I already know the idea of watching a Romanian documentary is going to be a challenge for many, and that’s before I mention its core subject of government reforms, but this really is one of the best films of the year and worth your valuable time. Collective begins with a heavy metal band’s pyrotechnics catching fire at a club in 2015 (the title of the film), and from there the aftermath leads to journalists uncovering mismanaged hospitals, corrupt government officials, cozy relationships between big business and the mob, and preventable calamities. Collective is at turns fascinating, horrifying, dispiriting, aggravating, and always passionately compelling as a document of real-world journalism at the highest stages of moral righteousness.

I’m surprised that the filmmakers managed to get such extraordinary access during such a tumultuous time. This is not a documentary where the experts talk to the camera with the distance of time, where the leading players recount their perspectives and contributions. You’re side-by-side with them in the moment as the news is being broken and challenged. It’s am amazing example of being at the right place and the right time, and then midway through the filmmakers get even more critical access. The health minister is forced to resign and a new, younger one is appointed in his stead. Vlad Voiculescu is determined to learn why mistakes have happened and to correct them. He’s uncovering just how deep the rot goes in the layers of Romanian governmental bureaucracy, and he’s invited the Collective cameras to follow him and his staff. He really seemed determined to make lasting change, and their conversations have a deep-sigh quality of realizing how normalized corruption has become. Going back and forth between the journalists uncovering the broadening extent of the corruption, and the government health officials trying to enact meaningful reforms and regulations, it’s like a good movie just reached greatness and you have the privilege to watch different sides of the crusade.

I thought the movie was initially going to be about the fire at the Collective club but it keeps transforming and metastasizing into something bigger and more damning. Early on, there is footage from within the club that terrible night and it is horrifying. We already know the fire and ensuing panic to escape lead to 27 people dying. The initial stunned reactions build and build as the fire spreads, covering the ceiling like a glowing blanket of death. It’s one of the scariest moments of footage I’ve ever seen. People died because the fire exits didn’t exist, because there was no system of safety inspections. The fire, very metaphorically, starts small but will become something far more widespread. The survivors of the fire should have been protected by the nation’s hospitals and medical care, and yet so many more died because of the consequences of corruption. The journalist team uncovers dilution of disinfectants, meaning the hospitals are awash in powerfully resistant bacteria. The hospital managers claimed otherwise and the initial minister of health pushes back, saying these same managers tested their disinfectants and they were up to code. From there it just grows and grows, as more people in the nation’s hospital system come forward to confess abuses and coverups and kickbacks to a thriving mob presence. There are suicides that sure look like murders later in this movie and I was not expecting that from its opening.

The filmmaking is very forceful without being strident, very political without being preachy, and it’s always moving forward even when it’s constantly looking at the faults of the past. Director Alexander Nanau (Toto and His Sisters, The Prince of Nothingwood) lets the story and events do the talking, and we never break from the verité approach. A person is never directly talking to the camera, there are never any info-graphics or visual inserts. The editing is precise, and every scene gives you exactly what you need, though sometimes it might take a little while to understand the full context of the scene and the leap in time from the prior scene. The movie is 110 minutes and it feels like it’s sprinting because there is so much to cover. It doesn’t make the movie feel like it’s spread too thin, or we’re missing important deliberation and context, but it does require a viewer to stay more active to jump from moment to moment. Those 110 minutes are a clear indictment and examination on corruption and government negligence, but it lets the totality of the details and the horrors convey its message rather than overt appeals.

It’s in the concluding ten minutes that perhaps Collective reaches its most depressing and most damning point (there will be spoilers going forward with this paragraph). For the second half of the film, we’ve been following our crusading new health minister try and shake up a corrupt system and install real reforms that will improve the lives of the Romanian citizens. It’s inspiring and makes you go, “Ah, at least there are still good men in the world capable of enacting good when they are summoned to a level of power and authority.” It looks like he’s actually making real changes because there are many forces pushing against his dismantling of the status quo. Those that benefit from the graft and corruption of the old system, including criminal elements deeply entwined in the country’s infrastructure, push back through their media allies, and broadcasting personalities start questioning whether the health minister is being controlled by foreign influence. It’s familiar to those who have watched the outer reaches of conservative media over the past few decades (Romania’s own Fox News?), and it’s the same kind of slimy, nationalistic, and xenophobic rhetoric meant to alarm and distract. An election is looming in the coming weeks and our new health minister says the regulations can only be implemented if his party, the Socialist Democrats, retain power. Then they don’t. They lose by a lot. Like a historical loss. It was 2016, where nationalistic, anti-immigration forces swept into government across the world, and Collective ends on the depressing note without any silver lining of resolution. The hospital appoints a manager who is “legally unable to manage a hospital.” Just like that, all the hard work to break free from the intransigence has ended in a historical rebuke of the party literally trying to preserve life (“Forget it, Jake; it’s Chinatown”).

Collective is an inspiring, crushing, and compelling document of corruption, incompetence, and the difficulty of trying to turn around a system too content on not doing more. The journalistic access is stunning and the movie is quietly powerful as we follow diligent politicians and reporters putting in the hard work of trying to make a difference and expose rampant maleficence. By the end, the good guys have taken some significant lumps, though I’ve since read that Vlad is back in the Romanian government again as the minister of health. What does this say about the crusaders for reform? To me, it says it’s a lot easier to go backwards once any reform is met with opposition from those who stand to benefit from a broken system continuing to remain broken. It’s all too easy to fall back on the status quo even when it’s deeply problematic because it’s “what the people know,” but that doesn’t make it good. Change is a powerful force, but it’s still worth fighting for, even if powerful forces of the world manage to unfairly delay that change. Collective is a movie everyone should watch if they want to become a journalist or work in government, and it should be on a shortlist of 2020 films to see for everyone else too.

Nate’s Grade: A-