COLECTIV/ COLLECTIVE, Romania 2019, Investigative documentary, Starring Catalin Tolontan, Vlad Voiculescu, Tedy Ursuleanu. Directed by Alexandre Nanau. 115 minutes. Rated MA (Strong coarse language).
A documentary with many nominations and awards. A number of commentators suggest that it is one of the best films about investigative journalism. It certainly keeps the attention.
This is a Romanian story. The title, with its overtones of Soviet collectivism and society, also refers to a nightclub in Bucharest where, in 2015, a fire broke out. With no fire exits 27 people died in the fire and 180 people were left injured. At one point, some footage of the actual fire and panic is included in the film. Soon, more burn victims begin dying in hospitals from wounds that were not life-threatening.
The first part of the film and the director’s investigation focuses on Catalin Tolantan, sports journalist and editor-in-chief of the daily newspaper Gazeta Sporturilor (Sports Gazette) who begins to investigate the causes of the fire and its consequences. There is a doctor who turns whistleblower and one revelation leads to another as the journalists start to uncover vast health care fraud.
One of the main targets of the investigation is the Health Minister. What emerges, and is dramatised with footage of protests and demonstrations against the ministry and the authorities, and with comments and questions by parents and relatives of those who died, is a mess of political and social corruption.
The film also focuses on one of the survivors of the fire, Tedy Ursuleanu, who agreed to a series of photographs graphically illustrating her injuries.
Perhaps it is the long tradition of the Soviet rule and corruption in Romania, but many audiences will be shocked at the mismanagement of the hospitals, the limitation of burns units, the need for victims to be transferred to Vienna for appropriate treatment. But, mismanagement also emerges, political patronage, the role of bribery for accreditation and even for doctors.
The second part of the film focuses on a new Minister of Health, Vlad Voiculescu, in his early 30s, who allowed the filmmakers unlimited access to his office, his political discussions, investigations into the health corruption, his press conferences.
At the end of the film, there are elections in Romania, the minister discussing the dire results for his re-election with his father, the Social Democrats who had fostered a great deal of corruption, being returned.
Which means then that those who do not know recent Romanian history, some Googling for further information.
Madman Films
Released 15 April
Peter Malone MSC is an associate Jesuit Media