At the Berlin Film Festival earlier this year, Romanian director Radu Jude's large-scale controversial work won the Golden Bear Award in one fell swoop, and at the Oscars that ended last month, there was also a Roman film with great splendor, which was also shortlisted for the best international film. And the two categories of best documentary feature film, although they lost one after another, they did not lose the strong impact of Romanian films on the film industry. The rise of the movie boom. Radu Jude's "Capital Print" and "Train Out" and last year's Sundance award-winning "Akasa, My Home" are some of the Romanian documentaries that have gained international distinction in recent years . This "Collective" was the most eye-catching one last year. It has gained a lot in the Oscars season, and it has even appeared on the annual lists of many film critics and magazines.
The title of the film is a bar in Romania, and the documentary is about a fire that occurred in the bar in 2015, which ultimately claimed the lives of 27 people, and then 37 burn patients died of postoperative infections. This fire burned out the backwardness and corruption of the Romanian medical system, as well as the chaos of government management and unknown power and money transactions. Ultimately, the medical scandal forced the then Romanian government to step down and replace it with a new wave of managers until the next general election.
This documentary was shot not long after the medical scandal broke out. It first followed the point of view of a sports reporter to uncover the various lies that covered up the truth by the minister of health at the time: questions were asked at press conferences, and evidence was collected in newspapers. report on. The hospital's burn department lacked equipment and manpower, and was unable to deal with such a large number of patients. What was even more frightening was that the reporter found that the disinfectant was diluted, which led to the relationship between the hospital's top management and the drug company's internal bribery.
The director used flexible and fast editing techniques to create a gripping rhythm effect in the pictures of reporters and government press conferences, especially when the drug company boss was found dead in a traffic accident shortly after being investigated by the police. This genre-like drama lends the documentary a political thriller vibe. In a similar plot, an unknown person leaked a disgusting short video of gangrene growing on a burn patient on the Internet, which inevitably led to speculation about the political factional struggle behind the hospital, which made this medical scandal into a white-hot level.
In the second part of the documentary, the point of view is shifted from sports reporters to the newly appointed Minister of Health , at which point the technocratic government has stepped down and replaced by a new minister who is frank and open-minded, and he offers to invite the documentary team to get up close and personal to film his meetings with internal management the process of. From this episode of the Minister of Health, the audience gradually discovered that the medical reform he advocated was extremely difficult. On the one hand, he announced the truth to the angry masses, and on the other hand, he fought with the political opponents and officials of the hospital management, and found that the management and the whole The medical system has deep-rooted drawbacks that are difficult to completely change. In the end, the sight of him talking on the phone with his father in the car shows that his hopes of returning to Romania from abroad to reform with enthusiasm were completely shattered when the new government attacked him. As for whether the reforms he proposed before can be sustained, the audience believes that they should have a good idea when they see it.
The change of perspective between the two records allows the audience to fully understand the truth of this medical scandal and its fundamental reasons. This is obviously not just a story that happened in Romania. From this scandal, we can easily think of various problems in our country's medical system and the government's mistakes in management methods. Through this Romanian scandal, the director reveals a widespread malevolent phenomenon: lies, corruption, interests, bureaucracy, indifference to the people, all of which are common in societies and countries with different ideologies and systems. That's why the film resonates so strongly.
However, this is not a work aimed at exposing the dark and despairing. The director quietly incorporates the idealistic spirit of struggle in the documentary. Apart from the heroic actions of sports reporters to reveal the truth and the health care reform promoted by the newly appointed health minister, The female model who lost an arm in the fire is also worthy of admiration. She overcame difficulties after surgery and continued to learn to use a robotic arm to live tenaciously. These characters are constantly implying that we still have hope for the future, no matter how bleak the dawn, as long as we don't give up, the light will come one day.
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