Series based on real events, whether in documentary form or opting for dramatization, generally result in what one might call an informative defect. That is, the accumulation of data takes precedence, after metabolizing huge amounts of information to make it accessible to viewers, and the notion of story is lost sight of. In other words, what is said matters more than how it is told.
To avoid this happening, it is almost always beneficial to ask ourselves what is the theme underlying the story we intend to develop, what we want to explain with it or what questions that, to a greater or lesser extent, affect us, we I want to reflect. All this can be suggested by the story itself, or those responsible can use the argument to raise questions that interest them.
If we think, for example, of The Asunta case (Ramón Campos, Jon de la Cuesta, Gema R. Neira, David Orea Arribas, 2024) the whole discourse on paternity/maternity that could be deduced from the relationship of the unhappy girl with her parents is expanded by delving into the different types of parent-child relationships that the rest of the characters embody.
This short preamble serves as an introduction to Breathtakingthe three-episode mini-series broadcast by Filmin on the 27th in which the consequences of a pandemic that now seems as distant as the First World War.
The story is based on Rachel Clarke’s novel of the same name in which she recounts her experiences during the first wave of COVID-19. Clarke is also listed as one of the three credited screenwriters. The other two are regular actor Prasanna Puwanarajah and none other than Jed Mercurio. Yes, the creator of Service exercise.
Before we begin to analyze how Mercury’s personality influences the development of the story, let’s go back to what we focused on at the beginning of this text. Breathtaking It could have been limited to telling what happened in that hospital during the different phases that the evolution of the coronavirus went through, however, from the first images, the position taken by the creators and their reflexive interest are very different. An activism that, moreover, can irritate part of the public, but this is not the case. family doctor and the writers didn’t come to make friends.
It all begins with a parallel montage in which archive images are combined in which we see and hear the interventions of different political leaders regarding the beginning of the pandemic, combined with the fictionalization of the bloody daily life that people had to face. March 2020 until 2021.
This structure will be maintained throughout the three episodes, each focusing more or less on each of the different viral waves that shook British society just four years ago. This establishes a clear and impactful narrative. on the dissociation between reality and political actionthis last daughter of calculation, intoxicated by economic indicators, totally and absolutely unconscious of the truth that was drowning the health centers.
This position not only represents a direct criticism of the management of Boris Johnson’s government and the National Health Service (NHS), but also opens a deep debate on various very relevant issues. Let’s keep a few of them:
1-NHS control of information, which did not allow any doctor to make statements, led to an obscurantist practice which, on the one hand, rewarded disinformation and generated uncertainty among the population and, on the other hand, filled social networks fake news spread across the social networks (the pandemic does not exist, hospitals are empty, vaccines and doctors are killing us) which covered the information vacuum created by the authorities themselves.
2-The application of Health protocols designed from the offices in which power is stored, totally alien to hospital reality. Inviolable protocols that forced doctors to decide who lived and who died, since the collapse of the centers and the preference given to people affected by the coronavirus meant that, for example, a cancer patient could not be operated on because there was no room in the ICU. for him. His bed was occupied, by decree, by a Covid patient who was not necessarily seriously ill.
Beyond the rhythm that Jed Mercurio gives to all his works, here increased by the permanent urgency in which all the protagonists live immersed, Breathtaking It accumulates countless precious details to become, in itself, the definitive audiovisual work on the pandemic.
When asked about the possibility of telling stories about the devastation caused by COVID, many directors responded that the widespread use of masks would be a major setback, as it limited the expressiveness of the actors, who had half their faces hidden behind the green or white fabric, depending on the model.
To counteract the FFP3 effect, Breathtaking uses the foreground masterfully. The series begins by emphasizing the importance of masks, Dr. Abbey Henderson (Joanne Froggatt) tries on one that doesn’t fit her, and will highlight their ancestry when, in truth, they become essential. Moreover, the choice of a central character around which the story is articulated and who functions as a metonymy of the overall situation avoids dispersion and gives more force to both the story and the discourse.
Beyond successfully exploiting the resources of any contemporary health drama – handheld camera, proximity to the characters, placing the viewer at the centre of the drama, meticulous sound design – this production for ITV skillfully handles the concept.
Knows how to insert first (and very first) close-ups when it is necessary to convey emotions through the eyes of doctorspatients or family members, but he also knows how to distance himself when he has to show the imposition of those “safe spaces” established by law to avoid contagion. For example, the use of panoramic shots instead of reverse shots/fields that establish that path between faces delimited by what is called the “minimum safety distance” or the use of the general shot in the conversation between Abbey and her resident Emma (Donna Banya) when they meet outside the hospital.
Let us highlight two examples concerning the work with inserts. The first concerns the aforementioned masks. In addition to emphasizing, from the beginning, their importance as a preventive instrument, they are also endowed with a metaphorical potential.
If we draw a parallel between the beginning, with Abbey “covering” her mouth, and the end, with these extreme close-ups on the doctor’s lips as she discovers the whole truth on the radio, we will read the masks as synonymous with a gag, as a metaphor for this (false) dichotomy which is established between security (the protective mask) and freedom (the mouth mask), a rhyme constructed from inserts.
The other example is in the second episode, when Dr. Ozkul (Philip Arditti) takes his violin to the hospital to play in front of a very seriously ill patient who can barely take care of himself. Patients who, let us remember, could not receive visitors, condemned to face death alone, without any palliative to alleviate their helplessness.
With the doctor’s face covered by the usual mask and with the patient rendered mute by a virus that has devoured his lungs, the communication of affection can only be completed through touch, since the man can barely open his eyes. A combination of close-ups of their two hands and the gestures that accompany them will serve to open the tap of emotions.
And this is another point in favor of Breathtakingits ability to bring out feelings without needing to reload the soundtrack, always avoiding showing the suffering of the victims, the mourners modestly hidden at the other end of the line or preserving their dignity in the waiting room off-camera.
The series is extremely respectful of both the victims and their families, but it is above all a recognition of the work of health workers who, paradoxically, put their health aside so that the world could move forward. It would be good to remember this from time to time.
