Lately I've been focusing on a double feature-based format with this column, but this week I'm concentrating solely on Mark Hopkins' Living in Emergency: Stories of Doctors Without Borders. Two reasons for this: one, I'm unaware of another documentary quite like it; and two, it's such a great film that it deserves its own spotlight. I'm also breaking up the structure of Doc Talk a bit in order to engage readers a little more. Because the main reason this column exists is to get people more interested in documentary in general and to recommend films I believe Cinematical readers will appreciate and possibly even enjoy. And, of course, maybe you'll want to talk about the docs, with me and with other readers, after trying them out.

About the Film

Living in Emergency is, as I mentioned above, like nothing I've seen before. Hopkins, a former assistant to producer Scott Rudin (Bringing Out the Dead) who later got his doc feet wet working with George Butler (Going Upriver: The Long War of John Kerry), bravely decided to make his feature directorial debut with a film that took him to war-damaged locations like Liberia and the Democratic Republic of Congo. In these places he had unprecedented access to the work of Doctors Without Borders, aka MSF (Medecins Sans Frontieres), through which he follows a small number of volunteer MDs in both countries as they treat gunshot wounds to the head, among other more natural ailments (warning: the film doesn't hold back on showing you the gore and the gross disease symptoms). Some of these doctors are on their first mission; some are veterans with the MSF. All of them will probably make you feel like your own work is meaningless.

Yet unlike most docs about humanitarian causes, Living in Emergency is not a call for sympathy nor necessarily for donations to the organization in focus. It's not so much an advertisement for MSF as it is a primarily direct-cinema approach to its efforts. Will you be upset, angry even, when you see little babies with swelled bellies and faces? Of course (don't make this a double-feature selection following Babies, or you'll really be in tears), but with a fast paced film and with a field that daily has to deal with the hard reality that many of these patients won't survive, it would be disingenuous for the film to mourn every case of life lost to war, disease and -- perhaps most sadly -- insufficient medical equipment and supplies. Conversely you won't see a lot of celebrating when patients do survive, whether for a surprising extra few hours or a lifetime.

Like a good non-fiction film should, Living in Emergency simply presents its observations. Then you get to decide for yourself if you feel bad or glad or mad or willing to add (as in contribute to the cause, financially or actively). And maybe you'll choose a favorite doctor among the characters whose missions are highlighted. Perhaps Chiara Lapora, a staunchly committed toxicologist with an astonishingly healthy attitude about her work and the frustrations that are typical of it. Or her sometime antagonist, Davinder Gill, a young Australian on his first mission who quickly realizes that those frustrations are beyond his limit of tolerance. I'll offer that the former is more likable yet the latter is definitely more relatable -- even if you don't at first acknowledge this, you'll ultimately realize that he represents the majority of us who wish we could be so good and heroic by entering the Third World and devoting more hands than we've got to lend.



Why I Loved It

It's riveting and gorgeously shot (who needs a big Hollywood production to show how beautiful Africa is?) and had me wanting more (not that Hopkins is likely to return to the madness for a sequel), but mostly I appreciate that none of the people in Living in Emergency are completely good or heroic. I mean, they're all without a doubt doing good and heroic deeds, but as Lapora notes in the film, the job is not about being good. Being good is volunteering at the homeless shelter or doing a favor for a friend in need. These people are there because they have to be, meaning they're so professionally and psychologically qualified -- you can't just be an MD and volunteer with MSF; there are very few selected for the gig -- that they can't not be there. And while the MSF doctors are heroes, they're not superheroes by any means. And, as already stated, they're less capable of sufficiently feeling like life savers in remote regions of Africa than they would be in urban America or Australia or Italy or wherever they hail. That's part of why it's so terrific that Gill is there to represent the notion and feeling of relative insubstantiality.

Also, it's neat to see how much the doctors smoke. They smoke a lot. And they sometimes get drunk on the local beer. It's a stressful job. And aside from the vices, they also end up taking this stress out on each other, or on their dissatisfaction with the MSF as an understandably imperfect organization. Again the voice of reason, though, Lapora shows disappointment that they get angry at internal issues rather than focusing the anger on the external agents that warrant their presence. For the most part, the doctors who can and must handle the gig are very happy with the work they're doing. So there is a nice balance of the bad and the good about the missions, as well as the honest truth that some days you look on the bright side -- that at least a large amount of people are benefiting -- and some days you question why you're doing what you're doing instead of just making it rich in a profitable hospital.

Why You'll Love It

Anyone who has ever been curious about what their life would be like if they'd become a doctor and joined MSF in an effort to help save the world -- and this is a lot of us, I'm sure -- needs to see this. And no promises, but those millions of you who keep TV medical dramas on the air and continually being created, you should have an appreciation for the real deal, particularly in an exotic setting that's not just the same operation room sets you're used to. Finally, please, if you've ever bothered with a Hollywood feature film in which someone like Angelina Jolie goes off to the Third World and falls for an MSF type doctor, you really owe it to yourself to see something more significant and genuine.

Living in Emergency: Stories of Doctors Without Borders opens in select cities Friday, June 4, with expansion to other locations occurring in the coming weeks. You can also Demand It be played in your area.

Check out the trailer below:



Living in Emergency Trailer from LivinginEmergency on Vimeo.