Film-maker Claire Simon operates the camera herself for this extraordinary film, assuming the traditional vérité position of an observant fly on the wall and silently recording consultations and procedures in a women’s health, obstetrics and gynaecology ward at a Parisian hospital. Except at a crucial point, two-thirds into the film’s 168-minute running time, the fly turns the camera on herself when she finds out she too has cancer, just like several of the people she’s been filming. Simon’s willingness to open up and reveal her condition is remarkable, but by this point in the film viewers will have been made profoundly aware of how open and brave every patient we have met has been for letting her – and us – into these intensely intimate moments.
Following a natural order of sorts, the first women we meet are pregnant and, in two cases, are seeking a termination. There’s no judgment from any of the doctors, or if there were it would be hard to tell, since this was filmed during Covid and everyone is wearing masks. That said, one doctor politely asks each of his patients to de-mask for a moment, so everyone can see each other more fully.
