After watching THE ENGLISH SURGEON, you are left with a sense that there is, in some small way, hope. Geoffrey Smith’s multi-award-winning documentary centres on the work of Henry Marsh. He is a leading British brain surgeon in Britain and a pioneer of neurosurgical technique. His expertise took him to the impoverished post-Soviet state of Ukraine. Back when it wasn’t at the heart of a war of attrition with its neighbours, people with significant biological neurological issues were left to the devices of a corrupt system. Now the NHS has its issues but this reveals what, if we go the way of the US or other countries, thanks in part to the Carrion vultures of capitalism (Nigel Farage and Lawrence Fox are funded by many and they can sue me to prove me wrong…)

Marsh appears as a glimmer of hope. Working alongside his Ukrainian colleague Igor, they provide a service lacking in a clinic in Kyiv. The thrust of the piece focuses on a young man with a tumour which is going to slowly kill him. The two surgeons plan to remove it and save his life. However bits and pieces have to be brought, borrowed and replicated to do this. Marsh and Igor are a testament to the medical dictum to ‘Do no harm’ and ‘Help the patient’. Though there are both inevitable moral and medical dilemmas, Smith has grounded the whole film in a feeling that the hope offered far out weighs doing literally nothing. Much is made of the music by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis, which is glorious. But I will maintain, in a disc this sparse with so few additions, you need something strong to stand up. You get that with the feature of Marsh being interviewed delivers his humanity. He is warm, personable and offers the mix of clinical measure with a humanity that resonates in the film and beyond. I personally wish that there were more doctors like him and maybe, more humans also.

(AN ERROR WAS MADE BY ME IN A PREVIOUS VERSION OF THIS REVIEW – There are subtitles. The English subtitles are fixed in the master (ie. you can’t turn them on/off) but the Ukrainian sequences are subtitled. )

Product Features

• The English Surgeon (2007) presented from a new HD transfer of the film, approved by filmmaker Geoffrey Smith.
• Exclusive, newly filmed interview with director Geoffrey Smith.
• Exclusive, newly filmed interview with surgeon Henry Marsh.
• Trailer.
• Booklet with a new essay by film writer Trevor Johnston.
• World premiere release on Blu-ray.
• Region free Blu-ray (A/B/C)