VINCENT LACOSTE AND REDA KATEB IN HIPPOCRATESInterning in a Paris hospitalFormer physician Thomas Lilti's second film deals with matters he knows from work experience as a still-practicing physician: interning at a Paris hospital. He shows it from two angles, that of a privileged newbie, boyish, curly-locked 23-year-old Benjamin (Vincent Lacoste of
French Kissers, R-V 2010), whose father, Professor Barois (Jacques Gamblin) is director of the ward he comes to serve in, and a disadvantaged Algerian doctor, Abdel Rezzek (the able Reda Kateb of
A Prophet, Zero Dark Thirty), forced to remain an intern through experienced, simply because of his nationality. The group-intern musical interludes are a needless effort to liven things up: the pleasure of this little film is how low-keyed it is compared to American counterparts. Instead of trying to impress us with high-powered efforts to show doctors' and hospitals' ability to use miracle tools and save lives under duress, Lilti is interested in other things.
The primary thing is the cornerstone of the Hippocratic Oath, strongly implied here but never mentioned: "
Primum non nocere," "First do no harm." That is the pivotal issue in one of two cases in which Benjamin gets involved during his first days in the hospital. Well, two, really. Since he inadvertently allows an alcoholic, homeless, violent patient the staff call "Tsunami" (Thierry Levaret) to die on his watch the first night, that is certainly harm. But it's really not his fault the required EKG wasn't done and he didn't anticipate the risk of heart attack and only ordered a painkiller for abdominal pain. The EKG machine in this hospital wasn't working. But when both his supervising doctor and his father order Benjamin to pretend the EKG was done, this leads to a threat of scandal when the dead man's former wife (Julie Brochen) repeatedly comes around with questions.
The main case Benjamin is responsible for, and the greatest issue of "Do no harm," is Madame Richard (Jeanne Cellard), an old woman with cancer, needlessly operated on, surely never likely to walk again, whose children only want her not to suffer. Here Benjamin has allowed Abdel to help him and Abdel constantly fights to have Madame Richard put on a morphine drip, while the hospital system takes her off starts tube feeding her, causing her great pain, and ignores the "Do not resuscitate" order on her file.
The issues here are clear. A third one is a new trend toward inhumane and economy-based management: the hospital director comes from business. He previously worked at Amazon. He follows draconian budget guidelines that have seriously undermined service and equipment maintenance (hence the broken EKG machine). This leads to a lively scene -- ensemble acting stands out here -- where the interns stage an impromptu revolt.
The ending is silly, if feel-good: Abdel's doom is too easily averted and Benjamin's personal upheaval is over-dramatic and too quickly resolved. Reda Kateb is wonderfully understated and thoroughly convincing, though the audience might prefer somebody more overtly sympathetic, which can be said even more for the pouty, semi-adolescent Lacoste. But it is appropriate Lilti should end on an up-note, because this is a loving and understanding if realistic portrait, notable for its gritty portrayal of the intern's digs and dining area (apparently real) covered with pornographic, especially phallic, graffiti.
Hippocrates/Hippocrate, 102 mins., French release 3 September 2014, with very positive reviews (AlloCiné press rating 3.8). Shown as part of the FSLC/uniFrance-sponsored Rendez-Vous with French Cinema at the Walter Reade Theater and the IFC Center in New York in March 2015, where it was screened for this review.
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