Midnight Family

A mesmerizing and important documentary on a family's struggle and the broken health care system that ensnares their lives. Complicated and narratively complex, this film has stayed with me. Beautifully photographed and edited, as well.

Realistically showing the real life struggles of private ambulances in Mexico City. With tons of Insert/Extreme-Closeup/Point-of-view shots, it keeps going upwards and downwards. Sometimes feel like a well written/acted family-drama, other times just a documentary, that's trying too hard.

Midnight Family is a captivating documentary. As an audience, the textual of the documentary seems to me like a interesting and successful mix of documentary and feature film. What I mean is that the content of the documentary is real thing that happened to the family and the filmmaker, while the shooting, neon-light style of lighting, storytelling and so on are quite delicate. The night scenes occupy the majority of the documentary body may be a reason as well. The director believes that there should not be a set boundary between the style of documentary and fictional film.

The documentary was shot in one-person crew. In other words, Luke Lorentzen himself. He had two shooting cameras with him. One of which was set on the car front window and the other was in the back of the car. While the director collaborated with his Mexican friend in the editing as to distance himself from the footage, as he admitted in a dialogue in Hong Kong. Because he himself witnessed those scenes, and the footage may work for him in the way that does not work for common audiences.

The director spent around a hundred days within the 2-3 years documenting the midnight family and made some follow-up shooting which at the end hold up the spiritual essence of the documentary. The director intends and manages to show audiences the undertow of the business of Mexican ambulance and the ordinary people within.

The director graduated from Stanford University.

Imagine a member of your family. They were injured and they required immediate assistance. So you call for an ambulance. The ambulance showed up. Took care of your family. Drove you both to the hospital. Then they ask you for compensation. Would you be angry with them? Would you take it for granted that if you or your loved ones should fall ill or have an accident that they would get the help they need? The help they are entitled to. Why then would you pay good money for such a service?

This movie tackles this issue head on as we follow the Ochoa family, consisting of a lovable father and his, mature-for-their-age teenage sons, as they burn rubber to be the first paramedics on the scene. It emphatically delves into what it means to be part of a necessary and, what some might call, predatory occupation. Because even after charging large sums for their services, the family barely scrapes by after (required) bribes, legislation, arrests and competition make a dent on their bottom line.

Documentarian Luke Lorentzen is so close up to the action, and shoots so well the astonishing and heartbreaking scenes he encounters that this might be mistaken for a feature film. Few filmmakers would dare or even be able to come as close as Lorentzen does here, which allows him to reveal the ugliness of a system that in the end affects patients the most.

For a documentary it is a rare treat to experience something that is as entertaining as it is eye-opening, making Midnight Family something of a rarity.

If you find yourself in Mexico City take out the best health insurance possible but first and foremost, don't get ill or sick or have an accident or hope to rely on the private ambulance service run by mercenaries that's occasionally supported by the corrupt police but quite often not - or you might not get home or be the person you were when you left.

Great example why free market economics and health care doesn't gel as nicely in reality as it does in the text books.