Collective (2020) - Alexander Nanau

Alexander Nanau's Collective is a meticulously constructed descent into institutional failure. An engrossing investigative documentary that fully recognizes the subject matter itself is the star of its story, Collective employs a structure to its documentary storytelling that allows for adaptability, providing the ability to be seamless in its focal shifts when necessary to document the serpentine labyrinths of corruption that infested the Healthcare system in Romania. The culpability of one or two individuals is not necessarily what Collective aims to elucidate, it instead attempts something far more difficult - understanding the relationship between corruption and power. How such widescale corruption infested and interlaced itself across such a vital institution as healthcare is the chief tenet of this film's investigation, with the sheer terror of what it documents being the fact that such monstrous tragedies develop almost entirely in the darkness, due largely to lack of oversight and accountability due to the authority of the institution itself. The brazen disregard for human life which found them diluting disinfectants 10 times over as a cost-cutting exercise is just staggering from a moral or ethical perspective, yet Collective exhibits how something so unbelievable can happen largely unseen, if not for the essential nature of independent journalism. In a more reductive albeit accurate reading of Collective, the film can be seen as an ode to independent journalism and the importance of a free press when it comes to standing up to power and holding those who wield it to be accountable for their actions and the people they oversee given their institutional authority. It's a very important message in itself, a journalist's only obligation should be to the truth, and yet perhaps the film's largest proclamation remains one of more importance - human rights. Throughout the film's sprawling investigation that is consistently engaging and tactically efficient, Collective is a reminder of the absurdity of placing a monetary value on human life - the preservation of life has no cost and should never be held hostage by the prongs of austerity.