A documentary that leaves no room for optimism about the epidemic

movie review ● Jan Storrow

film. HBO’s new documentary on dealing with the Covid pandemic gives no reason for optimism about dealing with incidents of the same nature. Neither in China nor in the United States.

Little Chinese-born and US-based director Nanfu Wang begins the epidemic story in the same breath With the celebration of the New Year in Wuhan, at the beginning of the year 2020. Shows glimpses of the celebrations and President Xi Jinping’s speech of encouragement to the people. Not long after that, her life, her family, and millions of other Chinese were turned upside down. And so was her American family, although that only happened a few months later.

Wang says management of the epidemic in their countries. It does so through clips from its newsletters and videos. Both sources contribute to everything that is very interesting. When she traveled home in the US and New Jersey before Covid19 appeared on everyone’s lips there too, she made arrangements with some amateur Chinese photographers who took on the job of shooting in hospitals in Wuhan. There, they filmed and interviewed health professionals, patients and relatives, and then sent their materials to Wang in the United States. Otherwise, this cinematic material would end up on social media, and thus represent “a voice from below”.

gradually She complements similar materials from the USA, which she photographed herself. Here you talk mostly with health professionals. It shows TV clips about Covid19 deniers and vaccine opponents.

Wang chooses The voice of the personal narrator as her somewhat private experiences are brought up, and where her own reactions to the research work emerge. She says that she showed her material to major media houses in the USA without publishing it. Hence the documentary.

The biggest one question in in the same breath It is, of course, whether the pandemic has been treated equally or differently in the two countries with their different forms of government. The film shows examples of both. In both China and the United States, the Covid19 pandemic has been met with denial and disclaimers. It is particularly interesting to show that whistleblowers in both China and the United States in the early stages were persecuted, punished, and denied employment. At this point, the similarities became the most prominent. Among the differences, it is the type of force used behind measures of power that matters. Wuhan was locked down, and barriers were built around the city when the virus was finally taken seriously. We do not get such examples from the United States.

Wang’s movie He does not plow new land. For those researching the pandemic and its effects, many of these are probably familiar. However, seeing the comparative element in the interaction of the two countries and the attitude of citizens to the events leaves an impression. The way she does it in China, with local photographers sending her material in another country, is in itself interesting. They suggest that the journalistic style transcends national borders and gives hope for reporting from areas where authorities withhold other information. It must be said that the Wang project is not comparable in the real scientific sense. Perhaps we could rather say that we are dealing with a comparative project of a journalistic nature.

sometimes Along the way, it may seem as though Wang has very few picks to build on. We get very little about the first time the epidemic broke out in Wuhan and people died on the streets. We don’t know much about the wave of deaths in New York in its early stages. Here, the documentary can delve into the similarities and differences in dealing with the tragedy and the interpretations and interpretations of authorities and others.

I miss Also article outlining the way in which the threat from the pandemic has been turned into policy in both countries – and how these processes seemed to look very different. We get examples of state propaganda about health care in China, but little about how US authorities are politicizing the pandemic.

collective The Nanfu Wang documentary is worth watching. Perhaps in Norway we can also use it as a backdrop to consider our own ways of dealing with the Covid19 pandemic.