TIFF20: 76 Days
Watching the opening moments of the documentary 76 Days provokes an extreme cognitive dissonance that takes a few minutes to get over. This Chinese, fly-on-the-wall documentary charts the 76-day lockdown of Wuhan in the face of the COVID-19 outbreak that has rocked the globe. What’s disorienting about the opening is that this film is an artistic document about a historical event we’re still experiencing. It’s history, but it’s also current events; the Wuhan lockdown may be the past, but you could change the location and it could very well be the present. It’s important to keep this tension in mind when assessing 76 Days, because what the film presents is hardly a finished story.
Directed by Chinese filmmaker Hao Wu, journalist Weixi Chen, and another collaborator simply credited as “Anonymous,” the film takes the viewer into the hospitals of Wuhan in the days and weeks after the city grinds to a halt to stem the spread of the deadly virus. At first, we watch doctors and nurses making things up on the fly as they tape themselves into PPE and process infected patients, who crowd against doors in dimly-lit hallways and desperately beg for help. The health care professionals split the men from the women and assign patients to different isolated rooms. Over time, we watch some of them get better while others fall into comas and die.
We are rarely given the context of what is happening on screen in 76 Days, which appropriately and accurately captures the disorientation of the early days of the pandemic. Doctors and nurses take extreme measures in terms of protective gear, equipment seems brand new, often with plastic tags and covers still attached, and treatments are makeshift. On January 23, when the lockdown begins, the health care workers have no idea whether the virus is airborne or not, what treatments work for patients, and how long the lockdown will last. Their knowledge barely improves over the course of the film. Even now, in the moment of viewing, there are more mysteries than answers about COVID-19.
Seemingly inspired by Frederick Wiseman and other pioneers of direct cinema, the directors never use talking heads, offer on screen graphics or titles, or apply voiceover to clarify scenes. We see a few subtitles indicating the names and home cities of certain doctors and a couple title cards specifying the date, but that’s it in terms of offering a clear timeline or a broader view of what’s happening. The filmmakers get into the weeds with the health care workers, and therein lies the film’s strength.
We intimately watch the workers question patients about their symptoms, work to resuscitate dying patients, and call the families of the deceased. The filmmaking access is incredible, to a morally-questionable degree; surely, doctor-patient confidentiality is not being respected at all throughout this film? Arguably, the need to document this important historical moment supersedes such considerations, but it’s occasionally shocking to watch doctors and nurses go to work in emergency without demanding the camera leave the room to give them privacy.
Perhaps the filmmakers got waivers from everyone involved or perhaps the workers and patients were simply too panicked to care about the presence of the camera. Whatever the case, the access is noteworthy. The fly-on-the-wall experience allows us to witness the evolving relationship between doctors and patients; one older man is particularly entertaining, as he often attempts to leave the hospital, but is always herded back to his room. In some moments, the doctors scold him; in other moments, they try to cheer him up. A phone call with his son is especially memorable and alarming; the man is a Communist Party member and his son berates him loudly over the phone, telling him to stop crying and act nobly so as to be a good example of the party. We eventually learn the man has dementia and so the repetitive pattern of his actions and his fluctuating personality grows more understandable.
There are bracing moments in this film, some heartbreaking, some strangely hilarious. A sequence following a nurse going through the phones of dead patients and calling their families to collect them is distressing; it’s impossible to miss the sheer quantity of phones in the boxes she’s going through. Conversely, the attempts of doctors to cheer up patients or scold patients into obedience becomes quietly comical at times; a nurse pressing down on the hands of a sad patient and emphatically patting them and scolding them about crying borders on farcical.
As a moment-to-moment documentation of the lives of these health care workers and their patients, 76 Days is fascinating. But as a film, it leaves a bit to be desired. The lack of context is often confusing. It’s sometimes hard to track the time between events or even differentiate individuals, as so many faces are hidden behind masks and plastic screens. Perhaps the structure is meant to emphasize the indistinct bleed between days and weeks, how every day seems much the same in the age of COVID-19—a familiar feeling for all of us during this pandemic. But the truth of that approach doesn’t mean the action on screen becomes any easier to follow, or the implications of the footage any easier to understand.
76 Days works well as a visual testament, but it’s incapable of expounding or illuminating upon its subject. It’s hands are tied by the very nature of its storytelling approach and quick production timeline. Thus, 76 Days is likely the first major documentary on COVID-19, but I doubt it’ll end up being the best or most insightful.
7 out of 10
76 Days (2020, China)
Directed by Hao Wu, Weixi Chen, and Anonymous.