Bruell’s film focuses on patient stories, but it is not simply a collection of stories.  The framing of the documentary is the interaction among the team members, who step back at multiple points in the film and reflect on what they are doing and how they are doing it.  The care, the involvement, the dedication of the team (and the focus here is on the two physicians) comes through clearly.  In turn, the appreciation of the patients and families seems pretty clear as well.  When a patient dies, everyone suffers.  And when one of the patients has the personal victory of learning to walk again, there are tears of joy.

The film is a moving and thought-provoking look at the beating heart of medicine, and it doesn’t hurt that it has a lyricism about it, with its engaging soundtrack and its from-the-inside views of rural and village life.  It reminds the viewer that the most important part of Palliative Care is the “care,” and to care you don’t need every modern convenience (though uninterrupted access to morphine is pretty important).  There are several excellent films made about palliative care, but in focusing on a rural and technology-poor area, Oli Otya adds another, different, spin:  it attempts to answer the question of how much we can accomplish for the dying when we don’t have all the advantages of a modern medical system at hand.  And the answer appears to be, quite a lot.