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HIPPOCRATES: DIARY OF A FRENCH DOCTOR Send This Review to a Friend
A favorite of mine in the 2015 Rendez-Vous with French Cinema series was “Hippocrates: Diary of a French Doctor” (“Hippocrate”), directed by Thomas Lilti. The film, now in release, invites us inside a hospital in Paris, where ethical questions arise in an atmosphere of errors and cover-ups. It is a frenzied scene in which interns work long, demanding hours and get blamed when anything goes wrong. The film’s director also happens to be a doctor.
Vincent Lacoste plays Benjamin, who is a beginner and the son of an important doctor at the hospital. A patient dies as a result of Benjamin’s error. There is a cover-up, challenged by the patient’s widow.
A key character is Abdel, portrayed by Reda Kateb, who is an immigrant, and although a seasoned doctor, he must work as an intern because of his immigrant status. Abdel, at first trying to stay out of the fray, takes a moral stand when the crunch comes.
A climax occurs when interns band together to protest their being overworked, the cover-up that has ensued and against blame being unfairly applied. The film is packed with atmosphere at the hospital, in this case specifically a Parisian one, but by implication an over-burdened hospital that could also be paralleled elsewhere. A Distrib Films US release. Posted June 19, 2015
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