The documentary format where a TV crew follow a public servant, chronicling their professions ins and outs has become supremely trite over the last decade, the BBC are the prime offenders with this. Like the game show, with each new one popping up it becomes as clear as day that these fit well within the TV stations cost-cutting methodology. Just when you think you’ve seen every possible deviation and variant, Sofia’s Last Ambulance arrives. In Second Run DVD’s latest, Ilian Metev documents the human side of Sofia (the capital city of Bulgaria), in which 1 million people are miraculously serviced by 13 skeleton ambulance crews. Sounds made up, but it’s a classic case of truth being stranger than fiction.
Unlike the many documentaries swamping evening TV schedule, Sofia’s Last Ambulance is not about the nature of the ambulance bound professions, on the contrary, it’s about the people maintaining that dazzling statistic. In that, Metev’s camera embraces the purest expression of the fly on the wall documentary whereby his gaze sticks to the driver, doctor and nurse without distraction. In that, we learn the three people’s hopes, fears and struggles working against such overwhelming odds. In that, Sofia’s Last Ambulance manages to humanise with quiet poetry – Ilian Metev investigates the very core of what makes Sofia the city it is.
in these short 80 minutes, it taps into the idea of the hero with more honesty and humanity than all the MCU movies combined
SOFIA’S LAST AMBULANCE
There is a significant downside to this extraordinary documentary that is both a by-product of form and conviction. The fly on the wall presentation sees Metev mount three cameras on the dashboard of the ambulance, the majority of the footage is harvested from there. Occasionally there are other camera positions or handheld photography when they are transporting someone to the hospital, or the crew barely evade an accident of their very own. Regrettably, those occasions are exceptions to the rule. As such watching these three people without distraction, whether they are working or solemn in their silence with no alternative footage makes monotony sink in far quicker than these wonderful men and women deserve. Consequently, the meagre 80minute run time never develops beyond sluggish.
As true as that may be, it doesn’t change the core truth that Sofia’s Last Ambulance is difficult to peel your eyes away from this beguiling documentary. The one thing that the documentary series that follows profession a through city or country B is the humanity of those involved. With Metev framing the action with an unconditional intimacy, he gets into the hearts and souls of what it means for someone to dedicate their lives to healthcare. To dig deep into the very being of a person who sacrifices their own wellbeing for the greater good of the people. To word it another way, Sofia’s Last Ambulance taps into the psyche of heroes. Now whether that is slow, visually mundane or any other easy criticism you could level at this second Run documentary, it is all irrelevant as in these short 80 minutes, it taps into the idea of the hero with more honesty and humanity than all the MCU movies combined.
Elsewhere on Second Run’s DVD, there is a fantastic collection of extra’s, including Ilian Metev’s award-winning 2008 short film Goleshovo; a newly filmed video piece featuring the director in conversation with the films’ sound recordist Tom Kirk (shot by the director especially for this release), and a booklet featuring a new essay on the film by the editor of Sofia’s Last Ambulance, Betina Ip. All thing considered, Metev offers the perfect antidote to evening TV fatigue.
SOFIA’S LAST AMBULANCE IS NOW OUT ON SECOND RUN DVD
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