Geoffrey Smith, 2007
In some ways, MIFF is absolutely the place where documentaries that defy easy categorisation should be seen; the festival context providing viewers with external “it’s art!” signifiers, and the cinema arena furnishing the art itself its due environment.
This is not one of those documentaries.
Which is not to say it isn’t a wonderful and hopeful and warmly funny story. It most certainly is; its true tale of two men striving to change an entire quasi-government’s approach to national health only half the story here, with titular neurosurgeon Henry Marsh’s digressions on mortality and ethics the overarching story’s rather philosophical complement. However, BBC man Smith treats this tale as so much television. Which, of course, it is, and one can only wonder what Wiseman or Morris would do with this compelling man’s quest, as all we have here – sporadic use of genius Warren Ellis’ typically east/west score included - is merely the relative artlessness of the true tale told truly.
And since it’s THE hot-button topic of the festival queues this year: does a work like this even belong on MIFF’s already-clogged radar? With so many of its documentaries televisual in either nature or actuality, this work is perhaps emblematic of the kind of programming the oft-cried-for culling may/should affect.
