L’ordre des medecins
The life mess
Film. Jérémie Renier is on display at L’Ordre des médecins, first sensitive and intimate movie in hospitals, signed by David Roux. Interview on the occasion of the Arcs Film Festival where the film was presented.
By Franck Lebraly
We don’t count anymore the successful American series where the hospital staff wanders in hooks under cold neons, with a radio from the fibula in hand. Yet the medical universe is less present in European fiction. Although Thomas Lilti has changed the game a bit with Hippocrates in particular, whose serial version landed on Canal + end 2018. Actually, the subject always proves to be rich to treat : the patiens, the hospital staff, the family… this subtle blend of social classes evolving in a disinfected universe while trying to hide, using protocol and white surfaces, the death that floats at all times.
“Never falling into the melo, the direction of David Roux offers us an immersive walk in the center of the hospital.”
What more cinematographic, like shows L’Ordre des Médecins since its inital issue. Simon, pulmonologist at the hospital, sees his mother landing in the neighboring service of his own. Does he have to act like the medecin or the son.. Will he succede to save her life ? Is it recommended to him to do so when she has more specialists than him. Difficult choice, while for years Simon’s job has taken precedence over his private life, on these intimate flaws that come today to haunt him in his workplace. As the title indicates, he must quit the medical college to accept his mess life.
Jérémie Renier (My Way, Saint Laurent, The Child…) is dealing with a legendary actress, Marthe Keller (Marathon Man, Fedora, Les Ogres…) as a mother philosopher and satisfied with her past life. They are surrounded by secondary roles very right : Zita Hanrot, intern in love with him, Maude Wyler, sister going through a divorce, or Fred Epaud in a stoner nurse, all remarkable by the sobriety of their games.
Never falling into the melo, the direction of David Roux offers us an immersive walk in the center of the hospital. He himself, from a family of surgeons, knows his subject well. And between documentary and fiction, make the spectator an empathetic key witness and never a hostage. A blend of sadness and feelings, L’ordre des médecins, beyond his faithful transcription of habits and customs of the hospital, sheds light on the universal language of love and blood ties. To prescribe !
