Dignity Deserved: 'Nurse Unseen'
Without Filipino nurses, where would American healthcare be?
Dear Moviegoers,
In the struggle to cut through misinformation and ignorance regarding COVID-19 and its pandemic, journalists and filmmakers alike have been doing their best to cover all possible angles of the ongoing story: some exploitative, some genuine. Take Alex Gibney’s Totally Under Control, which rocked the Trump Administration’s world with its exposure of corruption and poor response to the global emergency. Far and away, that was the best (and most important) film about COVID that one could expect.
Was.
Rightfully titled due to the limited news about the topic, Nurse Unseen reaches both hearts and minds, whereas other pieces of COVID cinema go for just the tear ducts. It’s easy to pull on strings for a decent rating on Rotten Tomatoes, but it’s still difficult to tell an engaging and enlightening story about real people. Director Michele Josue’s accomplishment with this film is in her dedication to a marginalized community of Americans, to a noble profession, and to the kind of sensitivity required of a filmmaker who handles a subject most devastated and more heroic.
Female Filipino American nurses were disproportionally harmed by the pandemic, as often stated in this movie. They were also prominently at the frontlines of patient care, being directly in contact with the infected, and sometimes without proper CDC-regulated protective equipment—things as simple as strong N95 masks included. But Nurse Unseen is no undercover investigation into healthcare mismanagement or the very true aspect of Government negligence. Rather, it’s a whole portrait of America and what comes with being a caring citizen.
Yes, I mean that.
Through immigration history that details things like colonization, escape from dictatorship, and opportunities elsewhere, to modern-day Filipino American families who host scores of female nurses and feel a duty to their neighbors and their country, the documentary has the heavy mission of getting personal and grasping large. Nurses are more than blood pressure takers, and people are never the stereotypes that may surround them. Facing racism, acts of violence, indifference from others, job-related anxiety, and emotional trauma, Filipino American nurses - from individual memories to collective experiences - push through pressure and break down walls all to care for their own loved ones and those of others. It’s a wide-reaching movie, spanning the past and present, not to mention the intimate and the universal. Everything a drama should be. Everything a movie can be.
A burden for some films, risking focus and pretentiousness in the struggle for greatness. Nurse Unseen, however, is a filmmaking victory that should be treasured. It cuts from elements that are macro and micro, from mighty and weak, all to the effect of splicing together a film that’s not just picture-perfect textbook quality, but above and beyond the call.
How? There are plenty of documentaries about under-appreciated groups of people, but many of them either feel too long, meander too much, or forget to establish and fulfill a thesis. Depressing to watch, they can be. Nurse Unseen can get sad and tragic but it sets everything up in the first ten minutes for a conclusion that’s triumphant for both the people and profession at its center and the filmmakers behind its camera. Marvel at the cinematic technique, at the beating heart, and the cherished smile that’s well-earned when things are said and done.
Nurse Unseen is the best American documentary about COVID-19 since Totally Under Control. Recognize. 5/5
Nurse Unseen is currently playing in limited release and the New Orleans area at Zeitgeist Theatre & Lounge.