2023-08-14 22:56:39
Jorge Leandro Colas premieres his new documentary, Nietzsche’s doctorson Thursday 17. It is a co-production between Salamanca Who from Argentina and True true from Brazil that delves into the little frequented relationship between medicine and philosophy through Dr. Esteban Rubinstein, who proposes a new look at traditional medicine, open to multiple possibilities and questions that go beyond good, evil, normal and the natural.
The documentary will be exhibited from Thursday 17 to Wednesday 23 at 1:00 p.m., 2:45 p.m. and at 8:45 pm at the Gaumont Cinema and at 6:30 pm. at the INCAA Municipal Select Cinema Space, La Plata.
-You arrived at Nietzsche’s doctors as a filmmaker or as a patient?
It was through the cinema. A filmmaker friend told me: “You who make documentaries should meet Esteban, who is doing something with medicine and philosophy”, without giving me any further information. Esteban is Rubinstein and from this suggestion I met him. At first I didn’t quite understand where the possible relationship of Nietzsche’s ideas in a general practitioner’s office was going. I was wondering what a German philosopher from the last century had to do with a patient with a specific health problem in Buenos Aires today.
In that time of confusion I went back to the old Nietzsche books from my teenage years. From the doubts I detected something that caught my attention, that attracted me. But even so, it was not entirely clear to me.
Shortly following, we entered an INCAA project development contest and we won it. That forced us to start shooting some images for a future teaser. There the idea of uncertainty in medicine, which was strongly associated with Nietzsche, became more concrete. That was shaping the story of the film a bit.
-In what circumstance did you realize that there was a story there? How did you want to tell it?
There was a clear turning point: at first, when we started talking to Esteban in those first meetings, he was more interested in discussing parenting. He then talked to some mothers and fathers regarding raising children. The moral was very present: this is good or this is bad for the child. It was a very schematic and conservative look. At the same time, he felt that it was not as feasible on a cinematographic level, because it was going to be two adults talking regarding other children that we might see, but not extract the deep thought. So I proposed that he meet directly with the patients to talk regarding their different points of view on life, the body, the disease, their different health processes.
-How did you achieve that link without altering the principles of medicine?
At first he hesitated. But when we started recording those meetings we saw something that worked, that transmitted. The bond between this doctor and his patients is very strong because he has been treating them for a long time. We knew that this space of trust, so important for a documentary, had been paved. Then there was a lot of follow-up work, a lot of registration process.
-We had to get the patients to give their consent and also expose their weaknesses, their strengths, their doubts. Was the film in danger?
Clearly, at first the proposal was strange: medical consultations had to be recorded. Even legally, a strategy had to be found to avoid violating professional secrecy. A consent of both parties was achieved to decide what to show and what not. Although this generally did not occur, patients might say if they did not want something recorded.
Was there any limit situation?
One of the protagonists contracted a serious illness in the middle of the process of the film. Between the three of us we had to decide how to continue. Clearly, life and relationships are more important than movies. It was a moment of uncertainty. We all talked regarding it and the patient agreed to continue recording. She told us: “Let something good come out of all this bad that is happening to me”.
-Did the film help you understand what relationship there is between a philosopher in the context of current Buenos Aires?
Something that appears very strong is the extramoral, which is a bit the basis of thought. At the beginning the film was going to be called extramoral medicine or something like that. And another thing that also had a great impact on me was the space of uncertainty. I understood that medicine is not a truth, but that it has some evidence and can be almost a belief. Nietzsche talks regarding science being a bit of a belief. The Covid and the pandemic came to give us a blow of uncertainty. Medicine is always considered as something schematic, with protocols and a treatment for everything. When the pandemic arrived, no one knew anything: if the virus was transmitted through the shoes or they had to be changed when entering, or if it was by touch, in the air, or if spaces had to be left. The pandemic brought uncertainty to the forefront, globally, in the media and in each one of us. What a doctor can say “I do not know”. In general, when you go to the doctor you expect them to tell you what you have and what you should take. And this is not a real scenario.
Something that will always remain with me every time I have to go to a doctor is that uncertainty. It was the most concrete thing that the film process left me.
-How did the pandemic affect filming? What happened to these testimonials, these patients, to yourself?
The filming was not finished, although it was well advanced. And we felt that it had to be incorporated into the story. This question of uncertainty shook the world of medicine. Consultations went from face-to-face to virtual. We set out to virtually record these interviews. It was like giving another color and another visual and sound form to the film, which also crossed all of us at that time, because it was a bit of a staging of that uncertainty and ignorance.
-Because Nietzsche’s doctorsin the plural, when the protagonist is Esteban Rubinstein? Are there disciples?
That was a hotly debated topic. We really liked the idea in the plural, of Nietzschean or extramoral doctors, although there is a brilliant protagonist who is in practically every scene in the film. They are not his disciples: he does not like the word at all and neither does Nietzsche (Laughter). But he has a lot of reach, more than anything with the younger doctors at the hospital or with residents who are more permeable and more open to these ideas, who move a bit from the classic and more conservative place of medicine.
-What did you find in the treatments when you ran away from that classic and conservative place?
This is a medical treatment with its tools and protocols and with the medical literature that exists for each case. It is not alternative medicine. But it incorporates other elements. Rubinstein says that just as a movie influences you to take some ideas and bring them to the office, so too the work of a philosopher like Nietzsche can be just as useful.
-The film also investigates what happens to other doctors.
We seek to incorporate other voices, not necessarily in accordance with Rubinstein’s proposals. Thus, he did not show it as a solitary element within the Italian Hospital. And he helped us to listen to what happens to the doctors in front of the consultations. All of us were patients at some point in our lives, but few of us are doctors. It was very enriching to hear what happens to them.
Julia Montesoro
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