Collective

March 18, 2021 at 2:23 pm | Posted in 2020 | Leave a comment
Tags: Alexander Nanau, Catalin Tolontan, Documentary, Mirela Neag, Movie Review, Tedy Ursuleanu, Vlad Voiculescu

◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ½

“Collective” is the type of film that can keep you up at night. This dark documentary covers the slow, seeping revelations that come out about the Romanian health care system following a tragedy. On October 30, 2015, a horrible fire broke out at the Bucharest nightclub Colectiv. Twenty-six people were killed on site, and almost 200 were taken to hospitals with burns. Over the next few weeks, another thirty-eight died, some who had had fairly minor burns. This story might have gone nowhere if not for Catalin Tolontan, a journalist for (of all things) a sports magazine. Tolontan and his co-workers intrepidly follow the slowly unraveling string to some truly disturbing places. Remarkably, they had a camera along the whole time, so we aren’t subjected to post-hoc interviews and cheesy reenactments; we see these folks wrestling with what they are finding in real time. The story focuses primarily on two protagonists, Tolontan and Vlad Voiculescu (the newly appointed minister), against a mostly faceless bureaucracy. But that is one of the powers of bureaucracy; the way it can leave nobody feeling responsible. As problematic as the American health care system is, it seems utopian in comparison to Romania’s. But, while we may be light-years from them in terms of our health care system, in many ways, “Collective’s” strident plea for the role of journalists against government corruption is just as vital a message for the American people. We aren’t Romania, but if we lost a strong press and a people willing to hear the truth, how long do you think it would take to get there?