. One can only suppose that the assistive devices recommended by doctors were heavy and unsightly. Hidden in the family’s living room, as long as he isn’t seen or perceived as disabled, Roland can try everything.
Illegal as it may have been, the bonesetter’s intervention works, Roland stands up and begins to walk. Anyone who’s ever had their wrist, teeth, ankle… straightened with splints or metal gear knows that the progress made with Roland’s right leg isn’t a “miracle.” In truth—and this is the extraordinary part of this nearly sixty-year-old story—it was a mother’s perseverance that triumphed, when she could so easily have failed. Today, medicine has advanced and offers rapid, highly effective care for children born with one or two clubfeet.
Against medical expectations, the young man leads a perfectly ordinary life. He plays tennis and studies law. The peculiarities of his leg, ankle, or foot are never explained (again, the hints are too vague for me!). Does he wear high-top, custom-made shoes to account for a different shape or shorter size? What does he hide under his pants? What kind of follow-up care, if any, does he need? Several people ask: Does he limp? He always says he doesn’t.
Talking About the Disability
In this talkative family, speech doesn’t equal communication. The refusal to let the topic of disability surface gradually becomes, seemingly unconsciously, a burden to let go of. Although Esther didn’t want Roland to mention it at school or in his romantic relationship, she ends up contacting one of his university professors to ask for leniency during an exam; later, she wants to reveal everything. The awarding of the Republic’s Medal of Honor to Esther by President Chirac becomes a kind of revenge for “years of mockery and repressed shame.”
Roland doesn’t tell his girlfriend about his disability until she sees it as he gets out of bed (but what exactly does she see? Again, the film’s hints are too unclear for me):
“– What happened to you?
– Sorry, I should have told you.
– It’s not a problem for me.”
“Should” Roland have told her before she discovered it herself? But when? How? With what nuances? These are questions faced by people whose disability is neither entirely visible nor entirely invisible when they begin romantic, friendly, or even professional relationships. Sometimes people dare to ask, and then you feel brave enough to answer. Sometimes the topic gets buried, postponed, or brushed off if asked. Sometimes you’re afraid of being rejected if you say it too soon. Or if you say it at all. But those who truly love you will always say: “It’s not a problem for me.”
There’s one thing I missed in this film: Roland’s point of view. Paradoxically, he narrates (voiced by Jonathan Cohen) his story from beginning to end. But I wish I knew whether he would have wanted to walk earlier, even with braces. He had been trying to stand up when alone in the hallway. I wanted to know what he felt during his first steps (we only really see the mother’s emotion). I wanted to know how he feels today.
Parents make decisions for their children because they’re too young to know what’s good for them. My three weekly rehab sessions, my day-and-night braces, my father reminded me, were the furthest thing from my mind when I was six. Roland listened to Sylvie Vartan to pass the time; I hung out with my friends. Our loved ones shared the same intuition: life isn’t just about the disability.