The Covid-19 pandemic may well have dominated television news coverages for months, especially at its height in 2020, but that doesn’t detract from the immersive power of director Matthew Heineman’s new film The First Wave, which recounts in grim but pragmatic detail the experiences of those on the front line of New York’s response to the health crisis.
Of course the prospect of delving into the world of Covid-19 might well sound something of a downer for documentary audiences, but there is a real sense of emotion and intensity that makes the film highly watchable. While viewers might well not have a direct link to New York healthcare professionals, the film offers an insight into what has been equally happening around the world.
Director Matthew Heineman (who made Cartel Land and City Of Ghosts) takes a classic fly-on-the-wall approach, and while there are moments that are deeply upsetting, The First Wave is an important record of a dark time when the first cases started to be registered and there was a gradual realisation that the city – and the world – was heading into unknown and deadly territory.
Heineman made his base at the Long Island Jewish Medical Center in Queens, placing his emphasis on those sad victims of the first wave of Covid infection. As the film opens, a seriously ill man manages to speak by mobile to his family, reassuring them that he loves them. In just a few short minutes he is dead despite all best efforts to save him. But for the hardworking staff there is no time to mourn, and they have to head back to work.
An immersive and illuminating film, it is at its very best when detailing the harrowing human stories of the staff as they try to keep as professional as possible while battling fear and sheer exhaustion in the face of the new and deadly virus. Internist Dr Nathalie Douge and physical therapist Karl Arabian offer a chilling insight into their work at the hospital, while on the other side the sad stories of school safety officer Ahmed Ellis and Brussels Jabon, a nurse who has been hospitalised, set the tone of the film.
As the weeks draw on – and the vistas of New York change from hectic metropolis through to ghost town – it becomes increasingly clear that not only does Covid kill but that those who do manage to get through the initial onslaught face a very rocky road before potential recovery. The staff continue to work hard to keep people alive, but there is an increasing sense that the the mutating virus is always one step ahead of them and that they are running to stand still.
The documentary medical drama is punctuated with footage from the daily briefings from New York Mayor Andrew Cuomo and coverage of the death of George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter movement. For Doctor Douge, who is so aware of the impact of Covid on the African-American and Hispanic population, this chimes with her comment that “racism is a public health issue.”
The immersive nature of the film means that the story can be harrowing at times – and praise should be given to Heineman and his crew for what must have been a complicated and traumatic filming procedure – and it wears its depth of emotion and sense of pain very clearly. While it is true the world is still in the middle of a global pandemic and the full story of Covid is yet to be told, this film is an important reminder both of the harrowing early days of Covid and that human stories have equal, if not more, claim for attention as numbers and statistics.
US, 2021, 93mins
Dir Matthew Heineman
Production Our Time Projects, Participant, National Geographic Documentary Films
International sales: Dogwoof
Producers Matthew Heineman, Jenna Millman, Leslie Norville
Cinematography Ross McDonnell, Thorsten Thielow, Brian Dawson, Matthew Heineman, Alex Pritz
Editors Francisco Bello, Matthew Heineman, Gabriel Rhodes, David Zieff
Music H. Scott Salinas, Jon Batiste
