Donauspital - SMZ Ost

This portrait of one of Europe's largest hospitals records the day-to-day routines and the working environment within a powerful and complex organization. It also holds up a mirror to our society and the way we deal with health and sickness, with life and death. Rooted in the direct cinema tradition, Nikolaus Geyrhalter’s film observes the everyday goings-on without commentary, music or interviews, shifting his focus from conference rooms, operating theaters, wards and disinfection rooms to the morgue, the dissecting room and the kitchen. And there’s no lack of tragicomic scenes, either. In a soundtrack made up mostly of electronic hums, buzzes and bleeps, one sound in particular will stay with the viewer: the tinny female voice continually announcing an oncoming unmanned transport car: “Warning: automatic transporters!” Screens, monitors, cables and high-tech apparatuses surround the masked and uniformed clinicians and their patients, most of whom are reduced on-screen to an eye or an open mouth, prompting the question of what has happened to the human factor in this marvel of modern inventiveness and efficiency. For its structure, the film uses the ingenious metaphor of the apothecary cabinet, with all its parts forming a unified whole.