'In The Same Breath' Review
NR
Runtime: 1 Hr and 35 Minutes
Production Companies: Cinetic Media, HBO Documentary Films, Little Horse Crossing the River, Little Lantern Company, Motto Pictures
Distributor: HBO
Director: Nanfu Wang
Release Date: TBD
HBO
Acclaimed filmmaker Nanfu Wang navigates the origin and spread of COVID-19 from Wuhan to the United States through a lens both personal and geopolitical in scale. The result is a wrenching, wide-reaching documentary that contextualizes the trauma experienced by health-care workers and the families of loved ones lost. At the same time, the documentary probes President Xi Jinping’s and President Donald Trump’s eerily similar responses to the pandemic: Both men spread disinformation and sowed mass confusion during the most critical moments of the pandemic.
Documentaries and narratives: I’ve had it up to here with COVID movies! From the moment this pandemic started, we had to endure one too many movies about COVID-19, ranging from documentaries like 76 Days and Totally Under Control to surprisingly good narratives that made something creative out of quarantine, such as Borat Subsequent Moviefilm and Host. Then, of course, there’s the unbearably lazy heaping pile of trash that is Songbird. Yeah, I actually watched Songbird. It was the straw that broke this camel’s back. I haven’t even watched Locked Down yet and have absolutely no desire to do so because these pandemic movies are exhausting. I’m exhausted and I don’t want anybody to make any more coronavirus movies!
Wait… Nanfu Wang, the filmmaker who exposed China’s communist party and its fucked up One Child Policy with her award-winning 2019 documentary One Child Nation made a documentary about how China covered up the coronavirus outbreak before the rest of the globe was affected? If that’s the case, consider me sold.
Wang’s previous feature, One Child Nation, is an eye-opening, shocking, and emotionally grueling portrait of China’s One Child policy. Those attributes are present in In The Same Breath as Wang once again exposes her home country, vividly showing how China’s communist party attempted to cover up the coronavirus. However, this film rightfully points fingers at the United States for its egregious handling of the virus under the influence of the Trump administration. Due to Wang being a dual citizen of both China and the U.S. (where she currently resides), she sheds light on how the insolence of both powerful governments — one that censors speech, individuality, expression, and controls the media narrative and the other which is founded upon freedom of speech — failed to rise to the occasion, which ended up costing countless of lives. Needless to say, it is as infuriating as it is important.
The film chronicles as far back as January 1, 2020, in Wuhan, China where a crowd of thousands gathered to celebrate the new year. On that very same day, Chinese news stations reported that eight people were imprisoned for spreading rumors about an unknown illness spreading throughout the country. That vital piece of news faded into the background, leaving Chinese citizens completely unphased until… well, shit hit the fan and Wuhan had to go into lockdown. Wang details how her yearly trip to China to see her family during the Chinese New Year quickly turned into an intense escape situation where she had to get her toddler out of the country. She returned to the United States expecting that the country was aware of the outbreak in China, but she saw that everything was operating as usual. When she tried to reach major American news outlets like The Washington Post and The New York Times regarding the early days of the virus in China, she received cricket noises in response. She even tried to get our attention by pitching stories to major news outlets around the same time One Child Nation was getting nominated for awards. Maybe the next time an acclaimed filmmaker like Nanfu Wang sends you an email about an urgent issue that might affect the globe and needs to be shown to the masses, YOU SHOULD ANSWER THE FUCKING EMAIL (cc: major American news outlets). This all factored into her motivation to explore the subject of China and the U.S. during the early days of the coronavirus.
Due to travel restrictions, Wang enlisted the assistance of citizen journalists in China while working remotely. She hired many photographers and journalists to film patients in Wuhan hospitals to show what was truly happening in the earliest days of COVID-19 in the source country. Through personal accounts from relatives of patients, you get a glimpse at just how harrowing this cover-up was and what it transformed into. The footage is emotionally devastating and jaw-dropping.
One particularly shocking scene involved doctors scolding emergency medical technicians, refusing to admit a patient to their hospitals because they were at capacity. That patient’s relative had to make a tough decision as their loved one remained on the brink of death while everyone stared at them. Mind you, this happened at the last hospital they traveled to because all the others in Wuhan were also at capacity.
The film may seem like just another doc that chronicles the outbreak the world had to pay for, but it’s a raw and honest display that shows how criminal China’s communist party is, plus the sacrifices that real citizens had to make to get the truth out there in a country that limits your voice. It’s somewhat like an unintentional spiritual successor to One Child Nation, for it displays that the authoritarian government is still controlling the media as they deliver blatant lies to their citizens. From the propaganda and programming that gives their depressing reality an optimistic tone to blind patriotism by the citizens accepting what the government feeds them — including the inaccurate death count — insolent governments and leaders in power are still in control under socialism.
When Wang flips the focus from China to America where the influence of a fascist in power downplayed science to a society that is allowed freedom of expression, the film shows how both forms of governments are equally dangerous. It’s surreal that in the midst of witnessing Trump’s blatant racism while dubbing COVID-19 as the “China virus” and the influence it had on conservatives who claimed it was a hoax, the film shows ample Chinese news stations with reporters documenting America’s fuck ups and calling their communist party the “superior form of government”. It’s a weird “Spider-Mans pointing at each other” meme situation between the two countries and as an audience member, you stand at the center with Wang wanting to scream at their leaders since they’re all pieces of shit who downplayed this situation. It could have easily been prevented, but now both countries are facing the repercussions of it. Thankfully, the U.S. is now under a new administration that can bring us out of this pandemic, but remembering the vocalized ignorance of white right-wingers who were whining about being “oppressed” while seeing interviews of nurses detailing their stressful experiences is still so jarring.
Watching another COVID-centric documentary is admittingly very draining, especially while we are still living through it to this very day. That being said, Nanfu Wang once again delivers a raw, honest, and surprisingly personal take on the subject with jaw-dropping insight, fearlessness, thought-provoking poignancy, and shocking details that rightfully points fingers at the two countries that put the world in the position it’s at today. If you can stomach having to relive everything we’ve been through thus far, I highly recommend watching In The Same Breath when it hits HBO. Man, Nanfu Wang has to be Ed Snowden of China because she just keeps exposing her country through films. What a badass.
