This revelation is front-page news for months as this small team of journalists track down the who, what, why of it all. The journalists discover that the disinfectants provided to the hospitals by a pharmaceutical company have been diluted, rendering them useless. What at first seems to be a classic story of government incompetence is revealed as something far more sinister. Seen early on at a briefing given by the Minister of Health, where the lies and platitudes from the podium are so obvious they almost create their own atmosphere, Tolontan and his skeleton crew of journalists cover the story. Journalist Catalin Tolontan, editor-in-chief of the sports daily Gazeta Sporturilor, is a key figure. But how can a system investigate itself if the system itself is rotten? "Collective" documents this thorny difficult process. After the Prime Minister resigned, a new government was installed, and given a one-year mandate to untangle the web of what went wrong. Romanians took to the streets in protests, so vehement and sustained that it led to the fall of the entire government. The Health department doubled-down on the lie that the victims were being well taken care of. Statements from government officials were given in Orwellian "newspeak": "At present, all medical needs are being met." The public was reassured that there was no reason to transfer patients to Germany, with its state-of-the-art burn trauma centers. Thirty-seven burn victims died in the hospital over the following months, not from their burns, but from infections acquired while in the hospital. Twenty-seven people were killed that night, and 180 injured. Mass pandemonium ensued (the club had no fire exits). The entire club was engulfed within seconds, captured on a horrifying cell phone video. Goodbye to Gravity, a metalcore band, ended their set with a small pyrotechnics show, which very quickly leapt to the backstage walls, before igniting the ceiling. It all began on Octoat the popular Bucharest nightclub Colectiv.
"Collective" is the story of a small band of people-journalists, activists, victims and advocates-who understand this better than most. But on a deeper thematic level: the political environment of Romania is so corrupt that a "talking head," anyone speaking in any official capacity with the weight of "expertise" behind them, is automatically suspect.
#Collective documentary series#
It thrusts the viewer into the middle of the cataclysmic series of events as they unfold, giving "Collective" a palpable immediacy. It's is a portrait of corruption so total that oftentimes the participants onscreen look at one another helplessly, like: "How can we even combat this? Where do we even start?" One of the distinguishing characteristics of "Collective" is the absence of "talking heads" and experts speaking direct to camera, so common in most documentaries. Alexander Nanau's "Collective" has a propulsive energy, relentlessly building in urgency and outrage.
0 kommentar(er)
