"Collective" and "The Painter and the Thief"

It's been an excellent year for documentaries, and my favorites of 2020 so far are both from Europe.

"Collective," is from Romania, named after a 2015 nightclub fire that left 26 dead and dozens more injured.  38 more would later die in hospitals under suspicious circumstances.  The documentary, created after the disaster had already sparked massive social and political upheaval, follows a group of journalists who investigate the failings of the Romanian hospital system.  Directed by Alexander Nanau, "Collective" is composed entirely of footage of events playing out in real-time.  There are no interviews, no talking heads, and little by way of framing devices, aside from some news reports to provide context.  

As a result, "Collective" is wonderfully immersive, and its twists and turns are engrossing to see play out.  The first part of the film largely follows the journalists, lead by Catalin Tolontan, who discovers that a major supplier has been selling diluted disinfectants to hospitals.  The revelation is not nearly as upsetting as the multiple attempts to discredit or challenge the findings, or the discovery that the government apparently knew about the problem for years.  Other health care whistleblowers begin to emerge, leading to the uncovering of more and more corruption in the system.  In the later parts of the film, the focus shifts to the new Minister of Health, Vlad Voiculescu, whose attempts at reform are constantly stymied.  We watch him struggle against disinformation campaigns, political maneuvering, and constant cover-ups as the complicity of more and more figures comes to light.

"Collective" is a sobering picture of a totally dysfunctional health care system that is the symptom of a totally dysfunctional Romanian political culture that runs on a system of bribes and self-dealing.  It's absolutely breathtaking how thoroughly corrupt every agency and institution is, and the lengths to which those in power will go to hide their wrongdoing and deflect blame.  The cost of the corruption couldn't be plainer - unsafe hospitals that provide substandard care, no accountability, and no recourse to fix glaring problems.  The documentary serves as a powerful cautionary tale to those who would take their basic social services for granted, while also providing a stirring portrait of those reformers trying their best to change things for the better.  

Now, on to "The Painter and the Thief."  Czech artist Barbora Kysilkova has two of her most important and valuable paintings stolen from a gallery in Oslo in 2015.  The thieves are quickly identified, and Barbora strikes up an unlikely friendship with one of them,  Karl Bertil-Nordland, a deeply troubled drug addict who claims not to even remember participating in the heist.  Director Benjamin Ree keeps the perspective shifting between the two of them, showing us events first from the perspective of Barbora, and then Bertil, as the film sorts out their complicated, intense relationship.  Initially, Barbora's interest in Bertil seems to be out of compassion, but as they interact more and he becomes a subject for her paintings, Barbora's motives are revealed to be far more complex.   

"The Painter and the Thief" plays out like shameless melodrama, and I had to raise my eyebrows at some of its storytelling choices.  It holds back characters' knowledge of important events and information to make its narrative more exciting.   For example, from Barbora's point of view, we learn that Bertil has been in a car accident and might have been involved in more criminal activity.  Then the film hops back in time a few months to watch how things unfold from Bertil's point of view to fill in the blanks.  However, I appreciate the film's emphasis on keeping a balance between the two of them, because the narrative could have easily been very one-sided.  Barbora narrates the specifics of Bertil's unhappy childhood and his life before becoming a criminal, and later Bertil does the same with Barbora's upbringing and her career as an artist.  It turns out that both of them have their dark sides and personal challenges, though Bertil's are clearly far more destructive, both to himself and everyone around him.  

And it's so touching to watch these two truly connect and support each other.  Fairly early on in the film, there's a scene where Bertil sees a portrait of himself that Barbora has painted, and is so moved he starts crying.  Seeing that her work has had such an effect spurs Barbora to involve herself even more in Bertil's life - perhaps at the cost of her own well-being.  When the film's distributor, NEON, announced plans for a dramatized version of the film, I instantly wanted to reject the notion outright.  "The Painter and the Thief" is such a personal, intimate story that it feels fundamentally wrong to let anyone not directly involved muck around with it.  And I honestly couldn't conceive of anyone making a better film version of this story than the one that already exists.

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