Film Review: Collective
Journalist Câtâlin Tolontan in Collective.
It’s no wonder that Collective has been nominated for Best Documentary Feature as well as Best International Feature Film at the upcoming Academy Awards. Every so often, you get to watch a film that chills you to your core, and properly challenges your belief in the good of people and faith in human nature to care for one other. Even more unsettling so, sometimes that film can be a documentary. This is one of those films.
In 2015, Colectiv nightclub in Bucharest, Romania caught fire whilst hosting a free concert performed by metalcore band Goodbye to Gravity. Colectiv had no fire sprinklers, no fire exits, only one fire extinguisher, and the walls of the club were lined with extremely flammable soundproofing material. Although the club was only authorised for eighty seats, at the time of the concert and fire, there were at least three hundred people inside the building.
Initial statements declared twenty-seven people present dead, and another one hundred and eighty injured. Within one month, thirty-seven of the injured victims had died in hospital, owing to negligible medical care at Romanian hospitals. Sources working in hospitals informed the journalists at the Romanian Sports Gazette that many patients died due to bacterial infections, and once journalists at the gazette began investigating the suspicion that disinfectants used at public hospitals were being diluted by Romanian supplier Hexi Pharma, they uncovered a web of corruption and administrative misconduct at the heart of the Romanian healthcare system.
Without giving too much of the reality of this tale away, I had walked into the cinema expecting the documentary to be focused on the tragedy of the fire at Colectiv nightclub. In reality, though the events of the fire linger present throughout the duration of the documentary, the content of the documentary is - and this might seem difficult to believe - a lot less easy to stomach than the three or so minutes of actual footage from the night of the fire at the beginning of the film.
Collective, is a gripping deep dive into the truth at the core of the Romanian public healthcare system. It’s an engrossing watch and an unflinching exploration of the pit of corruption that has been covered up on every level of medical practice in Romania, beginning with hospital disinfectant, then moving through medical negligence, bribery, mafia presence, under-equipped hospitals, hospital licences given under duress, government corruption and suspicious suicides.
The whole documentary feels extremely emotionally charged, and the series of events that comes to play truly feels like it simply has to be fiction. On top of the power of its storytelling, Collective is shot and edited masterfully, bringing viewers into the throes of outraged crowds and disbelieving journalists in government briefing rooms.
Don’t come to Collective expecting a happy ending, because you will be sorely disappointed and unsettled by the conclusion of this film. Collective uncovers and forces watchers to acknowledge the corruption possible within a system that is supposed to be responsible for taking care of its citizens. This is certainly not a film to be missed.
4/5
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Collective is showing in cinemas across Australia from the 8th of April 2021.