Das Krankenhaus

The best of eight shorts I watched in quick succession is this ‘day in the life of a hospital’ film; it uses the hours of the day as a guide-line for the development of particular situations. The subject is actually pretty grim as various people come in for serious bodily treatment, sometimes parting with a limb in the process: the most excruciating sequence involves a graphic knee-cap operation (which, however, unexpectedly descends into black comedy as instruments get lodged into the bone-structure or else come apart!); interestingly, there’s even an investigation into the case of a patient who has thrown herself out of the fourth floor of the building! At 20 minutes, it’s the longest of the lot – but this actually benefits one’s appreciation of the nonstop goings-on at such an obviously sensitive place.