“In the Same Breath” takes viewers inside Wuhan, China during the first days and weeks of the Covid-19 outbreak. Linda Jager shares her review of the documentary in this week’s Friday Film Review.
Do you remember where you were when you first heard about the coronavirus?
Documentary filmmaker Nanfu Wang, who was born in China and now lives in the United States, was in China’s Jiangxi province in January 2020, where she and her young son were visiting her mother, unaware that the worst pandemic in a century was unfolding nearby in Wuhan.
At ground zero of the novel coronavirus, Wang recruited a group of local videographers and began to film the initial outbreak of what was later termed COVID-19, which is the subject of the new documentary In the Same Breath.
The handheld footage shot inside Wuhan captures a steady stream of residents visiting a local pharmacy complaining of flu-like symptoms. Many are sent home as the number of cases begin to rise rapidly. Nearby hospitals start to become overwhelmed, and many families struggle with the decision to keep their loved ones at home or risk dying as they wait, likely in vain, for a hospital bed.
Wang contrasts the on the ground footage with the Chinese government run media accounts of the unfolding crisis, which downplays the rapid spread of the virus and highlights the government’s swift and courageous response to the pandemic.
In the second half of the film, Wang shifts the focus from China to the arrival of the virus in the United States. There are many grave similarities in the initial days of the outbreak in both countries, including the physical and emotional exhaustion of the heroic healthcare workers, the heartbreak of families seeing their loved ones suffer and succumb to Covid-19, and the cautious and measured initial response by the U.S. government.
“In the Same Breath” premiered on opening night of the 2021 Sundance Film Festival. The film is unrated and runs 1 hour and 40 minutes, and is now streaming on HBO Max.
The inside footage from Wuhan featured in the film gives viewers a different, raw, and more personal perspective of the Covid-19 pandemic not seen in other news coverage to date.
It’s an important, yet somber film worth watching that marks one of the most historic moments in our lifetime.
This is Linda Jager with the KPCW Friday Film Review.
