Customarily,
long overdue, yet up for the release. The film biography of professor Zbigniew Religa, outstanding Polish cardiac surgeon, who first carried out a successful
heart transplant in Poland, was hailed one of the best Polish films that went
to the silver screen in 2014. The film received accolades and awards
predominantly for the superiorly played role of the main character, so hats off
to Tomasz Kot who did a splendid job of rendering what Mr Religa was like. The
film is not just the memoirs of one of the most prominent individuals in the
history of Polish medicine, or the homage paid to professor Religa. Its plot is
multi-faceted and thread of Mr Religa’s endeavours to perform a successful
heart transplant is intertwined with many other themes, likewise imperative to
make the film whole.
Bogowie is
about attaining the impossible. The plot is set in the 1980s and covers only a
few most important years in Mr Religa’s biography; the period when as a surgeon
in his mid-40s against all odds he attempts to overcome numerous impediments
and perform a surgery that to almost everyone else seems out of reach.
The
obstacles Mr Religa faces broadly have two ever-lasting dimensions: the system
and the people. Bear in mind the story plays out in Poland in post-martial-law
bleak mid-1980s; times of economic misery and social indifference. The slowly
crumbling communist system was depicted incisively and with details worth
remembering. The film can remind younger audience health care was quite
well-developed in countries of the Soviet bloc. In terms of progress in
medicine and access to health-care institutions communist countries had
probably the littlest distance to catch up with the higher developed West.
Talented young doctors, mostly those inconvenient for their superiors, were
allowed to take internships in Western clinics and see cutting-edge development
in the medicine. Obviously, they had to meet sullen individuals from the
communist secret services and sign relevant papers; of course the choice
criteria for foreign internships were flawed, yet plenty of young,
up-and-coming doctors could bring a breath of fresh air to the Polish
backwater. At that time the system, if you did not try to overthrow it, was not
your biggest enemy and as it turned out, if you could make some concessions (Mr
Religa at first avows he will never join the party and then goes back on his
own promise to get a state subsidy), it could play along with you and somehow
help you do your bit.
Much more
nefarious than the system were the people. Depiction of senior, hard-line
doctors, reluctant to move the Polish medicine ahead, discouraging the young
generation from striving to attain the impossible, and laughing off their
ambitions, is repulsive. In medicine, if the picture in the film is not
distorted, the people, not the system, were to blame for backwardness of
Poland. The ossified system, founded on the domination of old professors, was a
drag on medical progress. In the film you could see something common back in the
1980s, namely the convention of addressing your superior per pan, while your
superior would turn to you per ty, lack of symmetry today unthinkable in most
places.
The film
highlights the dark side of the Polish nature. “A Pole envies a fellow Pole even
a calamity”, the sentence of a doctor who first, unsuccessfully, attempted to
carry out a heart transplant, is meant to tell you in this cruel world you
should not count anyone would support you, if you pull it off, your
accomplishment will be detracted from, if you slip up, your failure will bring
joy to your foes.
The film is
about balancing humility and resilience. Knowing one’s own limitations is
essential in doctor’s work and pursuit of one’s ambitions at all costs is
absolutely reprehensible. Yet, some sort of obstinacy and determination not to
give up is crucial if the path towards success is long, winding and full of
obstacles. Stumbling, falling and the rising up must be counted in at the onset
of the pursuit.
It is a
film about ethics and risk management. The link between the two is elusive, yet
worth paying attention to. In theory of economics you distinguish between pure risk and speculative risk. The former is observable when the outcome can be
either neutral or negative. A good example is a risk of having a traffic
accident – you either do not have an accident and are neither better off, nor
worse off, or you have an accident and are worse off. An example of the latter
is speculation on financial market – prices can move both favourably and unfavourably
for you, you stand a chance of either losing or wining. At first glance, in the
case of the heart transplant neither type of risk is exhibited. You face a
situation which in theory of economics should never occur. The outcome might be
either neutral or positive. A patient can either die soon or their life can be
extended. From the ethical point of view, the dilemma is however more
complicated, since by attempting to perform a heart transplant you might also
accelerate the patient’s decease. The decision what to do rests than with a
doctor who has sworn “not to harm”. The definition of harming can be vague as
well. For older, backward doctors, putting the life of a patient who was bound
to die within a few weeks at peril, fitted the definition of inflicting a harm.
For Mr Religa, this was the price to pay for progress allowing to extend by
several years lives of thousands of people.
Finally,
the film is about striking a balance between career and personal life. Mr
Religa in his pursuit of a method of saving lives of millions neglect his
family. It not because he loves his job that much, it is because he wants to
help people so much. The question which arises naturally then is whether
outstanding individuals who want to sacrifice their lives to do something for
posterity should raise families? Or maybe their families should be more
lenient?
The film
contains scenes of surgeries on open heart and it reminded me why I could not
be a doctor. At such sights I nearly feel like passing out. Well, if everyone
was cut out for every role, economic progress would have been far slower I
guess…
1 comment:
Best - most in-depth review of this film I've read in either language. In particular, how important the moral and social conditions of the time were - with surprises for those with too many staid preconceptions.
Makes me want to see it! (I write as the only member of my family not to have done so already)
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